Parking charge notice-car hired by foreigner

Polish_Bear

Hello Forum Members,
Please let me describe my situation. I apologize in advance for my English as I am from Poland. At the end of May I was on my first business trip in England, I rented a car from Europcar. I have parked my hired car at Maybrook Retail Park in Canterbury. I haven't buy anything in a store, I didn't know that there was a charge for parking as I haven’t seen any signs while entering. I may have been too deep in thought or worried about an unfamiliar area. Now that I've checked out the parking entrance on street view I see there are some signs. Last week I have received a letter from Europcar with an attached photocopy of parking charge notice from ParkingEye and Europcar’s traffic violation invoice. The Parking charge amount is 100GBP and the payment to be made within 28 days of date issued 28.06.2018. The invoice only includes an administration fee of 40GBP and it doesn’t include the charge as according to Rental Agreement Terms: “As hirer of the Vehicle you are responsible for and will pay for any London Congestion charges, Dart Tunnel charges and any parking fees that may apply during the Hire Period and for any fines and penalty charges that occur because of offences or infringements involving the Vehicle. An administration charge will also apply to any fines and/or penalties“. The letter came to my home address. I will not fight with Europcar however I wonder if it is possible to cancel the parking charge notice. I have not yet received anything from ParkingEye directly. I have read the newbie thread but could you please help me what to do next. Shall I wait for a direct letter from ParkingEye? Or shall I not wait for the letter and appeal via their website? This is a very stressful situation for me as a 40GBP is not a small amount for me and with additional 100GBP charge will make in total a painful loss of money. For my defence I can only add, that apart from not noticing the signs informing about the fees, I didn’t know about such system as in my country there is usually a tollgate or a person issuing parking blocks.
Thanks in advance for any help with this.

The_Slithy_Tove

Appeal to ParkingEye. Contrary to the normal advice, you say you were the driver (or possibly just the hirer), and you are appealing due to ... (any reason will do, it doesn't matter). Be sure to give them your Polish address.

You are effectively untouchable by PE, as they won't bother to pursue you across international borders.

As for Europcar, they have exceeded their authority in charging £40. You must write to them (not phone, but email is OK), stating

• that you have appealed to ParkingEye, and have therefore taken all responsibility for the charge from Europcar. If they receive anything further from ParkingEye, they must under no circumstances pay them, as they should now be out of the loop.
• that the £40 charge is unwarranted and must be refunded immediately. What they have is not an invoice, and does not fall under ANY of the categories for which they can charge their fee. It is not a "parking fee" just to be clear, though we start to get into semantics. If there is the equivalent in Poland to claiming a charge back from the credit card company, then you need to do so by disputing the charge with the card company.

At the end of the day, you may have to write off the £40, but there is no way you need to pay the £100.

Weasel_Watcher

Terms and conditions from here
https://www.europcar.co.uk/files/live/sites/Europcar/files/Conf_email_attachment/CGL_EN_GB.pdf


9.3.1.1.
You are responsible for and will pay all charges arising from:

• any congestion or parking charges (or failure to pay them);
• a breach of any parking restrictions or a road traffic offence or any other offence or infringement involving the Vehicle such as (but not limited to) lane infringement, tunnel, turning and bus lane charges including the costs from the Vehicle being clamped, seized or towed away and any other charges/costs (or failure to pay them)

levied by a relevant organisation or issuing authority.
You are and will remain primarily liable for such charges and you consent to us notifying such organisations of your personal details to effect a transfer of liability.

---

If we are required to deal with such correspondence
we will charge your credit/ debit card for our Third Party Administration Charge as set out in the Tariff Guide.
You have the right to challenge that Third Party Administration Charge within 14 days of the date of the invoice.
The Third Party Administration Charge will only be
refunded if you can provide supporting evidence to show that the issuing authority
(i) has rescinded the fine or penalty; and (ii) confirms that the original charge did not apply in any event.

