Void Receipt, Wye Valley Visitor Centre, PCN Parking Eye

Coupon-mad

Absolutely NO admission. Defend in full.

See the second post of the NEWBIES thread and show us the POC, redacted of the same 4 things you've seen in all the other threads here at your stage. Read some first.

Doomswell

Here is the N1SDT.
Looks like the process has been all done by computer without anyone ever looking at anything I've sent them.

Doomswell

Acknowledgement of service filed.
Date of issue 19/5/25
Date of service 24/5/25
Need to respond by 21/6/25.

Coupon-mad

OK so your para 3 should mention the void receipt and also deny that the PCN could have been £125 and that there is never a mention of an added £25 on ParkingEye signs so that enhancement is unrecoverable ... search the forum for similar in-house PEye defences about the added £25.

Doomswell

Putting my defence together, a couple of questions...

Does the Chan judgement apply?
The POC states that my vehicle did not have a valid parking ticket, which seems quite clear and specific.

POFA is mentioned in para 18 of the template, but only in connection with the sum claimed.
I do not believe POFA has been complied with as I as the keeper have not been sent an explicit invitation to pay, which would be grounds to dismiss the case, so this should go at the beginning?

I also have to add something about the payment machine not working, the lack of clear indications that it was not functioning and the deliberately confusing "receipt" as this was the cause of the problem, rather than unclear signs.  
Having said that the driver did not realise it was an ANPR car park, as this was not made clear.

Also, I had a look at Parking Eye's latest accounts available online PARKINGEYE LIMITED overview - Find and update company information - GOV.UK at Companies house.

The company made a gross profit of £37m on a turnover of £57m, a 65% profit.
Profit before tax was £16.5m, and tax was £588k.  No, I don't understand that either, I'm not an accountant.
Quote "the company earns most of its revenue from the issue of PCNs"
Ultimate control is by MML Capital Partners and Maquarie, the bank that fleeced Thames Water.
Directors Philip Boyd and Sian Wicks earn £338,000 and £318,000 pa, relatively modest for such a money-printing racket one might think, but they are also directors of several related companies by means of which their true earnings are increased and profits extracted.

Gr1pr

Post the issue date from the top right of the claim form 

Post a redacted picture of the POC on the lower left of the claim form 

Is it only Parking Eye on the left,  or DCB Legal as well  ?

The second post in the newbies sticky thread in announcements near the top of the forum explains how to fill in the AOS online on MCOL,  please study it,  doing so 5 or more days after the issue date 

Car1980

No need for Chan. 

Just use the template defence and in paragraph 3 say you parked, paid and displayed and visited the zoo. And that later on you only noticed the pay and display ticket said void on it. 

All the ins and out (and reams of printouts from other victims from Trip Advisor and whatever else you can find) about the crooked machine will be for your witness statement later on. That's probably all the judge will be interested in. You could say that payment machines typically display "transaction void" and "payment declined" on the screen and that spitting out a pay and display ticket with "void" on it is highly unusual.

Doomswell

Thanks,  Gr1pr please see my post 27 May at 11:41AM  and the next one.
I have done the AOS and the claimant is ParkingEye Ltd, no mention of DCB.

Coupon-mad

Search the forum for

£25 impermissible defence

as you need the specific paragraph seen in other PEye defences recently.

Doomswell

Here is my section 3...

3.1 The driver parked in the Wye Valley Visitor Centre car park in order to visit the Butterfly Zoo located there.  According to the Automatic Number Plate Recognition camera (ANPR) the car entered the carpark at 10:57:23 on 11th July 2025. The driver then parked, bought a parking ticket (or so the driver believed) from the sole ticket machine at 11:02, displayed the ticket on top of the dashboard as the driver was not aware that ANPR was in use and then went into the Butterfly Zoo, paying for admission with the same credit card at 11:05.

Later the keeper received a letter dated 15th July 3035 asking for £100, “discounted” to £60 if paid within 14 days.  The keeper then inspected the parking ticket that the driver had purchased.  The driver believed this to be a parking ticket as:

It was the exact same shape, size, appearance and texture as a parking ticket.

The driver had just used a credit card in a ticket machine to buy a parking ticket and the machine issued the “ticket” in question.

The driver was unaware that the credit card had not been debited.  The driver used the same card three minutes later to purchase admission to the Butterfly Zoo without any issues, making it almost certain that the ticket machine was at fault.  Indeed, this machine does seem to be out of order frequently, judging by the number of times this exact same problem at this location appears in online posts.

Neither the defendant nor the driver could read the ticket without glasses.

The defendant and driver were puzzled as to what the ticket actually was, as it bore exactly the same appearance as a parking ticket.  It stated “please retain as receipt”, “void transaction receipt”, the usual receipt details including the amount and “not a parking ticket.”

“void receipt” is an oxymoron.  It was not clear what the ticket or receipt signified.  On checking the driver’s credit card statement it appeared that no money had been taken for the parking ticket.   On realising this the defendant contacted the claimant and the car park owner Mr Lindsay Hoye offering to pay for the parking.  These offers were refused or ignored and the defendant issued further threatening correspondence suggesting that a greatly exaggerated amount should be paid.

3.2Non-receipts looking like receipts or tickets are a known issue, hence the 2022 Private Parking Code of Practice stating; "6.2.2. It is good practice to ensure the design of a “payment failed” slip is not liable to be mistaken for a parking tariff receipt."  

The deliberately confusing ticket issued is in contravention of the Consumer Rights Act Part 2 Section 68 in that it is not legible or intelligible, and the Consumer Protection From Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 in that the misleading ticket caused the driver to believe parking had been paid for at the advertised rate when a parking charge 33 times greater was potentially being agreed to.

3.3 The claimant has failed to strictly comply with the Protection of Freedoms Act (POFA) 2012 clause 9(2)(e)(i) (the keeper has not been invited to pay the charge), and therefore cannot pursue the defendant for an alleged breach of contract.

34 Further, in a new tactic only seen from this Claimant after Summer 2023, the sum claimed under purported 'contract' is disproportionately exaggerated by £25 which was not on the signs.  The Defendant makes the point that enhancing their claim on either impermissible sums or on an incorrect basis, is reason enough to disallow the claim.