Ridiculous Sting. Another unscrupulous Parking Company.

DorianWolf

Hi Coupon-Mad,

I hope you have been able to read the assessors decision on my POPLA appeal, however disappointing the result is.

Do you think I have grounds to continue with my fight, or should I now just pay up?

Thank you.

Umkomaas

Complain to John Gallagher Lead Adjudicator that the Assessor has made a fundamental error in not understanding contract law. Mark the complaint 'Procedural and Legal Error in Adjudication' (or similar).

You may not get immediate satisfaction, as POPLA are increasingly quick to pull up the drawbridge as more and more decisions turn bizarre and complaints flow.

There is no imperative on you to pay this. Only a Judge can tell you to pay. It's up to you if you want to see whether MB will chance their arm in court. You will get help here with defending a court claim against you, particularly one where an apparent misjustice is at the root.

DorianWolf

Thank you, I will makes this complaint.

It's so disheartening after we had put together, what I thought, was an extremely strong argument. With the assistance of Coupon-Mad, I had hoped that they would finally grant the decision in my favour, but to not even mention the crux of my appeal in their summary is so upsetting. What is going on there.

Where would I find contact details for the lead adjudicator?

I can’t imagine his personal email address will be readily available for direct contact.

Umkomaas

Just use the general POPLA email and mark it 'For the personal attention of Mr J Gallagher, Lead Adjudicator - 'Procedural and Legal Error in Adjudication' (or similar)'.

Coupon-mad

DorianWolf wrote: »

Assessor summary of your case - The appellant’s case is that there was no contract offered by the parking operator, in addition to noncompliance with the British Parking Association Code of Practice.

The above is NOT a summary of your case, at all.

Tell Mr Gallagher that the decision has failed to follow the correct process. The Assessor has simply pasted some templates together and completely misstated her 'summary' of your POPLA appeal, glossing over everything.

She hasn't addressed or even mentioned your three points, which were:

1. any contract was offered by BW on the signs/machines, not MB
2. no landowner authority
3. no grace period allowed

She cannot conclude this on the evidence:

I am satisfied the evidence shows a parking contract was formed

...because she has not explained how she concluded that this contract was offered by MB, whose name is not on the machines or on the blue signs.

She has not mentioned grace periods per se, and has instead said you didn't go into detail about the BPA CoP, but you did, and grace periods are fundamental to POPLA decisions.

As is 'landowner authority' which didn't even get a mention from her, despite the comments made on the evidence, again ignored. There is nothing to show the contract continues into perpetuity and the evidence looks like any contract on signage is offered only by Bransby Wilson, who are not the same company.

Most damningly, in your appeal PDF, you set a picture of the MB sign at this location right next to a picture of a MB sign at another location, and they are an almost exact match and do not mention the operator, at all, and you cited the correct decision by a (clearly) better trained Assessor which related to the first sign.

Either she didn't have the PDF (which WAS uploaded properly as a little 'bin' icon appeared) or this Assessor seems to have let the points you made in your appeal go completely over her head.

(what you MUST NOT SAY is that you are 'unhappy with the decision' or think it was 'unfair'. You need to talk about a failure to consider your evidence and points made, and this a failure of the POPLA process and abject failure to show any consistency in an almost exact match case, where the signage failed to mention MB).

Ask what is the point of this Assessor lottery, if there are not lessons learned from previous cases and no consistency of decisions where the facts are completely on all fours in terms of the signs that does NOT name MB, at all. A driver cannot possibly create a contract with a stranger company, not mentioned on the signs!

DorianWolf

Coupon-mad wrote: »

The above is NOT a summary of your case, at all.

I realise that it's too late for POPLA to reverse their decision, but I'm writing in complaint to the lead adjudicator.

Thank you so much for your help, what do you think?

For the personal attention of Mr. J. Gallagher, Lead Adjudicator.

Verification Code - XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Dear Mr. Gallagher,

Following my recent POPLA appeal I must bring to you attention that the decision has failed to follow the correct process.

