Hello all

I have had an ongoing issue with Parking Eye and them issuing 2 Parking Charge Notices for me parking in a hospital where I work.

The car park is free for all to use but visitor and patient parking is limited to 4 hours,

for one reason and another I occasionally park in visitor spaces but usually move my car before the 4 hours is up

- but with ANPR technology I have been caught short a couple of times.

I have been down the usual routes, appealed

- rejected by Parking Eye with no reasons mentioned.

appealed to POPLA,

ignored my arguments and said that I had breached a contract and therefore they too rejected the appeal,

though they did concede that they could not consider the mitigating factors that I offered.

I also appealed to the land owner the local health board asking they they request the notice be revoked

- but to date have heard nothing from them

- typical!

All went quiet for about a year and now the matter has been passed onto Capita (who I realise Parking Eye a part of their umbrella group?

I have exchanged a couple of letters with them,

they initially told me I hadn't appealed

- I have now had a letter from them again which contains the term 'Magistrates Liability Order Dated:'

there is no date and it seems as though it is a bit of bluff?

Are these bandits able to include these sort of threatening terms,

can they indeed apply to Parking Charge Notices,

the only things I am really aware for them applying to is non payment of Council Tax?

Any advice appreciated... thanks

Nathan

can you scan this magistrates letter up please

that sounds strange.

and also complete this link for each PCN please

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?462118-Have-you-received-a-Parking-Ticket

For tickets received through the post [ANPR camera capture] (Notice to Keeper)

please answer the following questions.

1 Date of the infringement 13/04/16 and 22/04/16

2 Date on the NTK [this must have been received within 14 days from the 'offence' date] 19/04/16 and 27/04/16

3 Date received Sometime shortly afterwards!

4 Does the NTK mention schedule 4 of The Protections of Freedoms Act 2012? [y/n?] Yes

5 Is there any photographic evidence of the event? Yes

6 Have you appealed? {y/n?] post up you appeal]

Have you had a response? [Y/N?] post it up

Appealed to Parking Eye and POPLA

Appealed on grounds of parking in patient area because I was having problems with both knees (I have since gone on to have surgery on both legs) and occasionally parked when I was having difficulty walking from the staff car park to my place of work.

I also appealed on the grounds that I was parked in a car park designated Car Park 9a and the PCN specifically mentioned Car Park 9. Car Park 9a also had signage that indicated staff with certain permits could park in this area (I have never been made aware of any other terms and conditions that suggest I don’t have a permit to park in that area) (these signs have been changed in the last year and no longer allow staff with certain permits or otherwise to park in that area).

Parking Eye simply informed me that the appeal had been unsuccessful with no further clarification.

POPLA confirmed that I had not followed the terms and conditions – they seem to have simply ignored the photographs I sent them showing the signs that state staff with certain permits can park in the car park!

7 Who is the parking company? Parking Eye

8. Where exactly [carpark name and town] University Hospital Llandough, Penarth

For either option, does it say which appeals body they operate under. IAS (POPLA)

There are two official bodies, the BPA and the IAS. If you are unsure,

please check HERE

If you have received any other correspondence, please mention it here

Letter before County Court letters from Parking Eye January 2017.

May 2017 – matter passed to Equita Ltd with instructions to recover outstanding sum – I replied saying that I did not recognise the matter as a debt.

June 2017 – another letter from Equita stating that no appeal was received and that the time to appeal had elapsed

– I replied stating that I had appealed and Parking Eye’s response (or lack of it!) and again outlined my contentions with the issuing of the ticket.

July 2017 – letter with ‘Magistrates Liability Order’ mentioned on it and the result of the enforcement officer giving me a tap !!! (See attached)

equita.pdf

whats gone on here

whys is a speculative invoice turned into a magistrates liability order?????

has this been to court?

have you checked your credit file to see if a CCJ is showing?

you need to scan up ALL the letters in/out please to ONE multipage PDF

and do a better job of redacting things

you'd left loads of details on that last one!

This is a strange one. One's immediate reaction is that it is a spoof letter. It appears to be from the debt collection side of Equita since no enforcement fee has been added and no warning that any visit will incur an extra £235 charge. They have already been in contact with the OP so couldn't try and slip through the Court papers to an old address.

I understand that some parking companies are using blank letter headings from Gladstones and Wright Hassal -perhaps this could be a similar occurrence.

The OP must ring Parking Eye [not Equita] to get an update from them and if there has been a Hearing in his absence and whatever the outcome of his contact with PE to come back and let us know so we can provide further help and advice.

