Is the IAS a kangaroo court? Annual Report 2019/20 - 96% of cases are found in favour of PPCs

Coupon-mad

Not sure if we've seen this before but I noticed that there was an IAS Annual Report that I hadn't read yet:

https://www.theias.org/uploads/I-UFbqV_hqUEzZkHFXuC12N79BZnxX4hHPXwZyq4p1Q/2019-2020 IAS Annual Report.pdf

Here is a headline figure that they've buried in there:

A total of 734 (4%) appeals that reached adjudication were found in favour of the motorist.

FOUR PER CENT!  THAT'S DOWN ON THE 5% AND 6% FROM THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.

No wonder this 'service' is cheap (as he boasts).  It's easy to decide that "PPCs win again" when that this is pretty much the case every time.  The fact that some hapless people actually paid £15 for this service without Googling it first, is the saddest indictment of all.  Those poor, poor people.

At the start, for several pages of this report, the Lead Adjudicator has used it as a platform to talk about the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 but he has admitted that most 'repeat offenders' (we'd say repeat resident victims) are in residential car parks. 

Yeah, we know, they don't get given permits in a timely fashion and instead are given £100 PCNs in multiples, as shown by ripped-off people who have just moved into flats and can't afford to pay out £100 let alone multiples of that, sobbing their hearts out to warn people on UKCPM's Trustpilot page, for one:

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.uk-carparkmanagement.co.uk

I could link other PPC Trustpilot pages, but that one sums up what is actually happening in residential car parks at the hand of ex-clamper PPCs.  This is relevant because as we know, IPC members primarily 'operate' at residential car parks (and the IAS report confirms that).


Back to the report:

The IAS shows here in two consecutive sentences, what they think of parking operators as opposed to motorist appellants:

I must acknowledge the positive response of parking operators to the unique challenges created by the pandemic lockdown and their willingness to accommodate motorists’ mitigation stemming from coronavirus.

Regrettably, there were motorists who tried to use Covid-19 as grounds to appeal a parking charge - with a small handful of appellants attempting to use self-isolation as mitigation. However, in all instances no evidence was provided by these appellants.

REGRETTABLY?  REGRETTABLY...!


And:

It was pleasing to note that there were very few instances of multiple tickets during the lockdown.

Errrr..., wait a minute...how would the IAS know? 

The answer is they wouldn't.  And nor would a lot of residents, given the IPC firms' propensity to avoid giving the driver the heads up of a windscreen PCN and preferring to run to the DVLA to get the tenant's old address as quick as they can, so the poor person doesn't even know about their 10 PCNs, let alone have a chance to appeal them.

Final word from the Lead Adjudicator:

I am always looking for ways to improve the quality of service provided by the IAS to motorists and I would invite and actively encourage any interested party to contact me directly via my email: leadadjudicator@theias.org.uk. While this channel of communication is not to be used to discuss specific cases, I would welcome ideas and input on how the IAS can further improve its service to the UK motoring public.

"Its service to the UK public" is he joking?  It serves the parking industry!  His reasoning on ignoring mitigation and starting a sentence about COVID self-isolators with the words 'regrettably, there were motorists who tried to use Covid-19" is just gobsmacking in its anti consumer stance.  A proper appeals service MUST consider mitigation and fairness.

There is more! 

The table on page 11 doesn't match what the words below it say it shows.  The table shows only NON-STANDARD APPEALS and that 3% involved a person using a third party to do that non-standard appeal on their behalf.    Underneath it, the Lead Adjudicator reckons it shows 97% of appeals were 'standard' and 3% were 'non-standard'!

Snakes_Belly

I don't think that judges realise how unfair that the IAS Appeals Service is. 

Although I was treated fairly in court the judge did seem to think that the matter could have been resolved without court action. It should be resolved without court action but will not be whilst the PPC's and their clingons remain unregulated.

We must make sure that the new CoP and Single Appeals Service is robust enough. 

Timeouts

Gladstones / Davies / Hurley set up the IPC/IAS scam.  

The BPA tried to join the scam by setting up WHOPLA and soon discovered that Wright Hassall solicitors were copying the Davies / Hurley model ?
SUFFICE TO SAY WRIGHT HASSALL WAS SACKED ?

Who at the BPA was so stupid, probably Mr Upskirt himself .. the Troy BOY

This is a major problem for government and the Ministes.  
One being Robert Jenrick MP who arranged a deal with a property developer in London. 

Jenrick is in charge of the new code of practice ?   If the man can do deals, what deals is he  doing with the private parking scam industry and in paricular the IPC and BPA 

Private deals stinks of Hancock and if the new code of practice is changed we will know that deals have be done

4% of succesful appeas by the IAS must show the scam, it's lip service

As said before, the IPC sould be closed down for their scam. The directors Davies and Hurley are overdue a holiday in her majesty's hotel 

Coupon-mad

Wright Hassall were not sacked by the BPA, they were a stop gap. Astonishingly, AFAIK, the BPA sees no problem with what Wright Hassall did and how they conducted the process when they pretended to be POPLA. 

