SIP PCN to Lease Company

Affywaffy

I have an issue with a SIP PCN.  They have written to my lease car company (dated 14th Dec) but have not issued a notice directly to me.  VW state that SIP will not accept transfer of liability to me but have provided me with a letter to submit to SIP for authorisation if I decide to contest.

The date of the alleged offence is the 9th Dec when I attempted to make a payment for parking and their machine wouldn't accept my £1 coins (10 of them).  The online payment system didn't work (I have screenshots).  So I left the car there after trying for 15mins as I was late for my event.  I was parked there for just under an hour.

Which template would I use for this from the Newbs thread?  I am a little confused as there are various ones for complaints but all associated to an actual retailer.  This one was not part of a retailer.  The land register doesn't bring up any details either for this car park on Buxton Street, Manchester.  

I have put together a letter using a template from a lease car example but not sure if it is good enough to send as a complaint directly to SIP as follows:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I wish to make a formal complaint and challenge this 'PCN' as lessee of the vehicle and subsequently request all future correspondence be sent directly to myself at the address listed below:

(my address)

I am the vehicle's hirer and keeper for the purpose of the corresponding definitions under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (POFA) now it is proven that in this instance, the registered keeper is not the "keeper" (as defined under POFA), Civil Enforcement has no reason to contact Volkswagen Financial Services (UK) Ltd again regarding this PCN.  I enclose a letter from Volkswagen to this effect. 

On the 9th December the vehicle was parked at Buxton Street, Manchester for the period of under an hour.  The parking charge was £5 with no possible means to make a payment due to the lack of functioning facilities.  The single ‘pay by cash’ machine on site failed to accept £1 coins.  The equivalent of £10 in coins were attempted and not even one was taken by the machine.  I attempted to make the payment online, which again failed due to obvious system issues (Exhibit A and .  The notice online to call the office states phone lines are open 9am-5pm meaning I have no other possible means of making a payment.  Having exhausted all attempts, I submitted an email to the address provided online to request to make my payment.  I have never received a reply to this to date. As the adjacent car park was full, and I was late for my event (7.30PM), due to this issue, I had no time to mess around with other options.  It is your failings of providing drivers with functioning facilities, that this payment was not made.  Furthermore, there was no signage to state the machine was out of order or not able to accept £1 coins.  I also provide a witness statement from someone who was attending the same event (Exhibit D) to corroborate the events. 

I also believe that your signs fail the test of 'large lettering' and prominence, as established in ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis. Your unremarkable and obscure signs are in very small print and the terms are not readable to drivers upon entrance (Exhibit C).  Furthermore, you fail to provide terms and conditions on this signage. 

Further to the above, I understand you do not own the car park and you have given me no information about your policy with the landowner or on site businesses, to cancel such a charge. So please supply that policy as required under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013.
 

DOCUMENTS included: -

EXHIBIT A: The message from your online system displaying the error in attempting to complete an online transaction to pay the parking charge. 

EXHIBIT B: Further attempts made to pay for my parking online were made with the errors received as per Exhibit B.  This proves there were technical issues with your systems on the 9th December 2023.

EXHIBIT C:  Your signage at the location of Buxton Street, Manchester.  

EXHIBIT  Witness statement of XXX, who can corroborate my genuine attempts to make payment. 

Thank you for your cooperation and I look forward to receiving your response within the relevant timescales specified.   

Yours faithfully,

If you could please help with advising on this ASAP so I can send this to SIP as it needs to be posted out.  No email or online option given for a complaint to be filed!  I also found a statement on their website stating along the lines that if you failed to make the payment due to the machine not working, it is up-to you to make the payment via the telephone line or online system.

Affywaffy

What can I do if I don’t believe I should pay because the machine was out of order?

The responsibility is on the driver to pay for parking before leaving the car park. If our machines are out of order the instructions are clear, and you can either:

1. Use our Pay by Phone Service

2. Call us 24/7 to have an engineer come and fix the machine. This usually happens within a few minutes

3. Vacate the property and use an alternative car park

4. Agree to pay SIP Parking Limited £100 by remaining on the site if payment by machine cannot be made and payment by phone is not made.