PrivateEye Parking Notice

carrots29 · 8 September 2013 at 9:27PM

I've read through the MSE advice and several of the threads but I just want to clarify one thing. We rather stupidly appealed to ParkingEye before reading all the advice and threads and have given away who was driving, etc and also impliedly admitted we have no excuse apart from the fact we simply didn't notice the signs and were completely unaware of any time limit for parking in the service station or that any charges applied to parking there. I will try and call the service station tomorrow to try and see what they have to say about a £100 fine for parking at their facilities, but is there any point going through the further appeal process if POPLA won't act without a genuine ground for non payment? Apologies if this is covered elsewhere but everyone else seemed to have some kind of genuine excuse.

Stroma · 8 September 2013 at 9:39PM

Of course you use popla with our help, we have a 100% success rate right now. So read the popla decisions thread and look at what a successful appeal looks like. There are many appeal points, for example yours is one, didn't see the signs, now why's that ? Is it because they were inadequate and 10ft up a pole?

There are also others, the figure asked for is a penalty , the pre estimate loss is nowhere near that, ask for the contract that allows them to issue fake tickets, maybe their notice to keeper was late, must be with you in 14 days, and so on.

Many many things to appeal with

Coupon-mad · 9 September 2013 at 1:19AM

carrots29 wrote: »

I've read through the MSE advice and several of the threads but I just want to clarify one thing. We rather stupidly appealed to ParkingEye before reading all the advice and threads and have given away who was driving, etc and also impliedly admitted we have no excuse apart from the fact we simply didn't notice the signs and were completely unaware of any time limit for parking in the service station or that any charges applied to parking there. I will try and call the service station tomorrow to try and see what they have to say about a £100 fine for parking at their facilities, but is there any point going through the further appeal process if POPLA won't act without a genuine ground for non payment? Apologies if this is covered elsewhere but everyone else seemed to have some kind of genuine excuse.

Motorway Service Area (MSA) threads about PE are everywhere on this forum, covered dozens of times and of course you must appeal to POPLA - but using the right words and grounds of appeal!! We help posters like you win at POPLA in 100% of cases against Parking Eye so as you can imagine, YES it is worth doing it right.

To see how other people have appealed to POPLA in MSA situations, just use the 'search this forum' facility (top right of the titles above the threads on page one of the parking board) and put in the acronym 'MSA' and (IMPORTANT!) change the default search first to 'show posts' (not show threads). Read the results.

And there is no 'might ring the MSA manager to try and see what they have to say' about it...you WILL want to try this (because it works) but only after reading other MSA threads. You should be assertively and angrily complaining in no uncertain terms and NOT thinking you have 'no excuse'! Your phone call to the Manager of the MSA needs to be much stronger than 'can you do something about it...oh...alright then never mind'. Look at all these successful complaints I have collated in just 5 weeks!

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=62837690

and notice the MSA complaint successes among them! Do that first - because a cancelled ticket by the MSA means you don't even have to bother with POPLA.

carrots29 · 9 September 2013 at 12:26PM

Thanks everyone. Having looked through the threads I'm concerned that we've appealed to PrivateEye already and given away who the driver is and they are not going to give us a code for POPLA. Does anyone know if we can submit a follow up appeal?

We got the brush off from Welcome Break who said they stood fully behing Private eye's actions but will have another go at that too.

Anyway, if another submission to Private eye is a runner I've drafted the following follow up responce to Private Eye by way of further appeal if people think that is a runner:

"An invoice was recently received from your company with reference number XXX dated xxx for vehicle reg number xxxx for overstaying at [insert name/location motor way service. Further to my submiccion dated 7 September 2013 I would follow up by stating that I deny all liability to your company. I am appealing against this charge because on the day in question I had driven a long way and was very tired. I was meeting my elderly disabled mother for lunch and needed a proper rest before heading back home. I did not see the signs on entering the motorway service area, I did not see the signs whilst walking from the car.

