Civil Enforcement in public car park

richd70

• So, my father recently parked in a car park managed by Civil Enforcement. He is 80 years old and has recently applied for a blue badge, although that hasn’t come through yet (probably irrelevant, but paints you a picture, I guess)

• He parked in a public car park and attempted to ring the number shown on the sign to pay for parking - each of the 3 times he called, the call cut off part way through, he thought it wasn’t working, so he went to his appointment, returning 45 minutes later.

• 13 days later he received a PCN/NTK in the post showing photos of his car entering the car park and exiting the car park

• Stated offence is “Payment not made in accordance with terms displayed on signage”

• Offered a reduced [bribe] of £60 if paid within 14 days of issue date, otherwise full cost is £100

• I will obviously appeal for him, as I know this is just a scummy scam, but my other concern is whether my father is going to get upset and worried about all the aggressive letters CE will undoubtedly be sending him

Parking offence date: 24-Jun-2021

PCN Issue date: 5-Jul-2021

PCN arrived in post: 7-Jul-2021 (although could have been 8th or 9th)

I have read through the sticky 'newbie' posts with my cup of tea and biscuits - the good news is I am more informed, the bad news is I have put on 2 lbs

It appears my best course of action is ...

Step 1: Appeal online at Civil Enforcement’s website, using your template:

Re [my PCN number]

I dispute your 'parking charge', as the keeper of the vehicle. I deny any liability or contractual agreement and 
There will be no admissions as to who was driving and no assumptions can be drawn. Since your PCN is a 
photograph of the sign you contend was at the location on the material date as well as your images of the vehicle.

I will be making a complaint about your predatory conduct to your client landowner. vague template, I require an explanation of the allegation and your evidence. You must include a close up actual 

The last two lines in the template about PDT machine or overstay don’t apply in my case, so I assume I should exclude?

Step 2: Submit a POPLA appeal at their website

Step 3: Hope they give up!

I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a ‘golden ticket’ with CE, is there?

Anything else I should be doing, that I have missed?

Thanks

R

Le_Kirk

You seem to be at the right point with your reading of the NEWBIE.  Of course all appeals and communication are done in Dad's name and not "on behalf of".  If you are concerned about the effect that debt collector letters might have on him, you could send a Data Rectification Notice to the DPO of the PPC and inform them of the new address for service (still in his name) and give your address.  They must ERASE the old data and also inform all their agents and sub-contractors.  That way you will get the letters and can still keep him informed.  If the PPC send a POPLA code, you can use that to appeal and mention frustration of contract because the telephone number supplied by the PPC failed.  In your appeal, do not mention who was driving, that is why you use the standard blue text template, which has been written to stop you shooting yourself in the foot!

Redx

You missed plan A , complaint to the landowner

Yes appeal as keeper to CEL , in his name , not yours , with the blue text template , adapted to suit

Then appeal to Popla if CEL fail to cancel the PCN , using the usual suspects

As for golden ticket , check the NTK PCN against POFA , for compliance or non compliance

For the record , it's a private car park , not a public car park

Half_way

Who's car park was this.
For now don't do anything until you have more advice.
The equality act is what's at play here, and if an occupant of the vehicle qualifies for a BB odds on they will be covered under the EA

Again who's car park?

D_P_Dance

A complaint to his MP would not be out of order.

Coupon-mad

I think an adapted line about pay and display is relevant, only pay by phone in this case.  But retailer complaint first! 

Please do us and yourself (and the driving public) a favour and stick around on this forum every week - at least for the Summer - to ensure you see when the Government publish and open the final Technical Consultation.

We will be talking about it and the public will have about 4 weeks we think, to tell the MHCLG what you think about the level of parking charges, that the MHCLG has admirably decided already will start at £50 (50% discount) and not £100.

It's not open yet but please keep check here to see when it is.  We need real people like you to counter the spamming that happened last time from the industry.

richd70

Le_Kirk said:

You seem to be at the right point with your reading of the NEWBIE.  Of course all appeals and communication are done in Dad's name and not "on behalf of".  If you are concerned about the effect that debt collector letters might have on him, you could send a Data Rectification Notice to the DPO of the PPC and inform them of the new address for service (still in his name) and give your address.  They must ERASE the old data and also inform all their agents and sub-contractors.  That way you will get the letters and can still keep him informed.  If the PPC send a POPLA code, you can use that to appeal and mention frustration of contract because the telephone number supplied by the PPC failed.  In your appeal, do not mention who was driving, that is why you use the standard blue text template, which has been written to stop you shooting yourself in the foot!

Thanks Le Kirk, yes - I will remember to do it all in my dad's name, as if it is him replying. I'll see what he says about the letters and whether to get in touch with their DPO.

Redx said:

You missed plan A , complaint to the landowner

Yes appeal as keeper to CEL , in his name , not yours , with the blue text template , adapted to suit

Then appeal to Popla if CEL fail to cancel the PCN , using the usual suspects

As for golden ticket , check the NTK PCN against POFA , for compliance or non compliance

For the record , it's a private car park , not a public car park

Oh yes, I just meant it's a car park not affiliated with any shopping centre, train station, doctors surgery, or anything like that ... but you're right, I guess that's still a private car park.