---

Seems unreasonable to me, they're effectively saying that any Tom, !!!! or Harry can invoice you via them, and then they'll charge you an admin unless you can get the scammer to drop it within 14 days.


Edit: It appears the profanity filter won't allow the name that's short for Richard(!)

Polish_Bear

Thank you The Slithy Tove for a quick response. I just came back home and noticed a letter from ParkingEye directly with changed payment dates and parking charge information. I assume that this is a standard text with the statement that signage was clearly displayed at the entrance to and throughout the car park but with details of the specific case. In contrary to forum standard advice shall I be honest and give the same appealing's reasons as mentioned in my first post or they will not accept such excuses? I know I have only one shot with my appeal therefore I would like to prepare a solid one with a high probability of winning, as I have read that ParkingEye is not a widely liked company due to these parking charge notices. Is it a good idea to submit here my appeal before I will send it to them?

The_Slithy_Tove

Polish_Bear wrote: »

In contrary to forum standard advice shall I be honest and give the same appealing's reasons as mentioned in my first post or they will not accept such excuses? I know I have only one shot with my appeal therefore I would like to prepare a solid one with a high probability of winning

They won't accept excuses, of course not.

It really doesn't matter whether your appeal succeeds or not (it won't). The point is that it takes the focus away from Europcar, who may be tempted to pay it (and charge you another £40). Once the appeal is lost, what are they going to do? It's not worth their while pursuing you in another country, and they can't (in theory) go back to Europcar once they know who the hirer/driver was.

The_Deep

Cannot you place the £40 in dispute with the card issuer?

twhitehousescat

Weasel_Watcher wrote: »

Terms and conditions from here
https://www.europcar.co.uk/files/live/sites/Europcar/files/Conf_email_attachment/CGL_EN_GB.pdf


9.3.1.1.
You are responsible for and will pay all charges arising from:

• any congestion or parking charges (or failure to pay them);
• a breach of any parking restrictions or a road traffic offence or any other offence or infringement involving the Vehicle such as (but not limited to) lane infringement, tunnel, turning and bus lane charges including the costs from the Vehicle being clamped, seized or towed away and any other charges/costs (or failure to pay them)

levied by a relevant organisation or issuing authority.
You are and will remain primarily liable for such charges and you consent to us notifying such organisations of your personal details to effect a transfer of liability.

---

If we are required to deal with such correspondence
we will charge your credit/ debit card for our Third Party Administration Charge as set out in the Tariff Guide.
You have the right to challenge that Third Party Administration Charge within 14 days of the date of the invoice.
The Third Party Administration Charge will only be
refunded if you can provide supporting evidence to show that the issuing authority
(i) has rescinded the fine or penalty; and (ii) confirms that the original charge did not apply in any event.

---

Seems unreasonable to me, they're effectively saying that any Tom, !!!! or Harry can invoice you via them, and then they'll charge you an admin unless you can get the scammer to drop it within 14 days.


Edit: It appears the profanity filter won't allow the name that's short for Richard(!)

parking eye do not issue fines or penalties (they are invoices) and they are definitely NOT an authority

Polish_Bear

Hi, it is time for a small update.
I did an appeal to parkingeye on a basis of some website which has taken information from various sites including this forum. I have received a rejection email (when I precisely mentioned in my appeal that all correspondence must be delivered by post) with information that if I appeal to POPLA and loose I will need to pay the full amount (so it looks like !!!8220;this is your last chance to pay less!!!8221;). The last page of the letter form PArkingEye there is some FAQ which states there are further information in relation to my appeal, however these are only their answers, not specific information for which I asked. So I presume this is again some kind of standard copy-paste response. However I would like to ask you is it worth to appeal to POPLA? From the website with the template I used I have read that they also had an unsuccessful appeal and they appealed to POPLA and won as ParkingEye didn!!!8217;t provide required proof for which they have been asked.