My first thought was that it must be some sort of spoof, because all the post has come through and aside from the threat of court, nothing requesting any defence etc!

My actual appeals were done electronically through my NHS email and I am not sure they are even there any more, I have the responses though and I will scan these shortly.

Didn't realise the barcode type things need to be redacted as well, quite tricky without document editing!

I will also check my credit file...

Thanks all

My Experian CreditMatcher score is 894 which probably indicates there isn't a CCJ against me???

correct

I can see equita saying opps admin error

Is this PE using its parents company to get another of its subsidiaries to send out threatening letters designed to get you to admit the debt is due or just an almighty cock-up?

Capita deal with many councils on street parking so an error is possible.

The detail of your appeal to PE and their lack of proper response is something that can be raised if it does get to court as it means PE don't have a cause for action

as they have failed to follow the correct procedures you then have to bank on a judge being aware of all of the BPA protocols and taking them seriously but that isn't your only point of defence though.

Bad knees is best avoided as that isn't anything to do with contractual matters.

You need to find out if a summons was ever issued by PE against you in the county court.

That is easy,

you can phone Northampton and play guess the right button to get through

but once you do they will be able to tell you everything you need to know.

For my money I reckon they have sent out the wrong stock letter but don't care as long as it has the right effect

- scare you into paying them an unjustifiably inflated amount

Apologies for really bad efforts at trying to redact PDF files for free!!

It has taken me 2 hours trying to find free software!

Trying Photoshop!

So in the end I have just printed out the PDF scans used the good old fashioned marker pen and rescanned them!

Page 1 of the PDF's should be Page 11 I think! Sorry...

My banker strategy is that they had signs saying that staff with certain permits could park in Car Park 9a which have since been changed - fortunately I have photographs of the signs before and after!!

But thanks again for any advice...

Unfortunately bad knees were the reason why I parked where I did and when I did, I realise it has nothing to do with the terms and conditions - but I was just trying to be honest with them.

I have had quite a lot of correspondence relating to these two incidents, it would be bizarre if court letters were the things that failed to arrive!!!

docs1.pdf

There are different times in the letters from PE and the transcript of the appeal rejection. One states 08:41 to 12:54 and the other 08:42 to 14:44. So PE are claiming he parked for 4 hours 13 minutes and the other for 6 hours 2 minutes.

There were two separate incidents, one for just over 4 hours, the other over 6, I have scanned one set of documents in the main to try and keep it as concise as possible, I might have made a couple of errors?!

you redaction skills are useless

you scan to JPG then use MSPAINT

pop into word each on a page

then file save s to PDF.

to me I think they've made an admin error.

it just a std powerless DCA.

ignore them

until /uless they issue a claimform.

i'd email equita copy that letter

and ask them if they've made a mistake by confusing 2 speculative invoices

as PENALTY CHARGES NOTICES that ofcourse only the council or POLICE can issue.

and ofcourse as a powerless DCA, they can do nothing, even if they DID hold a magistrates order.

WIND THEM UP

I accept your compliments regarding my redacting skills, I am not overly IT literate, I couldn't find MS Paint yesterday because I searched for it on my PC as MS Paint not MSPaint !!!

Quite possibly a deliberate 'admin error'?

I shall ignore anything else and wait for my court papers, don't really want to temp fate by winding them up!!

Anyway, thanks for your advice

Are you sure that parking where you did is not private parking as such and is the same as a council or Police issue ticket ?

I have seen this before on CAG, where unknown to most, parking in some places around the country is not deregulated.

Parking in a Hospital car park is covered the same as a council car park and if you don't pay, they can get a Magistrates liability order.

Before a liability order is obtained, you should have had a summons stating which Magistrates would deal with the liability order.

Think you might have to look into this further.

Hello all

 

I have been down the usual routes, appealed - rejected by Parking Eye with no reasons mentioned.

 

Appealed to POPLA, ignored my arguments and said that I had breached a contract and therefore they too rejected the appeal,

though they did concede that they could not consider the mitigating factors that I offered.

 

I also appealed to the land owner the local health board asking they they request the notice be revoked

- but to date have heard nothing from them

- typical!

 

All went quiet for about a year and now the matter has been passed onto Capita (who I realise Parking Eye a part of their umbrella group?

 

Any advice appreciated... thanks

 

Nathan

As you have made very clear above, you have taken the matter of these two tickets to the official appeal route (PoPLA) and your appeal has been rejected. Accordingly, there is little point arguing about where you were parked and signage etc as PoPla have already made their decision.

