Sensible questioning or costly barrack-room lawyering: which?

Cark

As a newcomer, I hope I'm not a time-waster. Reason for the topic headline is that since I received a PCN, I've roamed the Internet looking for sensible advice. I've now registered with MSE because of the quality of discussion I've seen here and the help in this forum section.

 Having noted  the advice of kindly strangers on other forums  I'm now in possession of several 'templates'  for my dealings with the PCN issuer.

 The situation has come about because I misread a parking notice at a supermarket car park in October last year, and thought I had 2 hours free of charge as had been the usual arrangement. It seems, now, that I erred in my perception.

 Possible cause was the aftermath of a stroke I suffered earlier in 2019 -- I'm still slowly recovering, and at the time of the  alleged breach of contract  was still struggling to get back to normal.

Conscious of the fact that the store's car park had always allowed 2 hours' free parking, and having, at my wife's request, confirmed that by looking up at a sign (she hadn't her glasses with her) and seen, very clearly, "2 HOURS" We were out of there and heading home after 1 hour 45 minutes.

It was quite a shock when a letter from Euro Car Parks arrived out of the blue around a week later, seeking £85 for an alleged breach of contract, discounted to £50 if I paid within 14 days. What was baffling about the Notice was that it made no mention of what specific terms of the "contract" I had broken.

At one Internet forum, i was told not to respond to Euro Car Parks and refuse to tell them if I was the driver. I was also advised that the PCN, because it failed to state the length of the parking period I had breached, did not comply with the so-called Industry Code of Best Practice, and therefore was not valid within the terms of paragraph 4 of some Schedule or other (Protection of Freedoms Act) and should be ignored.

 My wife, however, has had a lot to put up with of late. We're in our 70s and very much dependent on each other, and she was distressed by the PCN and its £85 demand. She said she could not bear the thought of an extended period of harassment if I refused to say that I was the vehicle driver -- after all: we were not guilty of anything. The time limit was 2 hours and we didn't exceed that

After mulling over all the various bits of advice -- don't talk to Euro Car Parks, don't tell them who the driver is, don't worry about Euro Car Parks because "it's a company that has never been known to go to Court" and also, this advice: don't worry about it, they're just a bunch of idiots who can't tell the time: 2 hours -- at least! -- is the usual duration at supermarkets in the UK, it couldn't be less than that.  I decided I would write to them, complaining that the PCN failed to conform with the Code of Practice and that I was lodging an Appeal because I had  no idea what were the grounds for the notice.

I also warned Euro Car Parks that if I had to make a special journey out to the supermarket -- representing an almost 50-mile round trip --  just so I could read the contract terms which I assumed would be on the signage, then I would counter-sue in any legal action. .

I expected an apology at least. Instead, I eventually received an arrogant letter saying "appeal dismissed". the letter's contents had been re-written to provide specific details  (parking longer than the1 hour 30 minutes allowed). However, this was more than 2 weeks after I had asked Euro Car Parks to explain itself. . . and 2 days after my wife and I had made the return trip to the store to take pictures of the signage. (It was only at that point when I realised I must have erred in misreading the details. Though then again, I have no idea if the sign I was looking at then was the same as the onesign in place on the day of the alleged contract breach).

I was advised by other wel-meaning folks to write to the chairman (I think they meant the CEO) of the supermarket company complaining about the treatment I had received, asking that person to set aside the PCN. I was also advised not to have any further contact with Euro Car Parks on the basis that, 'hey're just trying to frighten you; ignore them; they won't go to Court because they never do".

Meanwhile, I 've been looking at the assorted templates I have from different Internet resources, the majority of which seem to wish to give the impression that, should I make use of them, I'll look like a lawyer who pulls no punches. I must (the templates say) require of Euro Car Parks that it proves it is the landowner in this case, and if it isn't, I must demand of it a copy of whatever contract it has with the landowner. I must also establish from it the date on which it changed the previous 2-hour parking allowance to  1 hour 30 minutes, (Euro Car Parks to provide independent proof that it isn't lying) and if it had planning permission to do so (and advertising consent to erect new signage). I must also require of the company to quantify the charge it was demanding, and to account for the sum in detail. I must. . . I should. . . I ought to. . . Etc etc seemingly ad infinitum.

