Newbie - PCN Stage - ParkingEye

Ellie400

Hi

I would welcome some advice please.

I have been issued a PCN from ParkingEye with a charge of £60 which increase to £100 if not paid within 14 days. Unfortunately I am at fault and wondered whether it is worth appealing.


The PCN states 'By not purchasing the appropriate parking time or by remaining at the car park for longer than permitted, in accordance with the terms and conditions set out in the signing, the Parking Charge is now payable to ParkingEye Ltd (as the creditor).


The circumstances are

A) To pay for the car park, an app is used. I did pay the car parking tariff but unfortunately it was for the wrong registration as I had used the app the week before for my husband's car. So, yes I paid, but for the wrong car!
I did only pay two hours but appear to have stayed 3. That was a surprise but I cannot contest it.

I understand that if I appeal they will just reject it so am not going to. £60 seems very unreasonable as a first off request.

Can anyone offer any advice please?

Thanks

DE_612183

Have you read the newbies thread?

All the info is in there for you to not pay.

Ellie400

Yes but the difference here is I believe I am actually at fault.

I just think it is shocking that they can hit me with a £60 fine as a starting position.

Coupon-mad

Ellie400 said:

Hi

I would welcome some advice please.

I have been issued a PCN from ParkingEye with a charge of £60 which increase to £100 if not paid within 14 days. Unfortunately I am at fault and wondered whether it is worth appealing.


The PCN states 'By not purchasing the appropriate parking time or by remaining at the car park for longer than permitted, in accordance with the terms and conditions set out in the signing, the Parking Charge is now payable to ParkingEye Ltd (as the creditor).


The circumstances are

A) To pay for the car park, an app is used. I did pay the car parking tariff but unfortunately it was for the wrong registration as I had used the app the week before for my husband's car. So, yes I paid, but for the wrong car!
I did only pay two hours but appear to have stayed 3. That was a surprise but I cannot contest it.

I understand that if I appeal they will just reject it so am not going to. £60 seems very unreasonable as a first off request.

You understand wrong. They'll reduce it to £20.

Ellie400

Thank you.

The car park is not a shop or hospital etc but ParkingEye do state they manage the land so I have no idea who the landowner would be.

So looking at the newbies thread further, could you please advise that this is the correct course of action?

1) Ignore the 14 day deadline where they claim they will increase the amount from £60 to £100.
2) Appeal online accepting I am the keeper but not the driver using the  'one size fits all' first appeal template found in the newbies thread.
3) Wait for their appeal response and assess accordingly.

Could you advise at what stage they may reduce the amount to £20? Is it as part of the appeal response?

Thanks

Coupon-mad

Not quite, if you want the £20 'offer'.

You just appeal telling them what happened and ask for the mandatory Code of Practice keying error £20 settlement (if you want to do that).Spell it out, screenshot the other VRM on the app and upload that so they know how to match your payment.

Personally, I see it as a complete rip-off and it's not stated on any signs. So you never agreed to this £20. It's an unsupported (grey area/unlawful in contract law or consumer law) bribe to pay up and shut up.

PCNs arising from keying errors (including default 'other car' app errors) should be cancelled outright because the burden shouldn't be weighted against consumers: 'fined' if they make a typo or put the wrong car reg in.

These are fundamentally unfair terms. This industry-made-up policy is being rightly scrutinised by the government right now. It must be banned in future.

Where will it end if the MHCLG lets this slide into law? Can all traders now 'fine' people for typos or inadvertent single button wrong selections on apps or webpages?! Mistakes made with online purchases in the UK come with a 14 day 'change your mind/cancellation' right as a matter of law (despite the fact that consumer right causes some traders a minor cost to close a file and/or post a wasted letter) so why would THIS rogue industry get better treatment, allowed to charge an 'admin fee' and worse: allowed to silently increase it to £100 - a mere 14 days later - then litigate over human error?

Arguably, it's not even human error - not the consumer's fault - in the case of an app presenting a consumer with a page defaulting (non-prominently) to presume to attach the payment to a previous car VRM used days, weeks or months before. That's not caused by a conscious keystroke by the consumer, i.e. it is not their conduct that caused this minor blip. Therefore the doctrine of frustration of contract comes into play. Frustration of contract must include an assumption both parties make (i.e. in this case, both parties assume that the payment made will match one of the cars in the car park) and it must result in impossibility for both parties, which I'd say it also does: the parking firm cannot match the payment - unless they look properly or use better and more consumer friendly systems - and the consumer (unbeknown to them) cannot perform the contract due to the app error. Both are stymied by the 'radically different' outcome but neither party is allowed under this law doctrine to gain from it.

Even if I'm wrong about that, the doctrine of de minimis comes into play. Neither legal doctrine allows a party to gain money as a result. 

ANPR Systems connected to apps are perfectly capable of recognising and matching with cars in the car park and prompting drivers: 'are you sure this is the right VRM?' if the one they start to type (or select on an app) doesn't match a car currently seen by surveillance cameras in that location code. Small wonder why this industry doesn't bother to do that!

