Ridiculous Sting. Another unscrupulous Parking Company.

Coupon-mad

Email Mr Gallagher again, and none too politely.

Say that you assume due to the extra time taken they must have realised their error but it would be considerate if they could at least update you about the investigation into what went wrong to cause the Assessor's oversight, in a case where the signs clearly are not even in the name Minster Baywatch, as per previous POPLA decisions about the SAME SIGNS - as was very clearly shown in your appeal.

DorianWolf

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Email Mr Gallagher again, and none too politely.

I've sent a second, strongly worded email to Mr. Gallagher and his POPLA "assessors", hammering home again the points in my case that were completely overlooked, and that I feel their impartial adjudication process appears to be failing at every step, so thank you for your advice with that Coupon-mad. I've received their standard email confirmation receipt, hopefully now they may see it in themselves to act upon it and provide a satisfactory reply, or just any reply.

Is there anyone else that might listen to a complaint about their oversight and failure to address any of the points in my case?

In addition I've also had a red demand letter from the PPC informing me that the notice has been passed to their internal collections team, obviously with an additional charge!

I'm assuming that they will soon escalate to debt collector letters, then court claims? What kind of timeline should I expect for this process?

Umkomaas

Why not the new head of the whole shebang - Matthew Vickers. We’ve never really gone beyond John Gallagher to date, but if it becomes necessary, why not, especially as JG rarely involves himself, rather handing things to fob-off minions to deal with. Has now pretty much become a futile exercise. So escalate if you draw a further blank.

https://www.ombudsman-services.org/news/vickers-confirmed-as-head-of-ombudsman-services

Coupon-mad

That's a good idea.

I'm assuming that they will soon escalate to debt collector letters, then court claims? What kind of timeline should I expect for this process?

A few months of silly letters. A court claim possibly this year but could be within up to 6 years of the parking event.

DorianWolf

Coupon-mad wrote: »

That's a good idea.

It looks like another interesting avenue to explore.

Do you think I should begin a fresh complaint immediately, with the Ombudsman (Matthew Vickers), or wait until POPLA respond?

Umkomaas

DorianWolf wrote: »

It looks like another interesting avenue to explore.

Do you think I should begin a fresh complaint immediately, with the Ombudsman (Matthew Vickers), or wait until POPLA respond?

Give John Gallagher a (second) chance.

DorianWolf

Coupon-mad wrote: »

That's a good idea.

Wishing to keep you up to date with my appeal emails I sent to POPLA, I have now had reply from them confirming that there has been an issue with the contents of the appeal. Please see their email below -

Dear XXXXXXX

Re: Procedural Error - XXXXXXXXXXXX

Further to your recent emails please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to you.

POPLA have asked our IT department to check your case thoroughly, it would appear that the original PDF document you uploaded with your appeal did not correctly attached to the case. Our IT department have been able to locate this and class it as a, ‘failed upload’.

The missing document has now been attached to your case and the parking operator has been made aware of this error with our website. It is important to note that the assessor that reviewed your case would not have been aware of the missing file that had failed to upload to the system; their decision was based on what they had received.

What happens now is that the parking operator will be given a period of seven days to review your original appeal so that they can be afforded the opportunity to submit a response. The operator has until XXX on XXX 2019 to respond after which time we will be in further contact with you.

If the operator uploads a new evidence pack this will be sent to you for review allowing you a period of seven days to respond, after this time your case will undertake a further review.

For now, the complaint received has been placed on hold to allow the process to re-commence. I thank you for your patience whilst we look into the issue you have brought to our service.

Yours sincerely
POPLA Complaints Team

Coupon-mad

I wonder how often these failed uploads have occurred at POPLA, given this sort of thing has been reported more than once.

DorianWolf

Coupon-mad wrote: »

I wonder how often these failed uploads have occurred at POPLA, given this sort of thing has been reported more than once.

Indeed. It's just so odd, as I consciously made sure the bin icon appeared when I uploaded the PDF file. Can't understand how they are saying it was a failed upload, but they've still managed to find it, weird.

Also, I've received a further update from POPLA today, below, but I'm unsure what the last sentence suggests?

And do you think that I should just confirm that I'm happy to use my original appeal PDF, or now add more detail as this process has further unfolded?

Dear XXXXXXX

"Further to my email from I can confirm that I have written to the parking operator to advise of the procedural error that occurred giving them the opportunity to review the evidence previously submitted to fit the grounds you submitted.

However, the parking operator do not wish to edit or change the evidence pack previously issued.

On this basis can you confirm that you are happy to review your pdf against the decision made to review if the outcome would have changed.

Yours sincerely
POPLA Team"

Coupon-mad

Answer yes, a new Assessor may make the decision - but only if they are the same person as made the decision in the case you referenced in your appeal because you are beginning to lose faith with POPLA as a consistent and unbiased service and feel despondent that any other Assessor will be consistent with the older 'exact match signs' case.

Given that the first Assessor in your own case saw the signage pics yet still thought MB could offer the contract when it's another company's name on the signs(!) you despair of a decent and fair decision so need the Assessor who previously made a decision against MB about these signs, to assess this one. This is because POPLA has adjudicated on these exact same style signs before and knows that they cannot form a contract between a driver and Minster Baywatch, so this must be the outcome here too.

If that Assessor is unavailable then you wish the case to be considered by Mr Gallagher.