The assessor has made a fundamental error in not understanding contract law, which has led to an unsuccessful decision in the appeal above.

I quote the assessor's summary of my case - "The appellant’s case is that there was no contract offered by the parking operator, in addition to noncompliance with the British Parking Association Code of Practice."

There has been a complete failure to consider my evidence and the Assessor has completely misstated her ’summary’ of my POPLA appeal, in which she has not addressed, or even mentioned my three points.

Those points were -

1. Any contract was offered by Bransby Wilson on the signs/machines, not Minster Baywatch.
2. No landowner authority.
3. No grace period allowed.

Therefore, I quote the assessor once again “I am satisfied the evidence shows a parking contract was formed”, she cannot conclude on this evidence, because she has not explained how she concluded that this contract was offered by Minster Baywatch, whose name is not on the machines, or the blue signs.

She has not mentioned grace periods per se, and has instead said that I didn’t go into detail about the British Parking Association Code of Practice, but I did, and grace periods are fundamental to POPLA decisions.

As is ‘landowner authority’ which did not even get a mention by the Assessor, despite the comments made on the evidence, again ignored. There is nothing to show the contract continues into perpetuity and the evidence looks like any contract on signage is offered only by Bransby Wilson, who I evidenced are not the same company.

Most damningly, in my appeal PDF, I set a picture of the Minster Baywatch sign at this location right next to a picture of a Minster Baywatch sign at another location, and they are an almost exact match and do not mention the operator, at all. And I cited the correct, successful decision by a (clearly) better trained Assessor which related to the other sign.

Either the Assessor didn't have my PDF (which WAS uploaded properly as a little 'bin' icon appeared) or this Assessor seems to have let the points I made in my appeal go completely over her head.

As the points and evidence I made were vital to my appeal, not considering them is a failure of the POPLA process and abject failure to show any consistency in an almost exact match case, where the signage failed to mention Minster Baywatch.

What is the point of this Assessor lottery, if there are not lessons learned from previous cases and no consistency of decisions where the facts are completely on all fours in terms of the signs that does NOT name Minster Baywatch, at all? A driver cannot possibly create a contract with a stranger company, not mentioned on the signs.

Yours sincerely,

Umkomaas

I think I would just concentrate on the Bransby Wilson v Minster Baywatch issue and the contract formed with the driver of your vehicle. In my view it's your most potent point of complaint - the driver entered absolutely no contract with MB whatsoever, the contract was with BW. If BW had a problem with the vehicle's parking, they were the only party that could attempt to hold you liable under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Schedule 4). Minster Baywatch are a complete stranger to the contract formed between the driver of your vehicle and BW.

Otherwise, IMHO, of you try to hit them with multiple points, the complaint might be seen as a general rant of discontent.

See if anyone else wishes to comment.

DorianWolf

I've already received the first demand letter from the PO telling me to pay up or the matter will be passed to a debt collector.

Umkomaas wrote: »

I think I would just concentrate on the Bransby Wilson v Minster Baywatch issue and the contract formed with the driver of your vehicle.

Coupon-mad wrote: »

See if anyone else wishes to comment.

So. yes please, any help at this last ditch stage is still very much appreciated.



DW

Coupon-mad

It's not a last ditch stage - you have a whole new chance to defend a dodgy court claim yet and we win 99% of them.

Hope you have sent that complaint to Mr Gallagher? That decision was diabolical.

DorianWolf

Coupon-mad wrote: »

It's not a last ditch stage - you have a whole new chance to defend a dodgy court claim yet and we win 99% of them.

Well, I've missed the final pay by date after POPLA's ridiculous oversight of my case, so now I have to see this thing through, there's no going back. Although I'm not quite sure what to do next, or what I should expect next?

Also, I have written an email letter of complaint regarding the decision to Mr. J. Gallagher, and given confirmation by reply on March 25th which stated 'the matter has been escalated to the appropriate team' and will be dealt with between 7 & 21 DAYS.

That deadline has passed with no further reply, what should I do?