Totnes Fore Street Again

bluesboyal

Hi All
I am another victim/mug of the Fore Street, Totnes, branch of the PPS organisation. Before I appeal to IAS I would welcome any help you can give me, The facts are as follows:
1. On 4th May 2017 I drove into the Fore Street, Totnes, car park at 10.49.04 a.m. and at 10.50 purchased a parking ticket for 2 hours duration.
2. Despite entering my car's 7-character registration number, the ticket printed on payment of the required fee of £1.60 showed the first two characters only.
3. I displayed this ticket on my dashboard and assumed that as I had paid the correct fee, I had fulfilled my obligation. There was sufficient information available to convince any scrutiny that the ticket purchased was for my car.
4. I returned to the car park and drove away at 12.18.24 p.m.
5. The car park ticket expired at 12.50 p.m.
6. On 9th May 2017 I was sent details of a parking charge for £100, reduced to £60 for prompt payment, by PPS.
7. On 14th May I sent an appeal to PPS, pointing out that there had been a malfunction of their ticket machine but anyway I had departed from the car park well within the 2-hour period.
8. I enclosed a copy of my parking ticket which clearly showed the first two characters of my registration number.
9. On 23rd May 2017 I received a letter from PPS rejecting my appeal on the following grounds.
" The vehicle was found to have parked on site without payment having been made to validate its stay. I find that this charge had therefore been issued correctly.
The evidence you have supplied shows that the vehicle registration was not entered correctly into the pay and display machine on site and therefore it was not recognised on our system when you were parked on site.
We have attached a Terms & Conditions of parking at this site. Paragraph 11 states that, if required to enter your registration number to authorise parking, full and exact details must be entered correctly. The pay and display site is operated by cameras and therefore if the vehicle has not been authorised to park on site then a charge will be issued.
We have search (sic) our systems and found that many other drivers entered their registrations in correctly on 4th May 2017 and can find no reports of a fault with the machine.
Production of tickets after the event does not discharge the liability to park in accordance with the advertised Terms & Conditions at the time of parking. Payment for parking is just one of the Terms & Conditions of parking. For a vehicle to be authorised to park at this site all the Terms & Conditions must be adhered to.
We cannot programme our pay and display machines to only accept the two letters, two numbers, three letters combination as this would exclude personalised and foreign plates from parking at this site. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have adhered to theTerms & Conditions. The pay and display machine has clear instructions on how to pay at this site."

Unfortunately in my appeal letter to PP" I provided all the information they required and have subsequently learned that I shouldn't have done this. I would add that I am a frequent user of this car park and am fully aware of the need to enter my car's registration number when purchasing a ticket. I have managed to find two tickets from previous visits showing that on those occasions I entered the characters correctly and that also the ticket machine functioned properly.

I am fully aware of all of the Terms & Conditions as displayed on the notice board adjacent to the ticket machine and feel that I have complied with all of them. To overcome problems similar to mine there should, surely, be a 14th condition which says something along the lines "do not park in this car park if you are provided with a ticket that bears a registration number that does not match exactly the registration number of your car".

I propose to appeal to the IAS on the grounds that:
1. I had paid the full amount of the parking fee due.
2. I left the car park well within the time allowed.
3. Following their review of their systems, PPS should have identified an unallocated fee of £1.60 purchased at 10.49.04 which clearly should have been matched with my car.
4. In accordance with Paragraph 11 full and exact details of vehicle registration were entered correctly. I have no idea why the machine did not function properly.
5. PPS say they have searched their systems and found that "MANY OTHER DRIVERS ENTERED THEIR REGISTRATIONS IN CORRECTLY" but they do not say "ALL OTHER DRIVERS ....."

Do you feel that there are sufficient grounds for an appeal and do you think I will be successful? Have I provided sufficient information? If I lose my appeal, should I ignore demands for payment?

Recent reports of failures in systems at the NHS and BA show that reliance on technology is flawed and there should always be a fall-back position to allow human intervention. This should have happened in my case. Sorry for the long diatribe but I am looking to avoid any more sleepless nights.

Umkomaas

Please read the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post #3 (the IPC part of that post), then come back and tell us how successful you think your appeal to the IAS will be!

The_Deep

You say you paid, they say you bilked. I wonder who the Judge would believe, a lying cheating unprincipled PPC or a fine upstanding citizen.

If the IAS deny your appeal and the PPC take you to court, an once the judge finds in your favour, you could be on a nice little earner here for unreasonableness and breaching your personal information.

fisherjim

I notice it says "many other drivers entered their registrations number correctly," how many is "many" 40% 80% 99% an absolutely meaningless statement!