Thankfully, it would seem that Parking Eye have not applied for judgment. Instead, they have passed the debt to Equita who have written to you as DEBT COLLECTORS....not as bailiffs. The letter from them is indeed misleading. This debt is not related to a Liability Order issued by a Magistratrates Court. It would be a good idea to bring this to Equita's attention. They will likely reissue a new letter to you.

You may not like my advice but anyway here goes. These private parking debts should never be ignored. Parking Eye frequently issue court proceedings and obtain judgments and these judgments very often come in at over £600 and are quickly transferred up to the High Court for enforcement. I see these cases on a daily basis and the level of enforcement fees is staggering.

If you are considering not paying, please read the following press article regarding hospital parking before doing so. Also, as you have used PoPla and lost, you would have little defence if court proceedings were issued.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4702178/Nurses-pay-150-000-parking-fines.html

I would suggest that you ask Equita whether this letter relates to one parking charge or two.

BA POPLA has a very limited remit and terms of reference. For example they cannot consier any appeal that is a matter of law which makes a rejection of a POPLA appeal almost inevitable.

PE are nbetter than most at getting things procedurally roght but they still have many places where old signage is confusing, they have even more sites where they ahve no planning permission for their cameras etc and are just as happy as the others to make untrue statements to a court so it is not cut and dried.

Until the OP digs a bit deeper regarding what the strange letter is about (ie check with courts service) then all advice is generic. I would do this before asking Equita and only bother with them if an answer is not apparent after speaking to the courts.

I think that Dx100 and ericsbrother are being very generous in stating that the equita letter is an admin error.

We are talking about Equita and Parking Eye.

It would not surprise me one bit that the letter was designed to get the OP to get in touch and pay up quickly.

A copy of the letter should be sent to the FCA, Trading Standards and for what it's worth the incompetent DVLA complaining about its content.

Obviously there is no point involving IPC since their only asset is that they actually make BPA look good

-something that one would imagine to be impossible.

I could be wrong and when challenged no doubt there will be mumblings about an error.

But this is either a serious error or a deliberate ploy.

Either way whoever was responsible needs to be jumped on so as not to encourage its use in future.

Could someone please clarify whether POPLA are an independent body, or are they in the pockets of the organisations that in effect pay them

- just seen that POPLA stands for Parking on Private Lands Appeals.

Bailiff Advice - I have stated that POPLA have totally overlooked the points I raised about staff with certain permits being able to park in the area where I was parked,

I have never seen any terms and conditions that state the staff who can park there or the fact that supposedly I couldn't

- how can you say that a court would be able to overlook these facts if I presented these facts to them?

Are you also saying that whatever decision POPLA make is binding in a court and that there is no point in taking matters any further?

The article you link to the Daily Mail is for another hospital site in Cardiff where staff members believed they shouldn't have to pay to park on the hospital site and racked up tens if not hundreds of of PCN's each, staff there have to pay £1.05 per day to park there, I work in another site from the same health board but parking is free for staff and patients alike at the Llandough site - so I don't see much relevance at all!

I too am quite concerned to have been sent a letter implying there is a magistrates order that has been served

- who actually regulates Parking Eye, Equita and Capita,

is it Trading Standards or the Financial Ombudsmen Service?

i think I shall be in contact with them both tomorrow.

I have no intention of paying these charges

- I want my case heard in a court

- I am morally right about being able to park where I did!

POPLA is just a mates club funded by the mates...parking companies

this is no longer about parking so forget all about that bit, it is whether Crapita have deliberately misused your details or made a mistake.

Too late to go to POPLA and anyway., they are generally a waste of time as their remit is very limited

Quick update: -

Phoned Financial Ombudsman Service - though they do deal with debt collection companies, the complaint has to arise from a financially controlled product !

Phoned CAB - quite poor advice really, confirmed that a Parking Charge Notice 'should' be a civil matter - also advised me about what a bailiff was and what they could and couldn't do !!

Phoned local magistrates court and it was confirmed to me that no liability order had been recorded against me anywhere in the UK in the last 4 years - as long as their system goes back.

I have looked back on the Equita website and seen there is some generic email application for making a complaint,

they also list various personnel with Paul Sharpe, Sales and Marketing Director being the most senior member mentioned,

anyone know if it is worth making a complaint to him?

Or to Andy Parker, Cheif Executive at Capita?

Thanks again....

Have you thought about complaining to the CEO of the Hospital Trust or organisation that runs it. Send a copy of the letter Equita issued with the false information.

Good plan UB, that letter shows Equita are being very naughty trying to imply their invoice is a magistrates matter.