Euro Car Parks & Sainsbury's Sury Basin - PCN - advice for CEO letter/email?

thecatsmother70

I have read the NEWBIES thread (only found it after reading/following advice on main MSE site) and so many other different threads trying to find some guidance for what and what not to include in CEO letter/email to complain to Sainsbury's CEO Simon Roberts ie what the most effective way to write the email to get it cancelled?
Unfortunately there are so many different threads, some referring to specific content in others that can't be found or that are so old other threads give different advice. I just don't know what to do, please can you advise me?  What should I say/not say to Simon Roberts to complain and get this PCN nonsense cancelled?  This is giving me sleepless nights!

For background: I received a PCN through the post from Euro Car Parks (ECP) claiming that I hadn't followed rules at Sainsbury's Sury Basin and wanting me to pay £85 (£50 for early payment). I knew not to pay up and appealed to ECP noting that the only visible sign at the entrance to the car parks says 2 hours for customers (&4 hours for gym users - there's a Nuffield gym there too), ECPs own ANPR time stamps on the PCN showed I was parked for less than 2 hours and I have receipt to show I was a customer*.
ECP rejected my appeal claiming if I had spent £10 instore I would have been issued with a parking voucher to be scanned at the parking 'kiosk'. They claim that this information is "clearly" (their words) visible on signage.  As with many others on this forum there is NO 'clear' signage apart from the sign at the entrance to the car park and that's using the word 'clear' in a pretty loose sense. It most definitely does not state a £10 minimum at the entrance to the car park nor on any signage that I could see when I parked the car. Whilst there are some 'ANPR' displays at the entrance to the car park these do not display your registration number (they work at the Merton Store) so there is no evidence that actually ANPR cameras are in use, but as the time stamps on the ECP pictures supported the less than 2 hours stay I didn't challenge that aspect. 

To set the scene it was a Thursday morning so not busy, barely half full, I had an appointment nearby in Kingston and had to purchase some items I'd been unable to get in my usual weekly shop a few days before so I thought this was a perfect situation of 2 hours free parking and picking up the items I needed. Unfortunately they didn't have all the items I wanted in stock either but I did make a purchase! As an existential question, what actually makes you a customer? Surely not an arbitrary minimum purchase? what if I had been wanting to buy several bottles of a specific brand of expensive champagne but they had not had the particular product in stock so I had not made any purchase, would I not still be a customer?

Anyway I further appealed to POPLA (what a waste of time that was), utter rubbish submitted by ECP claiming that close up shots of some signs 'proved' that they were clear including one that was dated in April 2021. I pointed out to POPLA that pictures of some signs with no context of where they were taken (ie the actual site or stock pictures?) did not prove they were from the actual site in question nor that they were 'clearly visible' to any reasonable person (size? distance from anything else? - not shown) and particularly a temporary sign claimed to be in the store entrance but photo taken nearly 12 months before does not confirm that it was in existence on the day in question. Reason for POPLA rejection was the ECP submission and did not consider the date or lack of context of pictures of any relevance at all.

Unfortunately, now the POPLA appeal is concluded it's also impossible to get hold of the actual submission content, only the POPLA decision - what's the best way to request ALL the content from the appeal?

Trainerman

Why not include some of the above. Telling it as you see/feel it is better than following a generic template in this situation. So if it were me, I would be saying how I am a regular or new customer, whichever is true, but that I cannot continue using this store if every visit comes with a PPC surcharge.

I would tell him how poor the signs are, how this acts to entrap people and that there will obviously be negative spin off in terms of trade to the store and reputation of his Company.

In your own words

Fruitcake

Your complaint needs to be short and to the point. Mention the misleading signs which could be considered entrapment, do mention the point above that neither you nor your family can afford to shop at this store if it comes with a £100 surcharge each time, include copies of receipts or loyalty card.
Mention that the government is introducing a new mandatory code of practice because of how companies like this one operate, and are replacing PoPLA with an independent appeals service instead of one that is funded by the unregulated parking companies.

MothballsWallet

@thecatsmother70 I'd recommend following a combination of the advice from @Trainerman and @Fruitcake and add a reminder to keep it polite: it's an agent of Sainsbury's that's the problem you want to bring to the CEO's attention.

I'd also mention not shopping there again if it attracts a PCN invoice and passing that around your friends and family circle.

fisherjim

You can't just say there are no clear signs or the signage doesn't say this or that you have to prove it.

You should have discredited the PPC's evidence which in so many cases is not current and very often generic or file copies from the site, with your own time stamped photographic evidence.

If the store were supposed to give you a ticket for exit complain to their ceo that they were not doing their job correctly.

However the PPC cannot surely be saying that you cannot exit that car park by any other means than 1) joining the gym or 2) spending over £10 in store, that just isn't on.