Half_way said:

Who's car park was this.
For now don't do anything until you have more advice.
The equality act is what's at play here, and if an occupant of the vehicle qualifies for a BB odds on they will be covered under the EA

Again who's car park?

The car park seems to belong to someone called starpark, whoever they are?!? They seem to operate a 'Phone and Pay' system where you need to call an 0141 number, enter a site code, then your credit card number, then your vehicle registration number (if you get that far?). Sounds dodgy to me!

What advice would you say I should get? He has sent off for a BB, but he hasn't currently got one, and if he is approved, it won't be for another 4-6 weeks, so not sure it will help?

Coupon-mad said:

I think an adapted line about pay and display is relevant, only pay by phone in this case.  But retailer complaint first! 

Please do us and yourself (and the driving public) a favour and stick around on this forum every week - at least for the Summer - to ensure you see when the Government publish and open the final Technical Consultation.

We will be talking about it and the public will have about 4 weeks we think, to tell the MHCLG what you think about the level of parking charges, that the MHCLG has admirably decided already will start at £50 (50% discount) and not £100.

It's not open yet but please keep check here to see when it is.  We need real people like you to counter the spamming that happened last time from the industry.

I will definitely check back and comment - we have to stop these scams!!

Thanks again.

Coupon-mad

Star park is another name for CivIl Enforcement and they don’t own the car parks they operate on.  You can’t complain to StarPark about themselves!

if someone has applied for a blue badge then they meet the definition of disability in the Equality Act but it’s not a huge amount of help in this case because he should have paid and you can’t just leave a car in an ANPR camera car park and think nothing would happen. 

I wish people would just park on street instead of seeking out car parks.  

Unless it was Central London, use a street, there is always somewhere to park, either free or for an hour, or for a quid at a machine and you can’t get a £100 PCN from the Council by post so you should never choose a car park. Avoid! 

As for the the appeal, I would appeal online in his name but tell them ‘my address for service of all letters, replies and court papers is...’ (give your address as if he lives there, which is fine). Then you can tell him you are dealing with it and he won’t hear any more. You can then open each letter and meanwhile try a complaint if there is an on-site business  

Tell him to stop seeking out car parks. The number of drivers who do this is astonishing to me.  My daughter’s parents in law even aim for a car park in their neighbouring towns even though all the streets near that area of the coast are free.  They were amazed when my DD stopped them driving into a car park and said ‘park over there’ on an unmarked road (of course!). 

Redx

A BB doesn't help on a private ( open to the public ) car park that is pay and display , even BB holders are expected to pay on these pay and display car parks , my local council ( Tameside ) charge for parking , blue badge holders are not exempt but get one extra hour for free

Look at the BPA AOS members list , Starpark is one trading name of CEL !!  Not the landowner !! Don't make that rookie mistake

Check that NTK PCN for POFA compliance or non compliance , hopefully it's the latter , not compliant , meaning a golden ticket

richd70

Disappointingly, it does have the POFA 2012 information on the back of the NTK, so golden ticket is off the table  

Looking around the car park, there are a lot of their signs with the phone number and instructions, but nowhere can I see anything that says who the landowner is? There's no online/app option to pay for parking and the pay and display machine is no longer in operation, which all seems very dodgy to me!

Would you change any of the below as my initial appeal to enter into the CE website - it's the template with the PDT/overstay removed, and an extra line appended added about calling 3 times and correspondence address?

Re PCN number:

I dispute your 'parking charge', as the keeper of the vehicle. I deny any liability or contractual agreement and I will be making a complaint about your predatory conduct to your client landowner.

There will be no admissions as to who was driving and no assumptions can be drawn. Since your PCN is a vague template, I require an explanation of the allegation and your evidence. You must include a close up actual photograph of the sign you contend was at the location on the material date as well as your images of the vehicle.

I rang the number on the sign 3 times, and each time I got as far as enter the location id and the line went dead. The pay and display machine was out of operation.

For correspondence please use the below address:
Name [my dad's name]
Address [my address]

If asked for the name and address of the registered keeper, do I give my dad's actual address or mine?

Thanks again.

Coupon-mad

If asked for the name and address of the registered keeper, do I give my dad's actual address or mine?

Yours at all appeal stages, because that address 'is' Dad's address for the purposes of this PCN, once he has sent this appeal.

Remove this as he's admitting to driving according to your penultimate paragraph in the appeal, and as the NTK is a POFA one, there is nothing wrong with admitting to driving, in fact he should also state that he is disabled and ask them if they want to see his Blue Badge*

There will be no admissions as to who was driving and no assumptions can be drawn.

* I know he hasn't got one yet but setting the first appeal up on this basis paves the way for later if he gets the BB in time for POPLA.

Or indeed if POPLA fails (as it probably will) at least he will have laid his cards on the table about being the driver and being disabled, in case CEL try a court claim later.  Which is another reason to see these letters straight away, at your address of course, and not letting Dad read them first.