That was a low point in the BPA's POPLA history and the Wright Hassall version was as unfair to consumers as the IAS is.  Neither are suitable to run any appeals service.

Timeouts

Coupon-mad said:

Wright Hassall were not sacked by the BPA, they were a stop gap. Astonishingly, AFAIK, the BPA sees no problem with what Wright Hassall did and how they conducted the process when they pretended to be POPLA. 

That was a low point in the BPA's POPLA history and the Wright Hassall version was as unfair to consumers as the IAS is.  Neither are suitable to run any appeals service.

Of course Wright Hassall were sacked, they were never a stop gap, what the BPA failed to understand was the WHOPLA was a copy of the IPC. 

Sacked or resigned, the BPA had no alternative but to terminate them .. which they did.

kenzo55

@Snakes_Belly

The judge was the same in my case. Out of 14 paragraphs, a full seven were the judge saying if I had only got in touch with PPC, IAS they would have looked on the claim benevolently.

Cloud Cuckoo Land, some judges should do some solid research before making comments on which there is no evidence to back up.

It may be only piffling car parking cases to them, but it is a week's wages/pension to a large swathe of the country.

How unconscionable and extravagant would a Lord Justice find a fine that equals their weekly wage of £5,000. And they probably have savings and investments to draw upon - no food bank in their case. LJ of Ivory Tower - what is a food bank?

AnotherForumite

A proper appeals service MUST consider mitigation and fairness.

Given that the remit of an appeals service  is to make a judgment on the lawfulness of a Parking Charge, and that civil law does not allow for mitigating circumstances; this assertion is incorrect.

Coupon-mad

AnotherForumite said:

A proper appeals service MUST consider mitigation and fairness.

Given that the remit of an appeals service  is to make a judgment on the lawfulness of a Parking Charge, and that civil law does not allow for mitigating circumstances; this assertion is incorrect.

If you say so, but then again you would say that.

In fact, the CRA 2015 and also the doctrine of frustration of contract both relate to mitigating circumstances, as does the Equality Act 2010.  So there are three rules of law that prove you wrong for starters.

A test of fairness is an issue in law.

PPCs pretend the CRA 2015 doesn't exist and hope Judges don't realise that the CRA relates not just to unfair terms but also signage...unlike the UTCCRs that was briefly and weakly considered by the Supreme Court in Beavis, but discarded because it didn't fit the way they wanted to change the law on penalties.

You must be so proud of the IAS finding in your favour 96% of the time.

I don't expect your company's Trustpilot page is any better than UKCPMs?  They should be ashamed and so should the IAS, but they both carry on regardless of the damage they do, as do many PPCs.  

The current situation with a kangaroo court of an appeals 'service' and then credit clamping (using unreliable DVLA addresses in your race to court and adding on false costs for a 'debt collector' letter chain that you pay nothing for) will end.

About time. 

Your company must be aware that your number is going to be up in many ways and you are going to have to change or you won't survive the changes next year.  It's why you are here on this forum, after all, reading posts and breaching the MSE rules about company reps.

Snakes_Belly

@ kenzo55

"The judge was the same in my case. Out of 14 paragraphs, a full seven were the judge saying if I had only got in touch with PPC, IAS they would have looked on the claim benevolently."

The PPC's have latched onto this and use it against the defendant. Judges are of the opinion that it is like dealing with Marks and Spencer or John Lewis.

Quite a number of claims could be sorted out if there was a system in place like Merseyflow where if there was an issue with making a payment you have a certain amount of time to make that payment. 

In my case an invoice had been generated on myparkingcharge before I got home. I was hardly going try to pay the original tariff on that platform.
 

ihatetrump

@Coupon-mad and @Snakes_Belly - you are both so so right here and as I have evidenced in another running thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6272230/exposing-the-scams-of-the-ias-the-ipc-and-gladstones-all-run-by-william-hurley-john-davies#latest

Hurley & Davies setup United Trade & Industry Ltd back in 2012 and then allowed it to trade under a variety of names using the work 'Independent' to scam the unwitting into believing it was genuinely independent - not so - it is a profit making scam.

This is a company that has NEVER EVER been audited - although not a legal requirement, a genuine independent body would be setup in such a way as to require an audit.

Check the financial history out here:

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08248531/filing-history

2019 (last year of filing) - shareholder dividends of £172,500  (on top of any undisclosed salaries) and £200,000 in the year before that!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Add to that the shareholder structure sham that they both setup - Davies still hasn't filed his first accounts yet for Gladstone Holdings - 2 years now - shows his total contempt for company law........

What really beggars belief is how the DVLA have also allowed themselves to be so gullible and be scammed into thinking the IAS is an independent body - something that the CoP must be made aware of.

bargepole

Nothing very surprising about any of this.

It just further underlines what a complete nest of vipers the whole United Trade & Industry / Gladstones Solicitors / IPC / IAS set-up really is, and why they should never have been granted ATA status in the first place.

Fortunately, the DVLA are no longer involved, with the MHCLG now responsible for producing the statutory Code of Practice. I believe that the civil servants there are not as gullible as their colleagues at the DVLA.