"...and can find no reports of a fault with the machine." Once again a meaningless statement if you had a ticket with half your reg number on it either the machine printer was faulty, the buttons were faulty, or you didn't put your whole number in, all of which point to a faulty machine or system.

I don't believe for one moment they made or could make any diagnostic checks on their system especially when blaming the victim is lucrative, and they are scamming Muppets.

bluesboyal

Many thanks for the comments and I am sorry I haven't responded before now. Unfortunately my car was involved in a hit and run whilst parked and I have been dealing with insurance, workshops and hire car firms.
As advised I looked through the Newbie threads and have found the whole process quite daunting. Full of acronyms and advice going off in various tangents. Nobody's fault, just the way things take on a life of there own. I have spent many hours reading the informed comments and the position seems to be as follows:-
a.I think I have a just case. I paid my fee and did not exceed the time purchased
b. I think there is a case to show that the ticket machine malfunctioned and PPS evidence of their cross checks looks dodgy.
c. Your contributors are of the opinion the the IAS are a kangaroo court and will find in favour of PPS in 90% of appeals referred to them. They seem not to consider the facts in any depth.
d. If I lose my appeal, which on the balance of probabilities is likely, then I will be required to stump up £100 and not £60. I have to make the decision by the 5th June.
Reluctantly, although it would be better to give these criminals a run for their money, the more pragmatic approach will be to pay the £60.
Once again thanks for your help and support and good luck with your campaign.

beamerguy

bluesboyal wrote: »

Many thanks for the comments and I am sorry I haven't responded before now. Unfortunately my car was involved in a hit and run whilst parked and I have been dealing with insurance, workshops and hire car firms.
As advised I looked through the Newbie threads and have found the whole process quite daunting. Full of acronyms and advice going off in various tangents. Nobody's fault, just the way things take on a life of there own. I have spent many hours reading the informed comments and the position seems to be as follows:-
a.I think I have a just case. I paid my fee and did not exceed the time purchased
b. I think there is a case to show that the ticket machine malfunctioned and PPS evidence of their cross checks looks dodgy.
c. Your contributors are of the opinion the the IAS are a kangaroo court and will find in favour of PPS in 90% of appeals referred to them. They seem not to consider the facts in any depth.
d. If I lose my appeal, which on the balance of probabilities is likely, then I will be required to stump up £100 and not £60. I have to make the decision by the 5th June.
Reluctantly, although it would be better to give these criminals a run for their money, the more pragmatic approach will be to pay the £60.
Once again thanks for your help and support and good luck with your campaign.

Shame you are giving into the scam ?
Don't be put off by the IAS bunch ..... they are an incestuous scam
run by the losers Gladstones.

You have made the wrong assumption that you will lose which means you will not pay anything when you win

However, defeating these vermin needs a positive attitude so if you
feel it's better to line the pockets of scammers, I wish you luck.

By supporting the scammers with money, gives them more funds
to scam little old ladies or disabled people and genuine parkers

It's your money and if you have a spare £60 it would be better
spent supporting a charity .... not scammers

Coupon-mad

If I lose my appeal, which on the balance of probabilities is likely, then I will be required to stump up £100 and not £60. I have to make the decision by the 5th June.

You won't lose the appeal because you won't make an IAS appeal. There is no APPEAL worth trying, even the one suggested in the NEWBIES thread for IPC firms at first stage isn't going to get the daft rip-off cancelled! It's just done to go through the motions and show the PPC that you are on a forum and not a pushover, so they are less likely to try a rare claim.

Hardly likely, they got their fingers burnt with losses last year so have only tried seven times in 2017:

http://www.bmpa.eu/companydata/Premier_Parking_Solutions.html

Your chances of this actually going to a small claims are TINY. And we win. We won 4 out of 4 in court in one day this week:

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/bad-day-for-gladstones.html

Reluctantly, although it would be better to give these criminals a run for their money, the more pragmatic approach will be to pay the £60.

I hope you will be proud, if you:

- sponsor the scam
- fund the next PCNs against little old ladies and families who can ill afford it.

It has to be said, so you make an informed decision: to actually pay this bunch of ex-clampers 'for an easy life' (especially after being on this forum and KNOWING what it is all about) would be shameful, selfish and a cop-out, not pragmatic.

