UPDATE: Moving house - Europcar admin fee & awaiting NtH from Premier Parking Solutions HELP

OnTheRoadAgain2000

Good afternoon all and thanks in advance for any help.

Apologies if there is already a thread answering this – I’ve not seen one, but please direct me if so.

A quick run through:

I hired a car from Europcar from 14 Sept 2020 to 20 Sept 2020.

On 13 Oct 2020 I received a letter and £40 administration fee invoice from Europcar dated 5 Oct 2020 informing me they had received a Notice to Keeper from Premier Parking Solutions (PPS) for parking charge of £100 (down to £60 if paid within 14 days).

The Notice to Keeper from PPS is dated as being sent on 23 Sept 2020 (Attached are two images of badly done photocopy sent to me by Europcar of the PPS NTK).

The alleged offence is from 15 September 10-18am.

Europcar has informed me they have passed my details to the issuing body as the driver (Eurocar’s words not mine) at the time of the incident. And they have also stated they will charge my credit card with £40 for an admin fee on the 15th day after sending the letter (it took eight days to arrive with me).

I have disputed this with Europcar and asked they cancel the charge. My questions relate to this.

Firstly, what can I do to dispute the admin fee with Europcar? They say they will refund after any successful appeal. (See the bottom of this post for my email complaint to Europcar and below that their response).

Secondly, I have still not received any communications or any Notice to Keeper from PPS in my name. What is the time period legally allowed? I think I read somewhere PPS has 14 days to get in touch with the hire company after any incident and then a further 21 days to issue something to the hirer. Is this correct? Is it 21 days concurrently after the 14 days, or 21 days from the date they get the info from the hire company? Today is day 35 from the date of the alleged incident.

Does this have any bearing on Europcar charging me an admin fee? I can’t very well appeal something I have never received.

And does it mean any Notice to Keeper if it ever does arrive in my name is automatically outside the legal limit for any charge?

I have read all the threads giving advice on the appeal process and appeal to POPLA. My query relates to the current letter from Europcar.

Thanks once again for all the great work on this forum.


LETTER/EMAIL SENT TO EUROPCAR COMPLAINING:

Dear Sir/Madam

I write in regards to the letter from Europcar dated 5th October 2020 received on 13th October 2020 in relation to my rental of a car for the period of 14th September 2020 to 20th September 2020, with Rental Agreement No ************ and Res No *****************.

This booking was made using Auto Europe and the corresponding voucher number is ************.

This is now the second complaint I have made about Europcar, following the unauthorised amount of £3.20 charged to my credit card on 25th September 2020. On that occasion, Auto Europe immediately issued a refund of £3.20 and apologised for the inconvenience, with Europcar unable to offer any reason whatsoever for the erroneous charge.

Moving on to the new complaint.

Alongside said letter received on 13th October 2020, I also received an invoice from Eurocar totalling £40.00 for an “administration fee”. The invoice is numbered #520026978263.

As detailed in this letter, a £40 administration fee will be deducted from my credit card on the 15th day following this letter. The documentation that you have provided in support of this transaction is a speculative and unenforceable separate invoice from a private company called Premier Parking Solutions Limited for a “Parking Charge” of £60.00 for the 15th September 2020.

I consider the aforesaid “Traffic Violation Invoice” from Europcar as fraudulent and will report it to my card provider as such.

I have yet to receive any correspondence from Premier Parking Solutions Limited outlining its speculations.

The “Notice to Keeper” addressed to Europcar – which has been badly and illegibly photocopied and included in the letter to me from Europcar – from Premier Parking Solutions Limited with the “Parking Charge Details” does not specify the terms and conditions that were advertised at the alleged parking facility, merely referring to a "No trace of payment" for a “Period of Parking” of 23m 50s. As such it is impossible for either myself or for Europcar to judge whether or not any breach of Premier Parking Solutions Limited’s terms and conditions did in actual fact occur.

In the terms and conditions of hire quoted on your website section 9.3 on Charges states:

Relating to Fines and Penalties 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 an issuing body.”