The position now is that I have not responded to EuroCar Parks' further demand (2 weeks ago) for £85 because post-stroke fatigue is  exhausting and I am experiencing considerable stress in trying to cope with all this at a time when the medical people have said I must not worry at all, about anything. Anxiety and stress heighten the horrific prospect of another stroke that could be even worse.)

I have, however, now received a communication from a hitherto unknown entity: a debt collection  agency which requires that I pay it £145 within 14 days otherwise it will "recommend its client to go to Court to recover the debt owing". Quite where this fabulous sum has come from I have no idea.

So . . .

Should I now respond to the DCA acting on behalf of "The Creditor" (Euro Car Parks) with a letter which raises all sorts of questions and makes all kinds of demands as per the stuff in the various templates I'm being advised to use. . . or are all those various requests / demands the very ammunition Euro Car Parks and its DCA needs to keep on inflating the charge here? From a breathtakingly venal  £85 with discount to £50 to an £85 with no prospect of discount to a final demand for an entirely new figure of £145 is a pattern of incremental extortion that's going up all the time.

Is resort to any kind kind of well-intentioned barrack room lawyerism going to cost far more than it could possibly achieve? (Let's face it, I know who the landowner is, I know who its appointed contractor is, and me knowing the when/where/how of planning permissions and advertisement consents doesn't strike me as being of fundamental relevance to my position .)

Right now, I'm inclined to see if I can identify who the CEO of the store group is, and what his/her postal address actually is. I  will not, on principle, succumb to extortion -- and yet, and yet . . . It's long been said that a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client. I can't afford to be that kind of fool, neither in monetary nor physical terms, as the stress on my wife and myself increases.

Umkomaas

Too much to read in detail - we have hundreds of posts to read each day ..... but it seems you're at the debt collector stage. If so, you ignore debt collectors (please read about dealing with them in the NEWBIES FAQ sticky). Come back on this thread if you get a Letter of Claim from the parking firm (or their solicitors) or a county court claim via the Northampton CCBC. 

Short of a landowner cancellation or a Judge finding in your favour, nothing will stop this in its tracks unless you pay.  Barrack room lawyers don't get this stuff!

D_P_Dance

The industry is unregulated so anything goes.  I agree with you that some/most of the defences one reads on here are legalistic and someimes, imo anyway, unnecessary.  Having attended County Court several times I can say without contradiction tt judges are not fools,  and can recognise a scam when they see one.  Endess wrangling aboyt who was driving is usually futile.  If someone did not opay they are wrong, if a P&D machine was out of action they are right.

Nine times out of ten these tickets are scams, so consider complaining to your MP., it can cause the scammer extra costs and work, and in some cases, cancellation.

Parliament is well aware of the MO of these private parking companies, many of whom are former clampers, and on 15th March 2019 a Bill was enacted to curb the excesses of these shysters. Codes of Practice are being drawn up, an independent appeals service will be set up, and access to the DVLA's date base more rigorously policed, persistent offenders denied access to the DVLA database and unable to operate.

Hopefully life will become impossible for the worst of these scammers, but until this is done you should still complain to your MP, citing the new legislation.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/8/contents/enacted

Just as the clampers were finally closed down, so hopefully will many of these Private Parking Companies.

ShakeItOff

It is worth remembering cthay even if any PPC doesn't pursue court action currently, they have 6 years from the date of the alleged issue to bring their claim. 

I would suggest keeping all correspondence you have received so far in a safe place. This will include the stupid debt collector stage letters you are about to receive. They will look very threatening, but they have all the power of a wet teabag to "enforce" any action. Only a court can order that. 

If you get a "letter before claim" (check out the newbies thread #2 to see what this is all about), follow the advice in that thread.