Rewarding ANPR operators with £20 a pop for not bothering to use fair systems, keypads and apps that meet the sort of 'consumer duty' you'd expect from professional traders, just encourages them to use old or unreliable keypad systems and even lets the worst rogues cause these issues as a deliberate business model. This is likely because the consumer only gets 14 days to pay this 'blink and you miss it' £20 ... then it goes back up and the PPC can sue people for hundreds (even though the law doctrines don't support litigation for this).

There is no legitimate interest to charge (or later sue) for a typo or glitch on a system that is fully controlled by the trader, that the consumer is reasonably entitled to expect should be failsafe and user friendly, working for them, not against them. There is also 'case law' (well, county court, upheld by HHJ Pema) supporting consumers and dismissing court claims in exactly these circumstances.

There is also no loss in these cases. The operator has had the parking tariff paid on the day and is merely delayed in being able to match it, mainly because they chose to use a shonky system that's liable to do this occasionally. If anything, the appellant's timely alert in the form of an appeal has HELPED the operator match that payment without any staff time being wasted having to trawl through the records to guess the mismatch. Issue resolved. Both parties move on. Maybe both learn from it: the consumer thinks 'oh dear, that was stressful, I won't do that again' and the trader should think 'hmmm...about time we updated that app or keypad because this isn't the first time it's caused this issue'.

Rant over. Your choice! I have explained how to appeal if you want the £20 'bribe'...

Ellie400

Thank you for a really helpful reply.

As a reminder, I did pay but via an app for the wrong car instead of the one I was driving.

If I go with the £20 bribe, I will need to send them a screenshot of the payment as a receipt is provided. The problem is they will see that I only paid for two hours when I stayed three. Does that not rule out the £20 offering? Their PCN does state 'By not purchasing the appropriate parking time or by remaining at the car park for longer than permitted...". The subjectivity is related to a different car though which they have not tracked but took payment for!

Again, from the newbies thread, I understand I can appeal to POPLA. Are POPLA as crooked as IAS which I understand is a kangaroo court or are they neutral?

What could be the implications of a failed appeal and their non-acceptance of my request to pay the £20? Would it then follow the natural course of defence and then ultimately a court hearing?

If I submit the below as part of the appeal, am I in effect admitting liability?

----------------

I did pay the parking tariff in full for this session, but the payment was unfortunately made under the registration of my partner’s vehicle, which had been used with the app the previous week. This was a genuine error — a major keying error as defined under the Parking Code of Practice and the Appeals Charter.

As per the Code (Annex F), major keying errors must be resolved by offering a reduced settlement fee of no more than £20, provided it is the first PCN for this contravention, payment is made promptly, and no independent appeal is lodged. My case meets these conditions in full.

I therefore request that you cancel the £60 charge and allow me to discharge any liability by paying the £20 settlement instead, in line with the Code of Practice requirements.

------------------

Thanks

Gr1pr

FYI

Its a £100 charge,  not £60 , it's alwa£100 , never changes, because its on the signs and on the NTK PCN letter 

The £60 bribe is merely an early settlement figure,  not a charge,  but a 40% reduction for early settlement of the invoice 

Popla decisions are based on some laws and also the Current Joint Code of Practice,  definitely not mitigating factors or excuses etc. Their job is to decide if the allegation is proven or not , meaning,  was the pcn correctly issued,  in accordance with the law and the code of practice,  and if its a keying error was the £20 option given to you,  as described in the code of practice 

Popla decisions will also look at landowner authority and signage etc, if queried, but they wont consider outside their remit factors like say, The Equality Act 2010 for example,  but definitely POFA2012 as another example 

Ellie400

Thanks.

Does requesting the £20 settlement as per my draft appeal above, mean that I am admitting liability therefore potentially impacting any defence or future court hearing? The fact that I paid for two hours but stayed for three (still don't know how that happened!) is not the same as a 'major keying error' so they may reject the request to close this off with a reduced settlement fee of £20 as per the code of practice/appeals charter.

I do understand these costs are inflated deliberately and that there is a limit to what they can pursue ultimately. For £20 I just want to close this off and live to fight another day.

Thank you

Gr1pr

I agree with you , You stated that the pcn stated

The PCN states 'By not purchasing the appropriate parking time or by remaining at the car park for longer than permitted, in accordance with the terms and conditions set out in the signing, the Parking Charge is now payable to ParkingEye Ltd (as the creditor).


There is nothing about a keying error or non payment for the vehicle captured by ANPR cameras 

To me it's insufficient paid time, regardless of which VRM was used,  so they are pursuing insufficient payment 

If I were them , I would pursue the allegation of insufficient payment 

But if full payment WAS MADE, but for the wrong VRM details,  then I would try to pursue the keying error £20 as explained by coupon mad 

Ellie400

Ok. I best just pay the £60 then.

Thanks for your help.