The invoice issued by Premier Parking Solutions Limited is not a Penalty Charge Notice, nor is it a fine, nor any kind of notification of traffic offence. It has not been issued by any UK authority and was not issued as a result of a contravention of any current UK traffic legislation. It is therefore not covered under the terms of my rental agreement with Europcar and Europcar has no authority to charge my credit card for any fee as there was no requirement on Europcar to take any action on receipt of this invoice.

Due to those reasons given above the invoice from Europcar and any charges against my credit card are unauthorised and should be immediately disregarded and overturned by Europcar.

Given your understanding of the nature of civil proceedings relevant to trespass and contract you will be aware that a contract entered into by a driver using a private parking facility involves no other parties than the driver and the operator of that facility. You will also therefore understand that despite being the registered keeper of a vehicle that has entered a private parking facility, a rental company such as yourselves is not a party to such a contract and therefore has no liability or responsibility towards either the driver or the operator of the facility, no way of knowing what terms if any were agreed and no legal position to decide the validity of any claim made under that contract.

As Europcar cannot be pursued for payment of a contract to which they were not party I therefore do not understand how you can claim to charge an invoice to “cover the administration costs we incur in handling the original notice”.

I dispute that any contract was agreed or entered into with Premier Parking Solutions Limited and therefore that any charge was due for an alleged "No trace of payment". However, even if there were no dispute over whether a contract existed, Europcar as a third party has no business making a charge to their customer that is in no way covered by their terms and conditions of hire.

I would respectfully suggest that the correct course of action for Europcar to take in circumstances such as this would be to forward the Notice to Keeper to the hirer of the vehicle, inform the parking facility operator that they have done so and to allow the hirer to correspond directly with the parking facility operator. As I understand it the registered keeper in such a situation has no obligation to disclose the details of the driver to the parking facility operator, and data processing rules under the Data Protection Act 1998 would presumably prohibit this in any case. Although, I also note you have already passed on details of the hirer to the issuing body as stated in the letter sent on 5th October 2020 by Europcar to the hirer.

To make my position clear I would like to reiterate the following points:

- I dispute that any contract was agreed with Premier Parking Solutions Limited

- If any contract had existed between the hirer and Premier Parking Solutions Limited it would have been a private contract and Europcar would not have been party to it

- Europcar’s terms and conditions of hire have no bearing on an unconnected private contract between individuals

- In the event of such a contract Europcar would have no legal position to decide on its validity or otherwise

- Europcar had no liability for a claim under the contract that is alleged to have existed between the hirer and Premier Parking Solutions Limited

In sending an invoice for an administration fee and stating to claim the £40.00 on the 15th day from the hirer’s credit card, Europcar has acted outside the terms the hire agreement

Given the above, I am sure that you will agree that Europcar have erroneously issued an invoice when they had no right to do so. I trust that Europcar will acknowledge and apologise for their genuine mistake and ensure that the invoice is recalled within seven (7) days from the date of this email, thus avoiding the necessity of my taking further action against Europcar.

I will also be writing a letter to my MP and the MP of the Europcar UK HQ in Leicestershire to raise the situation as the new Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 was put into place by Parliament specifically to drum these rogue operators and “private parking sharks” out of the business. Europcar should not be giving any credence to these rogue operators.


RESPONSE FROM EUROPCAR:

Dear Mr XXXXX

I refer to your email to Gary Smith which has been passed to me as a member of the Executive Relations Team.

Having read the contents of your email we would firstly like to apologise for the additional charge of £3.20. Regrettably, the charge is for an additional day’s hire as our rental location had terminated the hire on Monday the 21st September 2020, rather than the return date of 20th September 2020. We understand from your comments that this amount has been refunded by AutoEurope.

In response to your comments regarding our administration fee, we can advise that as a company we have the right to pass on your personal data under the Terms and Conditions of the hire. By signing the rental agreement you have indicated acceptance of the Terms and Conditions which in this instance stipulates that you agree for Europcar to provide your personal details to the DVLA, HM Revenue &Customs, the police, debt collectors and any other relevant organisation. Please refer to section 21.2.4 of the attached document.

