Good afternoon.

I've had quite a number of letters now from "Smart Parking",

who are trying to get me to pay two notices for my vehicle in Exeter back in May.

I've attached pics of the front and back of both, although as far as I can see the backs are identical.

I've seen the thread with questions to answer,

so here goes:

They are Parking charges, not Penalty charges, and they were received through the post.

1 Date of the infringement - 27.05.17

2 Date on the NTK [this must have been received within 14 days from the 'offence' date] - 02.06.17

3 Date received - I'm not certain, but I think it was the 3rd or 4th June

4 Does the NTK mention schedule 4 of The Protections of Freedoms Act 2012? [y/n?] - No

5 Is there any photographic evidence of the event? - Cameras in the car park, shown on the ticket.

6 Have you appealed? {y/n?] post up you appeal] - No

7 Who is the parking company? - Smart Parking

8. Where exactly [carpark name and town] - Havens Bank Retail Park, Exeter

For either option, does it say which appeals body they operate under. - POPLA

For each notice I've had the notice itself dated the 2nd June '17,

then all other correspondence has been from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd with letters demanding £160 per notice

on 07.07.17, 07.08.17, 30.08.17, 07.09.17 and a "Letter before referral for legal action" on 25.09.17

I did call the companies involved (which I now realise may have been in error) on 05.09.17,

first Debt Recovery Plus with whom I had a very simple conversation:

I said "two notices for the same hour of time is ridiculous" and they said " talk to Smart Parking" so I did.

They offered to drop each charge to £90 if I paid there and then,

I told them to drop one altogether and they said no, so I said I was going to appeal.

I haven't done anything since.

I'm aware that I was in the car park at that time,

I think it probably slipped my mind to check the rules listed as I'm not used to paying to park on a Sunday.

The rules for the car park are that you get your money back if you make purchases in the retail park,

and I can prove that I did on both visits but I doubt that makes much difference.

The kicker for me is that the start of the first visit and the end of the second one are within an hour of each other,

so if I'd bought an hour's parking (the smallest amount you can pay for at this location) they'd have still sent me a notice for not paying twice.

I did see that the notices don't mention any time period for appeals,

so in theory by the rules they've notified me of I can appeal now.

I've also noticed that the charge started at £40, then went to £90 and then £100. All of this is explained on the original notice but there's no indication anywhere on the paperwork I've got saying how or when it reached £160 (although I'm guessing that they're adding more for sending it via another company, but not telling me).

I'd be grateful for any advice you can give on this one.

James

Notice 1 back.pdf

Notice 2 back.pdf

Notice 2 front.pdf

Notice 1 front.pdf

Strange

- there is a part reference to POFA on the front of the notice where they ask that if you want to provide the name of the driver then follow the instructions on the back page. There is no mention on the back page about the name of the driver!

So do not tell them who the driver is and when responding to them.

NEVER contact their debt collectors they have absolutely no power and it is a waste of time to deal with them in any way.

You can safely ignore all their drivel especially where they are asking for more money than the £100 stated on the the original notice from Smart [yeah right] Parking.

In addition they are unregistered.

They will huff and puff but cannot take any action against you so do not let them intimidate you.

My four year old grand daughter has more power than them.

She can shout.

The driver is responsible for the actions that occurred in the car park, not the keeper. As their notice is not POFA compliant they cannot make the keeper responsible for payment if the name of the driver is not provided to them.

I note that you have spoken to Smart on the phone-that was a big mistake.

I hope that you did not give any indication that you were the driver.

The only thing to concern yourself would be if Smart sent you a notice headed "Letter before Action" which would indicate they may take you to Court.

As a precaution could you please take photographs of all the notices in the car park especially the one at the entrance as well as the notice on the ticket machine.

Please also check with the local Council to confirm that Smart have been given permission under Town and Country Planning Regulation [advertising] to erect such notices.

Their right to claim according to them includes being the agent of the landowner

r- that is not good enough,

that would then mean the landowner has a right to claim not them.

This leads me to believe that their permissions may not be as good as they would like to claim and that means you cant owe them money if I am right on this.

the NTK says it has been isued for unauthorised parking.

Now, go back and photograph the signage and see if there is a condition on the signage that says you have to seek authorisation before parking there and if so who from.

Later on in the letter it says by either not purchasing a ticket or staying beyond the time.

Well, the claim should specify EXACTLY what it is they are saying is a breach,

not guessing or using a blanket listing of everything that could be a breach

so this means that they have not issued a proper NTK

so cant claim anything form anyone as it fails that part of the POFA.

Where ticket machines are concerned the signs are normally an invitation to treat and the contract is offered and accepted by the wording on the machine (if different from the signs) and you consider and accept the contract by reading that blurb and putting your mone in to pay to create the agreement of those terms offered. If yiu dont feed the machine then you dont accept the terms and are trespassing and that has nothing to do with Smart parking.

All of this would be wasted on Smart though so dont bother telling them you arent going to pay because.....

Ignore any dca, they have nothing to do with anything, they just get apid to write stupid letters.

Once we see the signage and machine conditions we will advise what to do if anything at all at this juncture

Good afternoon,

Thank you for the advice you posted before, I'm sorry this took a while.

I haven't had an easy opportunity to get to Exeter and check the carpark signage.

However, from the posts you guys put up before this isn't at a point where I need to take action soon anyway.

I've attached a PDF of the pics I took

- I can't get the site to accept a jpg no matter how small I make it.

The sign poking out of a hedge is at the entrance to the car park that I used, but is mirrored at the other entrance as well.

The other three pics were all takes standing right in front of the meter.

I had a somewhat different letter through at the end of last week from a solicitor,

but reading through they aren't saying anything the previous letters haven't also said.

The only thing I can see in it that's of any note is that it's a single letter asking for one sum of money rather than two.

I've blanked the bits that matter and attached it in case it's got any useful info.

Kind regards,

J

Gladstones Letter.pdf

Pics.pdf

the solicitors are just Will and John,

the people who own the IPC trying to look hard,

you can ignore this letter as well, they will be writing again soon so save your response for that letter.

Now to the signage:

"Parking regulations apply" but they dont list any so they dont apply.

It is that simple.

Not an offer of a contract so how can you owe money for breaching a contract that doesnt exist

the "terms and conditions" say nothing about paying anyone a sum of money for anything and are so poorly constructed as to cause nausea trying to read them so will fail to create a contract for more than one reason and one of those is that they refer to yet another sign elsewhere.

Unfair contracts clauses regs spring to mind so this sign isnt a contract either.

the machine you put money into doesnt mention any charge for overstaying the 3 hours you can pay for so as you only accept the contractual offer when feeding the machine then I read it as there is no obligation to consider any other sign as they are "invitations to treat" and the contractual offer is the ticket machine.

This is not just my opinion, judges have formed the same opinion as well so it would be worth looking for a similar bit of case reporting on the Parking Pranksters blog or other motoring advice sites so you have the info to hand for when you tell Gladdys to go swivel.

As smart are BPA full members I suspect that Gladstones are doing special deals on threatograms for prospective IPC members in an attempt to persuade them to jump ship. Well, if they try it on with this particular site Smart will be smarting at their losses caused by listening to bad advice.

Now, going back to one of your earlier posts,

you have proof of refund of the parking fee?

Keep that safe and if you havent got it then any card payment made to any company there on those dates will be important so show that any error on your part is "de minimis" anyway

The Gladstones letter probably came from DRP themselves and Gladstones know nothing about the letter which may be why you are asked not to contact Gladstones.