Waitrose, BW Legal, Britannia Parking, John Lewis Legal team

BS_Newbie

beamerguy wrote: »

Right now John Lewis are struggling. The CEO is actually under the name of Managing Director being Ms Paula Nickolds

Personally when I write letters of this nature I do not threaten but make it clear what my options are (without actually saying), they know what you mean.
Make it clear that by employing Britannia, they are holding their customers in contempt and on that basis, word and mouth spreads

Suggest that she must intervene immediately to cancel all the tickets before the matter gets worse for JL.
Also suggest that to save future problems, that will lose customers, she terminates Britannia from all Waitrose car parks

In the meantime continue with the good advice above

Beamere guy - that is awesome and thank you for saving me a fee minutes of searching on the JL website . I think a recorded delivery letter as well as an email will be sent directly to Ms Nickolds.

I do wonder how many letters she has received from other disgruntled Waitrose customers or other sites operated by BP under the JL banner .

Is it too cheeky to ask if you have an example letter I could use as a template ??

beamerguy

BS_Newbie wrote: »

Beamere guy - that is awesome and thank you for saving me a fee minutes of searching on the JL website . I think a recorded delivery letter as well as an email will be sent directly to Ms Nickolds.

I do wonder how many letters she has received from other disgruntled Waitrose customers or other sites operated by BP under the JL banner .

Is it too cheeky to ask if you have an example letter I could use as a template ??

Who knows how many complaints she has.
The email is paula.nickolds@johnlewis.co.uk

As Umkomaas says copy in the CEO of Waitrose.

There is no such template for a letter, you can use what's said above making it personal to you

And it's Dear Sir/Madam signing off with .... yours faithfully.
It's then formal as she is not your mate

BS_Newbie

Umkomaas wrote: »

So you’ve now changed the T5 dates? It’s becoming impossible to keep track. We’re all tired - and we’re dealing with dozens of threads, trying to keep many different plates spinning at the same time, but accuracy in detail, especially where something critical relies on it, is essential.


You need to forget all this stuff about not getting a reply to a very odd letter from 5 years ago. JL’s CEO will not be interested at their level in the minutiae of whether a sign did or did not meet some Code of Practice they have probably never heard of. You’re chasing shadows.

The CEO should be more concerned about their agent upsetting a customer whose custom may never return, although I have to say (and I know the relationship between JL and W) there would be more likely impact if it was a direct JL customer.

I would have thought there’s more than enough clout vested in the principal CEO of Waitrose, and a more direct relationship with the customer(s) in the 5 cases, and you’re more likely to get a more interested response.

Umkomaas - I am massively grateful for all the responses yesterday and I totally understand that everyone , like me , is giving up valuable time to help others. I agreed to help the RK with this as they are unable to deal with any of this for very serious personal reasons.

I have been up very late almost every night for approx two weeks since the RK asked me to help them again by researching this before I posted here yesterday.

I appreciate I made some errors with the dates which I have now corrected. I totally understand and agree that accuracy in detail is essential .

I would have thought there’s more than enough clout vested in the principal CEO of Waitrose, and a more direct relationship with the customer(s) in the 5 cases, and you’re more likely to get a more interested response.

Thats an excellent idea and the MD/CEO of waitrose will also receive a letter as well as the CEO of JL. - we intend to sling as much mud at the wall as possible and hopefully this with the aim of having all action cancelled by BP

BS_Newbie

I want to thank everyone who have contributed to this thread and I appreciate there are now a lot of posts but I wanted to answer all the people who have taken the time to post.

I am hugely grateful for all the advice and comments received so far . I now have an ever expanding document with all of the points and suggestions added to it and I am about to start putting together the relevant correspondence for the RK to send :-
A) SAR to Brit Parking
initial email to BW Legal asking for early dislosure of evidence and confirming further debt and legal advice is being sought
C) email to Steve Clark at BPA asking if he can confirm the signs at Waitrose are non compliant with BPA COP
D) email & letter / complaint to Waitrose MD/CEO & copied to JL CEO about the conduct of BP
E) MP - not as urgent as others
F) local press - only if BP refuse to cancel the proposed court action.
G) DVLA -

I have now scanned all three PCNS , and correspondence from BP to RK from 2018 and they are all identical (apart from one which shows only 2 pics of the car where the other 2 show 4 tiny pics ) so I have only included one with this post so that there are not too many pics .

I am no expert at all (a total novice in fact) but it does seem that the correspondence in 2018 also seems to be non compliant with POFa as POFA is not mentioned anywhere in any of the letters to the RK - Am I correct or incorrect with this ???