We can further advise that our Privacy Policy which forms part of the Terms and Conditions of hire also stipulates that we can transfer information to public or private enforcement agencies for the purpose of addressing Parking Notices, alleged or actual breaches of contract and associated fines. Please refer to section 2h of the attached Privacy Policy.

We note your comments regarding trespass and contract and can advise that Europcar is a party to the contract as we are the registered keeper of the vehicle and our legal obligation is to provide driver details or make payment as requested by the issuing authority. We refer you to ‘Section 56 and Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012: 12.1 Hire Vehicles’ which stipulates the following:

‘A person or organization hiring a vehicle from a hire company is responsible for parking charges during the hire period if they have signed an agreement with the hire company accepting liability. The hire company cannot be liable for unpaid parking charges during the period of hire if they provide a copy of the relevant hire agreement documents to the landholder within 28 days of receiving a ‘notice to keeper’ in the post’.

As Europcar has transferred liability for the parking charge, this will now allow you full autonomy to deal with the outstanding parking charge directly with the issuing authority.

If you are successful in getting the parking charge cancelled, please do get in touch with us and we will be more than happy to cancel/refund administration fee.

With reference to the administration fee for the traffic violation we can advise this is a valid charge and is levied in accordance with the Terms and Conditions of hire. We refer you to the highlighted section below;

Relating to Fines and Penalties 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 an issuing body.”

In conclusion we must respectfully advise the invoice for our administration fee of £40.00 has been raised and issued correctly and payment will be due on the 15th day from the date of the letter.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

Kind regards



  

OnTheRoadAgain2000

This line:
The alleged offence is from 15 September 19-18am.

Should say:
The alleged offence is from 15 September 2020 10:18am.

Redx

Check your contract with Europcar and see what they can charge you for , Penalties and fines don't count , check if it mentions private parking charge notices if invoices

If necessary , ask if they are in the bvrla and if yes tell them you want to invoke the bvrla dispute resolution scheme , arbitration

As a hirer or lessee you won't get an ntk , you should get an NTH , h for hirer , in your own name and address

Check the bottom of the first post in the Newbies FAQ sticky thread near the top of the forum for advice on hire or lease cars , a lot by Edna basher

There is so much detail in your post I lost the plot , try to put a bullet point precis of the main points , plus short , to the point questions , not war and peace , try a short , objective post below with numbered questions at the end

OnTheRoadAgain2000

I understand. Whether it is an NTK or an NTH, Ihave not received anything from PPS. It is now 35 days since the alleged incident. Trying to establish the relevance of the timing.
As for Europcar T&Cs, they have got round it by being vague. It says Penalties and Fines in the heading but then it clarifies 'issuing bodies' can include "either a public or a private enforcement agency that is entitled to issue parking charge notices and associated fines where a purported or actual breach of contract has arisen".
Europcar says the Terms and Conditions in this instance stipulates that you agree for Europcar to provide your personal details to the DVLA, HM Revenue &Customs, the police, debt collectors and any other relevant organisation.

nosferatu1001

They have simply parroted the line back, without addressing your point
INSTRUCT Them to cancel their invoice of £40, becuase it is an unauthorised charge and so will be disputed as such should they refuse to follow the terms and conditions as agreed and charge you anyway. This will be via a chargeback to the credit card company. They can save their own costs of dealing with this charge back by simply following the agreed T&C and confirmin gthat a private invoice is neither a Penalty nor is it a Fine. This is not a topic up for discussion 

OnTheRoadAgain2000

nosferatu1001 said:

INSTRUCT Them to cancel their invoice of £40, becuase it is an unauthorised charge and so will be disputed as such should they refuse to follow the terms and conditions as agreed and charge you anyway. This will be via a chargeback to the credit card company.