Fruitcake

Everything you need to know about this scam can be found in the sticky thread for NEWBIES which is just underneath where you clicked the New Discussion button. The advice to complain to the store manager/CEO, and not to name the driver is correct, as is getting photos of the site and signage.
However you should have received a PoPLA code with your appeal rejection, and used it to make a second stage appeal, but if debt collectors are now involved then you are most likely past that point.

Keep on at the landowner/store manager/CEO.
Ignore debt collectors. Post 4 of the NEWBIES tells you why it is safe to do so.
Complain to your MP about this unregulated scam. 

Contact the local planning department where the store is located and check what the planning approval said about parking times. It is not unheard of for the scammers to reduce the previously approved time in breach of the original planning terms and conditions.
If that has happened, make a complaint to the council, the BPA, and the DVLA because the scammers had no right to access the keeper's personal data.
Also check if the scammers have planning approval for ANPR scameras, and advertising consent for the signs. Not having the latter is a criminal offence.
Again, if these planning conditions have been breached, complain to the entities above.

MistyZ

You can simplify this a little by trusting in the information available on this forum, it's very tried and tested.  
It's a little late for a landowner cancellation but that's something you can do very easily.  Which supermarket was this?  Just naming it usually results in someone providing the CEO's name & email address.  Tell the CEO the circumstances but keep it simple - cut out any flourishes, emphasise that you were recovering from a stroke and that if the period of parking had changed, that was far from obvious.  Tell him or her how distressing this is to both of you and why.  Don't say who was driving, just say 'we' did this & that.  

Don't worry about whether you are over-thinking this, just accept the fact that you have been over-thinking it!  And I can well understand why.  But now is the time to try to chill out - you don't need all this angst - and plod on methodically with some ongoing support behind you from this forum.  But really go for it with the CEO complaint as soon as possible.  

Cark

Many apologies for the lateness of this reply to all the helpful posts on here from individuals kind enough to devote time and energy to an opening post that was much lengthier than I had intended( for which: additional apologies.)

This is by way of an update to say I'm certainly going to follow MistyZ's advice about 'chilling out', though it's surprising how something like this can sneak up on you as a nagging thought at the most unexpected moments (as when trying to go to sleep). But the stroke's predictable aftermath of physical fatigue may be helping here, even if it's interfering with me attending to day to day things (like logging into this forum).

I have made contact with the Local Authority's planning department and am pursuing the matter with a Planning Officer who has so far been helpful, even though the information she has been able to provide hasn't of itself been especially useful: it seems the store applied to install a CCTV camera and pole, as well as advertisement signs (the notices containing the so-called 'contract terms') back in November 2017, and the applications were granted without conditions attached. (But then, those applications made no reference to reducing the car parking allowance anyway.)

What I need to establish for my own peace of mind is if a planning condition was already imposed on the store's location to the effect that the free car parking there should always be at minimum of 2 hour duration. Reason for wishing to know this is because another store in the same town had that identical condition imposed on it by the Local Authority at the time it opened, this because the Council was keen, and reportedly still is, to encourage as many visitors to the town as possible.

I realise, there's no point in me insulting my own intelligence or that of the good people helping on this thread were I to even bother acknowledging receipt of the £145 threat from Debt Recovery Plus: the amount seems to have been plucked out of the air and is presumably intended to make me think they can go on doing this as long as they wish.

Instead I will continue on with my email correspondence with the planning officer, and I will write to the Chief Executive of the store concerned, not least because my wife is as certain as I am that on the day/date in question, the signs we saw related to a free parking duration of 2 hours. The possibility that the car parking operator has wrongly issued a charge for a day/date occurring before the signage was changed cannot be ruled out.

I do not want to get into correspondence with Euro Car Parks, and had hoped the store itself could tell me the day/date when the restricted duration came into force. But the store has erected large signs which actually say,"car parking has nothing to do with us, you must talk to the car park 'operator'. When we asked if we could speak to the store manager, an employee did her best to help but said no, she couldn't remember when the signage was changed, and no, Customer Services nationally would be of no help "hoestly, there's no point in you even asking them". The corporate arrogance on display here is nauseating.