Original PCN attached to windscreen (all PCNS were attached by BP employees)


1st letter RK received from Brit Pk


Final Demand from BP

rachity

Are there any times/dates on the pics of the vehicle?

twhitehousescat

the signage displayed at the entrance , state that car park is private land , parking conditions apply or a PARKING CHARGE WILL BE INCURRED



no it dont

BS_Newbie

rachity wrote: »

Are there any times/dates on the pics of the vehicle?

there are times but on the PCNs that have tiny pictures these are totally illegible.
Only one PCN, No 3 is legible -

No 4 and No 5 are very tiny

BS_Newbie

OK so here is a starter for ten as a proposed email to that the RK can send to Mr Rob Collins - Waitrose MD rob.collins@waitrose.co.uk and copied to Paula Nickolds boss at John Lewis paula.nickolds@johnlewis.co.uk.

I found a link on this forum to a complaint letter someone else had written on another forum (pepipoo) and they recommended the strong but firm approach. All of the relevant points are covered here and although its a bit lengthy I don't think this is a bad thing as it will give Mr Collins and Ms Nickolds plenty to chew on.

Correspondence for BPA and Brittania will follow very soon.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-00
'Dear sir/Madam

OFFICIAL COMPLAINT ABOUT BRITANNIA PARKING (BP) , AS AGENTS FOR WAITROSE
I am forced to make an official complaint to you because the actions of your agent, Britannia Parking, are upsetting, extremely intimidating and will drive away genuine Waitrose customers in the long run.

I am customer of Waitrose . I am also the registered Keeper of a Car that has received several Parking Charge Notices (PCN’s) whilst parked at the Waitrose store in Bishop’s Stortford and subsequently several letters from BP requesting payment for these PCN’s. Two of these PCN’s were for exactly the same time period in 2016 and three are from 2018. I was never the driver at the times these fake parking charges were issued and it is outrageous that BP thinks it is acceptable to try to extort two lots of payment for the same time period! It is also extremely disappointing that Waitrose has chosen to employ a company that uses such unacceptable practices to manage their car parks

In the past I wrote several times to BP to request clarification of the letters they had sent to me in order that if someone had been damaged that I had an opportunity to validate the claim before settling appropriately and privately with that damaged party. To date I have never received any specific responses to my letters and BP has instead insisted on sending requests for payment and final demands as well as more recently instructed their legal team to commence legal proceedings. This is covered below.

I originally spoke to a manager in 2014 at the store as I requested that he instruct BP to cancel a PCN that had been placed on my windscreen. This manager (who’s name I do not recall) stated that they did not have the authority to instruct BP to cancel the PCN and that I needed to write directly to John Lewis which is why my original letter was sent to the Legal team.

I received a response from Mr Guy Walton, Principal Lawyer confirming they were looking into this matter and that he would hope to revert to me as soon as possible. No one from John Lewis has ever sent any further correspondence which is unacceptable. Copies of my previous correspondence are attached for your reference.

Waitrose/John Lewis has contracted Britannia to operate their Waitrose car parks and I would be very grateful if you can confirm exactly what due diligence was carried out on a contract that supposedly doesn't permit them, as principal, to instruct their agents to take appropriate action (e.g. cancel the ticket), and how does this fit with any vicarious liability issues caused by the law of agency in respect of any wrongdoing by Britannia?

I have now been sent a Letter dated 08/03/2019 from BP informing me that they have instructed their legal department, BW Legal to commence legal action against me in the form of issuing a claim against me in the county court in respect of unpaid “debt” if full payment or a response is not received by the 11th April 2019.

I am now expected to have to explain my actions to a third party private company who I have never had any dealings with, have no contract with, and who are demanding a lot of money from me . It is unbelievable that BP feel it is perfectly acceptable to totally ignore my letters requesting clarification on the matter and then instruct lawyers to write to me informing me that court action is being considered. In my book that is incredibly aggressive and totally unacceptable.

I am very upset and have become increasingly angry about this entire episode. My family is horrified that Waitrose can allow such a notorious firm to harass customers on your behalf. By employing Britannia, Waitrose are effectively holding their customers in contempt and on that basis, word of mouth spreads very quickly indeed and I am sure that Waitrose would not wish to attract such unwelcome attention.

I have researched the matter extensively and I am aware of all legal options open to me. I intend to escalate my challenge against Waitrose and BP to the relevant authorities. However, I am willing to give Waitrose the chance to quash these fake PC’s and threatened legal action once and for all because I feel you need to know that Waitrose and your agents are alienating genuine customers due to BP’s zero-tolerance policy and arrogant refusal to respond to perfectly reasonable questions to provide clarification in order to validate claims.