Thanks for commenting. I most definitely will be instructing them about this and informing them it is unauthorised. And I will also be raising a chareback dispute with the credit card provider should any charge appear.
However, I'm waiting to get more info from this forum about the timings as well. Can I inform Europcar that as I have still to received any communication from PPS the timescale for sending a NTK/NTH has now passed and any process is now null and void. Also, what if they never send anything? I cannot win an appeal and thus get a refund from Europcar if I don't have anything to appeal.
Also, I would imagine that Europcar's answer to me telling them a private invoice is not covered by their T&Cs is to again point out that it is. Even though I disagree with this.

T&Cs:
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 an issuing body. 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, make payments or otherwise liaise with any such issuing bodies 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 body (i) has rescinded the fine or penalty; and (ii) confirms that the original charge did not apply in any event. 9.3.1.2. If we receive a penalty charge notice or a parking charge notice that is issued by any issuing body for the Vehicle during your Hire Period and which is capable of being paid then we may pay it so that we mitigate the cost of it. Where we, at our discretion and for whatever reason, choose to pay such charges you will reimburse us the said charge plus our Third Party Administration Charge (for each charge we pay or each time we deal with such correspondence). If we do pay it then we will take the following actions: • we will give you notice that we have paid the penalty and supply an invoice for the cost of the penalty plus our Third Party Administration Charge; and • we will tell you that we intend to take the money for the cost of the penalty and the Third Party Administration Charge from your credit/debit card within 14 days of the date of our notice to you unless you write to us with a legitimate reason why the fine or penalty should not have been paid

OnTheRoadAgain2000

Redx said:

There is so much detail in your post I lost the plot , try to put a bullet point precis of the main points , plus short , to the point questions , not war and peace , try a short , objective post below with numbered questions at the end

I take your point. But my email to Europcar and their response can be ignored.

The pertinent info and quuestions are:

• What can I do to dispute the admin fee with Europcar? They say they will refund after any successful appeal.

• I have still not received any communications or any Notice to Keeper from PPS in my name. What is the time period legally allowed? I think I read somewhere PPS has 14 days to get in touch with the hire company after any incident and then a further 21 days to issue something to the hirer. Is this correct? Is it 21 days concurrently after the 14 days, or 21 days from the date they get the info from the hire company? Today is day 35 from the date of the alleged incident.

nosferatu1001

- your understanding of timescales is not right. 
lease company has 28 days to respond to the PPC, and the PPC have 21 days to get the NtH to you. Obviously it cannot be concurrent - think about that for a second! They have to wait for leas co to give them your address. 
So youre not out of time yet. 

However

NO pPC EVER sends the requisite para 13 and 14 docs. NEWBIES thread instructs you on this. 
I've already told you how to dispute them. The T&C heading is FINES AND PENALTIES. Capitalised F and P. This is an invoice. It is neitehr a fine nor a penalty, and so nothing within that section can apply. 

Half_way

One quick, but important thing:

Stop calling it an offence, no offence occured, the driver broke no law.
It may sound pedantic, but it's important to use the right words, and avoid using the wrong ones especially when dealing with hire/lease companies and other third parties.

Umkomaas

The timescales you quote are in the context of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Schedule 4) and the ability of the PPC to hold the keeper or the hirer liable for the charge. Failure to meet any of the deadlines does not make the parking charge void - and IPC members regularly pursue on the basis that the keeper/hirer was the driver unless proven otherwise. That will take a Judge to make a determination, and be contingent on you having a full knowledge of PoFA and its nuances and having the ability to argue them in front of the Judge ....... should it ever get to court. The PPC has 6 years to issue court proceedings. There is no quick or easy fix. 

Redx

As above

POFA indicates the timescales for all parties so they still have time to issue the NTH but these companies usually fail POFA due to not including hire documentation

You have been told how to retrieve an unauthorised payment already , but it may end up being paid at the end

You haven't mentioned the bvrla option at all , or doggedly following plan A which is the best option in all cases

If the company have named you as hirer , day to day keeper , they have fulfilled their lawful obligations

As for your contract , contract law is complex so don't expect easy answers , only a judge can determine the legal outcome , if it gets that far

There is no easy fix due to all these complexities , each topic is complicated and complex , which is an even better reason not to use legal words like offence and fine , they do not apply in your case at all