I understands that it is a legal requirement for the motorway service area to provide two hours free parking in order for drivers to take a proper rest break from driving for health and safety reasons. While I accepts that your ANPR cameras logged the vehicle on entering and leaving the service area, for the reasons stated above, this is NOT an accurate record of the time that I was parked taking the legal rest break.

Further I disputes the accuracy of the ANPR equipment and requires full documentary evidence of the maintenance and calibration of the equipment as required by the BPA code of conduct

In addition after checking your signage and the BPA guidelines I believe that the signs are defective and further that they do not comply with the standards laid down in TSRGD 2002 for motorway service areas

Even if there was a parking overstay (which is denied) I contend that the only possible loss is the £10 charge for 24 hrs parking after the first two hours free parking. As such the £90 charge that you are demanding from me is 'punitive and unreasonable', and/or can in no way be justified as a 'genuine pre-estimate of loss', and therefore contravenes para 19 of the BPA code of conduct. If you are claiming that this charge is legally justified and within the terms of the code of practice, please send me a detailed breakdown of the alleged loss showing how the charge has been calculated.

In the light of the above information I invite you to uphold this appeal and cancel the charge. However if you reject this appeal the Driver requires (within 35 days) a POPLA verification code to enable the driver to appeal independently. This is in accordance with the BPA Code of Practice. Should this become necessary I reserve the right to draw any other relevant matters to the attention of POPLA that may subsequently come to the driver's attention.

I have nothing further to add and I am unwilling to respond to any further correspondence in the absence of a POPLA code.

This denial of liability will be deemed as accepted by the company if any further correspondence lacks a POPLA code within the timeframe stated above.

Yours sincerely

trisontana · 9 September 2013 at 12:31PM

It's not PRIVATE EYE, it's Parking Eye. I don't think Ian Hislop runs a parking company!

zzzLazyDaisy · 9 September 2013 at 12:43PM

OP in your first letter to PE did you make it clear that you wished to appeal?

Also when they replied rejecting your appeal, are you sure that letter did not contain a ten digit verification code to appeal to POPLA? PLease check as the code is time limited and there is no point in sending a second appeal to PE if you have already received the POPLA code.

If you are sure you have no POPLA code, you are still in time to appeal to PE. Even if you have inadvertently identified the driver, all you have done is to deny yourself the possibility of relying on potential PoFA breaches, which is not the end of the world.

In that case, the draft appeal that you have posted is fine, it just needs a little tidying up. So if you come back and clarify the position re the POPLA code, we will help you from there.

Daisy

carrots29 · 9 September 2013 at 1:52PM

Thanks, I haven't received a refusal of appeal yet from Parking Eye as only sent on Saturday but they will refuse and from what I've read on here won't give me a POPLA code so thought I'd preempt with a further notice. Can't remeber exactly whether I said I was appealing but don't think I said it explicitly, it was more indignant than anythign else, not a very professional first stab!

Sending an email to Welcome Break after an initial phone brush off. Are there any suggested texts for these?

Coupon-mad · 9 September 2013 at 5:47PM

carrots29 wrote: »

Thanks, I haven't received a refusal of appeal yet from Parking Eye as only sent on Saturday but they will refuse and from what I've read on here won't give me a POPLA code so thought I'd preempt with a further notice. Can't remeber exactly whether I said I was appealing but don't think I said it explicitly, it was more indignant than anythign else, not a very professional first stab!

Sending an email to Welcome Break after an initial phone brush off. Are there any suggested texts for these?

I would read some of the successful complaints linked on the thread I posted above. There's at least one successful Welcome Break complaint and another to a different MSA, both linked there. You could see what those posters said in their complaints - and if not much is shown on those 2 threads, look at any other linked thread on that list of complaint successes and see exactly what other people wrote.

It's mainly about being in 'angry customer mode' and showing receipts or a bank statement (only if you can of course). And the stuff you already said in your draft appeal above! And in your case you can say that because you were with your disabled mother she took longer to get around during your visit, hence the slightly longer stay for your car as you were her carer whilst on site. Remind the MSA Manager that they and PE have a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled visitors and their carers. As you met your disabled Mum there then you believe that there are legal grounds to request that a 'reasonable adjustment' of time should be made, as defined in the Equality Act 2010, and that the charge should be cancelled on this occasion.

carrots29 · 9 September 2013 at 8:02PM

Ok, I assume playing dumb and innocent doesn't work, will give it a go without being threatening.