All you will probably have to do is ignore some stupid debt collector threatograms. Easy! What do you think we all did before there was any appeal worth trying (POPLA only started in late 2012). What do you think people did here before that? Gave in and paid up? LOL! Of course not. We ignored the trash, and with IPC, you ignore the trash still. I've ignored private PCNs several times over and some people have lined their guinea pig's hutch with DRPlus letters (these collected by the poster 'tospig'):

https://www.flickr.com/photos/89511704@N03/8145428304/

Come back if you get a small claim - you do know we have 100% winning record?

Colonel_Retd

If you stand your ground and are in the right, Premier Parking, Debt Recovery Plus and BW Legal will not carry out their threats of court action. It took 3 years though and then BW Legal leaned on the Western Morning News to prevent being named. Bullying?

Motorist claims victory in three-year battle over parking 'fines'

Premier Parking Solutions, Debt Recovery Plus and BW Legal repeatedly threatened to take Robert Jordan to court over Parking Charge Notices issued in Fore Street car park in Totnes


A former soldier from Devon is claiming victory in a three-year battle over parking 'fines' - after the case against him was dropped just days before it was due to be heard by a judge. For more than three years, Robert Jordan, from Ashburton, received repeated demands for money and threats to take him to court from three different companies, for non-payment of what he believed were unfair parking charge notices (PCN), which are often erroneously referred to as parking 'fines'.

A court hearing was finally arranged for January 17, 2019 at Exeter County Court - and a District Judge was appointed to hear the case. However, the claimants, Newton Abbot-based Premier Parking Solutions Ltd (PPS), dropped their claim for contractual damages just days before the hearing was due to take place - and days after offering to settle the case out of court for £495. Robert, rejected the 'offer' - and instead risked being found liable for more than £762 that was being claimed through the small claims court. By this point a District Judge had allocated the case to the small claims track for a hearing, after considering the statement of case and directions questionnaire.

Now Robert, who was in the Army for more than 35 years, says he took a stand because he thinks many people would feel bullied into paying 'unfair' parking charges by the threat of legal action. He initially decided to take a stand because he believed the Parking Charge Notices were unfair. Back in December 2015, Robert had 'paid and displayed' in the Fore Street car park in Totnes, but the tickets were missing one digit of his vehicle’s registration number. He says this is because the ticket machine didn't register the first digit when it was punched in.

Robert, who was the regional director of a military charity for five years, believed he had paid and displayed according to the car parks terms and conditions, so he was surprised to receive three parking charge notices through the post, alleging he had breached the car park's terms and conditions by failing to enter his registration number correctly.
Fortunately, Robert still had the 'pay and display' tickets proving he had paid to park, so appealed the charges through POPLA - an independent car parking dispute ombudsman that is funded by the car parking industry. However, POPLA rejected Robert's appeal and, in March 2016, Premier Parking Solutions insisted Robert pay up - and said they would "commence county court action... without delay” if he did not. Convinced he was morally - and legally - in the right, Robert again refused to pay and, in May and June 2016, he received five letters from Debt Recover Plus Ltd (DRP) demanding payment and threatening to take him to court. Robert says he responded to each letter by telephone, re-stating his position.

Robert didn't hear anything else about the matter for more than eight months, and then nothing again for more than a year, leading him to believe the matter had been dropped - but in June 2018 he received a final letter from DRP, demanding payment and threatening to take him to court. Then, in July 2018, he received a letter from BW Legal, again demanding money and threatening court action. Robert responded by email, again refusing to pay. BW Legal sent four more letters in July and August and, in September, 2018 informed Robert they had issued legal proceeding on behalf of PPS.

In November, Exeter County Court notified Robert that the case would be heard on January 17, 2019, with PPS named as the Claimant. However, on December 4, 2018 offered to accept £495 rather than the £762, as long as Robert paid on or before December 18, two days before the court deadline for paperwork to submitted. Robert says he ignored the letter because he was ready to defend the claim in court. But, on December 19, 2018, BW Legal wrote to him again, to say they had filed a Claimants Notice of Discontinuance at court on behalf of Premier Parking Solutions - which means the case had finally been dropped, after three years of threats of legal action and demands for ever-increasing sums of money.

BW Legal’s Chief Operating Officer Rachel Withers, is the owner of PRAC Financial Ltd - a purchaser of small debt portfolios.

Now, after more than three years - and PPS discontinuing its claim in the court - Robert is claiming victory.

"My wife kept urging me just to pay up, but I can be very stubborn - and if the court decided I must pay £750, then so be it. I was prepared to take that risk. I was in the Army for 36 years, and I don't like bullying" says Robert, "I didn't feel bullied or intimidated by all of this myself - but many people would. That's why I decided to take a stand, because a lot of people - the old and vulnerable especially - would be scared into paying unfair charges."