To save future problems that will lose customers and well before renewing your contracts with BP when the time comes, might I just suggest you terminate Britannia from all Waitrose car parks. Can I also suggest that you take time to read and digest the implications to other Retailers, Supermarkets & customers, and the picture painted of parking companies such as BP who employ such aggressive business practices, as set out in the full court judgment for 'Parking Eye v Somerfield - Case No: A3/2011/0909'. I would also politely suggest that you also familiarise yourself with a private Members' Bill from Sir Greg Knight, Lord Hunt of Wirral which has recently been passed as law. https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2017-19/parkingcodeofpractice.html

Notwithstanding what BP may well have to say on the matter, no doubt involving spin about their firm 'being members of the BPA Approved Operator Scheme' (in reality, merely a trade body 'club membership' which enables them to buy registered keeper data and certainly does not 'regulate' their industry) I would also respectfully suggest that Waitrose thoroughly research the company you are associating with - in truth, BP have a terrible online reputation and are now suing customers over minor 'infringements' without referral to their clients, like yourselves, who may still naively believe that their agenda is 'parking management'. I would also suggest researching the current debacle unfolding on social media in relation to customer complaints about BP who are actually suing Waitrose customers for 'transgressions' just like my own situation.

Waitrose are now receiving a lot of adverse publicity, now that BP has become so litigious and I believe thousands of people have received court papers. It seems that so many clients, blinded by the idea of 'parking management for free' have fallen for the spiel of a dominant company whose agenda is profit alone. It is not 'parking management' to have BP employees on site taking pictures of cars and stating they have observed an overstay yet provide no photographic evidence of both the start and finish time that the car was allegedly parked. They merely state the “observed from” and “observed to” times in their letters. This is not car park management as, for example, no checks seem to be made when non-disabled people park in disabled bays. It's pure profiteering by your agent, routinely 'farming' car parks with no consideration for individual customer needs and circumstances.

My view is that enforcement of parking spaces by a notorious and litigious third party firm using their own employees and a few signs (which do not comply with the British Parking association Code of Practice for members), is completely incompatible with the customer service ethic of Waitrose.

I would welcome your own view on this harassment and hope you see fit to intervene immediately to ensure that BP cancel all the PCN’s forthwith before this matter gets worse for Waitrose and potentially John Lewis.

My research about this matter has revealed that Waitrose have cancelled some of these tickets in the past which has helped to restore my faith a little, albeit tempered with frustration that Waitrose are allowing such an aggressive agent to have free reign to intimidate customers for their own profit, at your (and your customers') own expense.

yours faithfully
xxxxxxx

Umkomaas

C) email to Steve Clark at BPA asking if he can confirm the signs at Waitrose are non compliant with BPA COP

No - don’t ask him if they are non-compliant, that is more likely to elicit an evasive response.

Better to ask whether the signage shown meets the requirements laid out in the BPA Code of Practice at the dates (years) shown against each sign (the Code of Practice changed from year to year, so there may have been some subtle changes as each CoP evolved).

Do you know what compliance criteria the signs have to meet? You need to have this stuff at your fingertips, especially if this progresses to court and you have to argue it.

https://www.britishparking.co.uk/Code-of-Practice-and-Compliance-Monitoring

Umkomaas

Two of these PCN’s were for exactly the same time period in 2016

Give the date and the actual times shown on each ticket.

I originally spoke to a manager in 2014

But this is 2 years before the tickets about which you are complaining, it is utterly irrelevant! For the last time - drop it. It is introducing an irrelevance that will confuse.

I have now been sent a Letter dated 08/03/2019 from BP informing me that they have instructed their legal department, BW Legal to commence legal action against me in the form of issuing a claim against me in the county court in respect of unpaid “debt” if full payment or a response is not received by the 11th April 2019.

You should ask Waitrose to confirm unambiguously whether they have given BP written authority to sue their customers through the county courts in England and Wales, and if so, the date of that authority.

I would also politely suggest that you also familiarise yourself with a private Members' Bill from Sir Greg Knight, Lord Hunt of Wirral which has recently been passed as law. https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2017-19/parkingcodeofpractice.html

This is now an Act of Parliament (Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019). But suggesting he ‘familiarises himself’ is rather presumptuous and not likely to get him on your side!

I have researched the matter extensively and I am aware of all legal options open to me. I intend to escalate my challenge against Waitrose and BP to the relevant authorities.

Really? Deep pockets? Only threaten that which you are prepared for and capable of carrying out.

You need to trim down the letter, there’s too much of a rant brewing. I lost the will to read right through it in detail to the end - and I have an interest in parking issues. A busy CEO will be more interested in the latest sales figures of Waitrose sausages than parking charges. So you need to ‘catch his eye’ with a precision guided weapon rather than a Gatling gun.