As to the store, it is a Marks & Spencer Food Hall. Judging from whatever publicity I've been able to pick up on nationally from a Google search, it seems M&S has decided, in the most cynical fashion, to monetize the fallibilities and frailties of its customers in order to assure whatever might be the amount of blood money it receives each week from Euro Car Parks Ltd.  We have shopped with M&S for years. We will never do so again.

The name I have for the CEO is Steve Rowe, and the address as Registered office, Marks &Spencer Group plc, Waterside House, 35 North Wharf Road, LONDON W2 1NW.

Again, apologies for failing to come back before now to this thread (and, again, many thanks to everyone who has been so kind enough to offer support and assistance. I shall try not to be a time-waster here!

DoaM

Is M&S the only business at that site? i.e. is it an M&S car park? Or is it a multi-outlet site? If M&S only then go after them; if the latter then still go after M&S but you may also need to find out who is the actual landowner/who engaged ECP to "manage" parking at the site.

D_P_Dance

I would very much doubt that M&S deliberately rip off customers.  

Redx

The complaint to the CEO at m and s should preferably be by email , check the site ceoemail for details
I doubt it's their site , most likely a retail park with more than one shop , name the site and town on here , because you need to know who pays the non domestic business rates , so ask that council person too

The £145 is easily understood , it's £85 for the default daily parking tariff for breaking their so called rules of the parking contract , accepted at the time of parking , plus the typical £60 debt collector addition because they want some money off you as well , no win , no fee , hence the abuse of process additional charges
When the appeal was rejected , they should have issued a popla code , so did they ? Was it used or not ?
Try to avoid all the spurious info , stick to the facts , because the facts are crucial , less is more with the background info

Cark

Quick update: the land in question is a small-ish corner location, with a car park capable of (at a guess) no more than 60 spaces. The car park is unique to the Marks & Spencer "Food Hall", it having taken over the site/premises of a former Co-op branch. It is not a retail park or mall; just a store on its own with frontage onto a busy town centre street and car park at the back.

As to POPLA: when we received the claim latter from Euro Car Parks, we hadn't a clue what they were talking about. We were both certain that the free parking duration had been 2 hours when we visited, but as the Notice didn't mention any durations at all, we were mystified. The only way of contacting ECP via email (we wouldn't telephone them) was via their own 'appeals' email address, and it was that which I emailed saying yes, we had parked and shopped at the store between the times and on the day/date stated because the parking duration when we were there was 2 hours. (We knew that, because we'd looked up at the nearest sign to where we parked.)

ECP subsequently sent out another email document to us which loftily pronounced "appeal dismissed" (not that we had actually 'appealed' against anything, merely taken them to task for sending out threatening letters which did not contain any precise details as to the specific 'offence' committed.This further letter of theirs effectively re-wrote their original parking charge notice:

"Thank you for your letter of appeal. The details of the Parking Charge Notice are as follows" and also contained a "Unique POPLA Verification Code".

I saw no point in dealing with POPLA because this ECP letter was adamant that parking at the location on that day was of a maximum 90 minutes' duration, and that as I'd already said we had parked between the times given on the original NTK, it seemed a waste of time to even embark on that course. By that time, of course, my wife and I had had to make the 50 mile rouond trip back to the store just to find out what the so-called 'contract' actually said: we were mightily surprised to discover that the signage referred to an allowed maximum period of NINETY MINUTES.

It was then when we went into the store to ask when those signs had been put up that we were pointed towards a large sign the store had placed at its entrance which said that anyone with a query relating to its car park must contact Euro Car Parking because parking had nothing to do with Marks & Spencer. I took a photograph of that M&S sign, so unimpressed was I by the company's blatant indifference. Thanks to Redx for the reference to ceo mail. I will chase that up now.

As before, thank you to everyone for helping.