Does anyone know if you can do another appeal if you've already contacted Parking Eye?

carrots29 · 10 September 2013 at 3:48PM

OK, have finessed and I'm going to send a follow up appeal in the following form. Any suggestions would be very welcome:

An invoice was recently received from your company with reference number [] dated [] for vehicle reg number [] for overstaying at [] motorway service. Further to my submission dated [] I would follow up by stating that I deny all liability to your company. I am appealing against this charge because on the day in question I had driven a long way and was very tired. I was meeting my elderly disabled mother for lunch and needed a proper rest before heading back home.

I understand that it is a legal requirement for the motorway service area to provide two hours free parking in order for drivers to take a proper rest break from driving for health and safety reasons. While I accept that your ANPR cameras logged the vehicle on entering and leaving the service area, for the reasons stated above, this is NOT an accurate record of the time that I was parked taking the legal rest break. In addition you have a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled visitors and their carers. As I was meeting with my disabled mother there I believe that there are legal grounds to request that a 'reasonable adjustment' of time should be made, as defined in the Equality Act 2010, and that the charge should be cancelled on this occasion.

I did not see the signs on entering the motorway service area. I did not see the signs whilst driving around the motorway service area, walking from the car or walking back to the car.

Further I dispute the accuracy of the ANPR equipment and require full documentary evidence of the maintenance and calibration of the equipment as required by the BPA code of conduct.

In addition after checking your signage and the BPA guidelines I believe that the signs are defective and further that they do not comply with the standards laid down in TSRGD 2002 for motorway service areas.

Even if there was a parkingoverstay (which is denied) I contend that the only possible loss is the £10 charge for 24 hrs parking after the first two hours free parking. As such the £90 charge that you are demanding from me is 'punitive and unreasonable', and/or can in no way be justified as a 'genuine pre-estimate of loss', and therefore contravenes para 19 of the BPA code of conduct. If you are claiming that this charge is legally justified and within the terms of the code of practice, please send me a detailed breakdown of the alleged loss showing how the charge has been calculated.

In the light of the above information I invite you to uphold this appeal and cancel the charge. However if you reject this appeal I require (within 35 days) a POPLA verification code to enable me to appeal independently. This is in accordance with the BPA Code of Practice. Should this become necessary I reserve the right to draw any other relevant matters to the attention of POPLA that may subsequently come to my attention.

I have nothing further to add and I am unwilling to respond to any further correspondence in the absence of a POPLA code.

This denial of liability will be deemed as accepted by the company if any further correspondence lacks a POPLA code within the timeframe stated above.

Coupon-mad · 10 September 2013 at 6:21PM

''As I was meeting with my disabled mother there I believe that there are legal grounds to request that a 'reasonable adjustment' of time should be made''

Yep, but maybe stronger than that. Even if you don't consider yourself your Mum's carer when with her, IMHO it would be better if your appeal specifically shows you as the 'carer' who was therefore slowed down when on site, because you were with a disabled person:

''As I was meeting with my disabled mother there, I was acting as her carer whilst we were at the Services and this, understandably, meant my visit took longer than able-bodied visitors would need. I believe that there are legal grounds to request that a 'reasonable adjustment' of time should be made''

And yes there's no reason why you can't send this. I assume you have already admitted in your first appeal that you were the driver - which we wouldn't normally advise of course but if it's too late now then you may as well carry on writing as 'the driver'.

Don't expect too much, they'll likely reject it and then you will have POPLA to work on an appeal for, to win it.

But try hard to resolve it right now, this week. Word the complaint to the MSA in that same 'disability discrimination' vein as well, citing the Equality Act 2010 and reminding the MSA Manager (or the overall CEO of Welcome Break, Google to find contact details, go to the top, why not!!) that they are legally liable for the actions of their agent at all times.

PrivateEye Parking Notice

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