Responding to court docs - hopefully an interesting case for you all

Coupon-mad

Once the defence is in, send your evidence to the CMA by email.

CMA Contact emails (use both, the first one goes directly to their parking investigation) :

• parking@cma.gov.uk
• general.enquiries@cma.gov.uk 

I am also writing to the CMA but far better if actual victims also show your evidence and express your concerns and open the CMA's eyes.

Read all the CMA statements first.

This was on BBC News and on MSE itself:

MSE article: July 2026

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a major crackdown on the UK private parking industry, issuing an open warning over unfair appeals, and advising stricter government oversight CMA takes action on private parking practices.

Then email the CMA, and please include something like this in the middle/end:

The main concerns about the unfairness, intrusive data processing and lack of good faith of ANPR private parking firms setting up their business model to work against consumers, are as follows:

Background and the fundamental elephant in the room concern: parking firms have what cynics have called a profiteering 'protection racket' business model, which harks back to the sector's (illegal since 2012) wheel-clamper MO:

The MHCLG will likely be able to confirm exact figures (from parking firm 'census' figures and recent fact-gathering from trade bodies in readiness for the statutory Code of Practice) but it has been estimated that some 95% of AOS firm 'managed' private land sites in the UK are run free of charge by operators.

This is the biggest consumer protection concern of all: should this not be illegal: what other consumer-facing sector works like it?

ParkingEye was originally independent but was bought first by Capita then sold for £235m (link here). This is the UK's biggest monster of a PCN-churning parking company, reportedly with wider profit margins than Apple Inc.

ParkingEye is reportedly now owned by a combination of private equity (venture/growth capital) and foreign institutional investors including Macquarie Group, an Australian HQ global financial services group dubbed the “vampire kangaroo” for its ability to extract profits.

They only make any money (or make the vast majority of income from a site) when they penalise a motorist. Due to this inherent incentive to issue as many PCNs as possible and not be open to cancelling many/any on first appeal, the suspicion is that systems are set up in a way that they know will catch out some 1% of motorists.

Parking firms wouldn't run the site otherwise because they aren't paid by the landowner client. Penalising even 1% of visitors to a busy High Street car park is a lot of PCNs, per week.

In ParkingEye v Beavis (the Supreme Court landmark case which upheld an £85 PCN as covering 'all the enforcement costs' of the automated letter-chain model of a remotely-surveilled car park) it was heard at the hearings that ParkingEye operated free for landowners and, in fact, promised to share the spoils with them.

A reasonable conclusion must be that ANPR firms must calculate likely 'PCN monetising' value of each site in advance and will use initial camera data and sector knowledge to weigh up how tight to make free parking periods and whether to add extra burdens for consumers such as faded or sticky keypads, unremarkable VRM exempting screens inside some premises, and misleading payment machinery, such as the one that entrapped me into this court claim nightmare.

ParkingEye even have many contracts promising to pay the landowner a weekly 'bung' out of the PCNs they issue. The Supreme Court heard that ParkingEye paid c£1000 a week to the landowner and the very tight '2 hours free' that their ANPR system imposed at Riverside Retail Park in the notorious Beavis case.

CMA: please read the High Court transcript of what ParkingEye did to Somerfield and to its customers. This is an eye opener: ParkingEye Ltd v Somerfield Stores Ltd [2011] EWHC 4023 (QB):  https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/qb/2011/4023  ; https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2011/4023.html

POPLA are not independent and my case is evidence that they are swayed only by the self-serving Joint Code of Practice and are complicit in upholding plainly unfair PCNs by toeing the industry line, applying only what the BPA set as their appeal parameters and blatantly ignoring consumer law.

My evidence is attached including:

• the PCN
• my POPLA appeal
• the rejection rationale from POPLA
• my Claim Form page (it is now defended and it will be discontinued as defended DCB Legal ParkingEye claims always are) and
• a photo of the machine which moved on to the payment screen - as you can see - and did not give me an option to add to the partial VRM.

The CMA is urged to take a very close look at the unfairness (across the UK) of the ANPR and CCTV remote monitoring 'protection-racket style' business model, especially considering the immense UK-wide consumer harm and social cost (lack of consumer confidence in High Streets) caused by unfair systems operating at town centre car parks like this one.

Also look at how ParkingEye run their 'free to landowners/the 1% of consumers we calculate we will catch, will pay up' game at motorway services, supermarkets, high street retail parks, leisure/restaurant/pub sites, hospitals and health centre car parks.

All of which ParkingEye dominate, as the biggest BPA flagship member. Please now look to investigate this firm. You must have so many complaints about them by now.

There is even a blog about ParkingEye's alleged 'rape and pillage' approach to hospital car parks, linked here by a person reporting concerns as a whistleblower ex-staff member.

CMA, please read that account and investigate this firm and their approach when they first set up systems and calculate the viability at each site, because what they are doing is working out how many service users they can catch to ensure a site is profitable.

How can this business model possibly be squared with UK consumer protection law?

I realise the CMA doesn't get involved in individual cases and I'm not expecting or needing help. My case will end up discontinued which is surely part of the bigger 'scam' picture because the operation is all about wearing people down to pay inflated sums of money as a penalty for no service or amenity gained. I am keen to assist your investigations and just want you to consider all of the above and my evidence as a case study.

James_Poisson

Interesting that it was also Macquarie that owned NCP for 10 years until they sold it to Park24 in 2017.

threeheadedboy

Hello all, thank you for the advice so far. I've received the following e-mail from DCB:

Dear (Removed by Forum Team),

Re: Our Client: ParkingEye Ltd T/A Car Parking Partnership

Claim Number: XXXXXX

We acknowledge receipt of your correspondence and note its contents. For the avoidance of doubt, a claim has already been issued.

Accordingly, the matter is now subject to ongoing legal proceedings, and our position remains unchanged.

WITHOUT PREJUDICE SAVE AS TO COSTS

To assist the Court in achieving its overriding objective, our Client may be prepared to settle this case. I can confirm our Client would be agreeable to £200.00 in full and final settlement of this Claim. The current outstanding balance is £319.28.

Should you be agreeable to this offer, please confirm the same within 7 days. Payment can be made via our website by calling our office on 0203 838 7038 or via bank transfer:

DCB Legal Ltd Client Account

Sort Code: 20-24-09

Account no: (Removed by Forum Team)

When making payment please ensure you include the following reference number, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, to enable us to allocate it to the correct case.

Upon receipt of the settlement sum of £200.00 we will update the Court that the matter has been settled. If you are not agreeable, we will continue to follow the Court process as normal.

Kind Regards,

XXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX

DCB Legal Ltd

Does this change any of the advice given? I don't want to pay them a penny.

Thank you again.

Coupon-mad

Why did you email them?

threeheadedboy

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82156765#Comment_82156765

When they first found me, and said I owed them money, I replied explaining I didn't.

Car1980

Don't worry about it. The whole point of them making a court claim is to either scare you into paying, or bartering you down. They have absolutely no intention of going to a hearing in front of a judge. Ignore them from now on.

If you were to offer them £150 they'd bite your hand off (don't!). But you can see how they use the court process as a cheap debt collection tool.

Coupon-mad

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82157734#Comment_82157734

OK. They are replying to an old reply!

But you've defended your claim and dropped ParkingEye in the sticky stuff, with an email of evidence and the wider issues to the CMA to lead change?

threeheadedboy

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82157797#Comment_82157797

I haven't sent in anything other than my intention to defend the claim in court. I'm putting in my defence this week, as the deadline is coming up.