Ha, at this rate you'll a PM fairly soon...

Right, I'll make his letter a priority then.

DragonFly it would appear I can receive but not send PMs until 30 posts.

Yes it was northbound.

Well indeed. It didn't cross my mind to faff about hunting for the small print in the dark and overstay my welcome even longer. That information clearly displayed would have been a great help. Reckon this is a good bit to include DragonFly?

That's a good point ericsbrother. That certainly wasn't clear - obviously no machines - or I'd have paid when I realised I'd overstayed instead of scarpering in the hope I hadn't missed some sort of grace period. And in fact that £11 isn't given more prominence on the signs than than the details of the two-hour policy and its consequences - i.e. they don't want you to know you can pay £11, they wanted you to be agreeing by default to get hit with £60/£100/£175.

I tried to PM but it says I need 30 posts not 10.

Thanks DragonFly. This should be my 10th post so I'll try and PM you that letter.

Ha, ok. It was Newport Pagnell services on the M1, owned by Welcome Break. Can I just add while mentioning their name that they've been pretty nice so far? I got good customer service from them that night and when I've tried pleading for reason from them directly the duty managers I spoke to were very pleasant, even though it didn't ultimately get me anywhere. It's such a shame they've trashed their in-house customer service efforts by using a grizzly company like ParkingEye.

Thanks Billy's mate, that's lovely. Indeed I have lightened up since asking for help on here, it does half the burden knowing you're not alone. I was seriously at my wit's end with their arrogance in thinking I have nothing better to do with my time or money than drop everything and donate it to them. If the alternative is to let them win then they've got my full attention as requested ;-) Eric's brother - are the planning permission requests part of the info I'm going to be demanding from ParkingEye later or is this a separate request for the relevant local authority? Ignore me if that's detailed in a previously suggested link, I'm just starting to get my paperwork together and research read today.

Ok, maybe posting it is a bad idea if they trawl these boards? Even redacted they could identify me from posting the letter I sent them couldn't they? Maybe it's sensible to start from scratch, sticking to facts sound legal arguments instead of inviting them to attribute my aforementioned opinions to my file.

Aw, thanks guys. This is such a terrific help. I'm happy now to try and get them to court if they'll bite ;-) So I glad I was on the track focusing on the GPEOL, maybe I was over-complicating things and starting to believe this was beyond comprehension. The signage - yes it was dark, no it wasn't raining. But had ParkingEye employed a bloke in a gorilla suit to jump on my bonnet and yell "Two hours only or we'll come and getcha!", I'd have said "Yeah yeah, I'm only here for a 30 minute nap and a double espresso." And isn't that precisely what motorway services are for? "Tiredness kills, take a break" we read on along our monotonous journey, with signs dotted the length of the carriageway telling us how far are the next services. There’s a voice of authority enticing us into these places to do the right thing, the safe thing. Is it not really obvious that on occasion these customers that they rely on – and who do pay way over the odds for their sarnies, might I add – may just suffer a normal human reaction to tiredness and fall into a deep sleep? There’s no malice in oversleeping. I didn’t wake up that morning and think “Ooh just for fun, I’m going to get one over on a motorway service station today and bag myself a free night’s kip in one of their lovely car parks.” So no, I didn’t bother even trying to read their signs. I didn’t think I needed to. I just didn’t think to increase the volume on my phone alarm. It was an accident. In fact no, it wasn’t even an accident. As far as accidents in the car go, going into the back of the car in front or running over your neighbour’s cat – they’re accidents. This isn’t even in the same category. I was just being normal and human. I slept in. Give me a break. It didn’t make me late for anything, I left nobody inconvenienced. There was no queue of other drivers waiting for me to wake up and take the space I’d been occupying in the empty car park. In fact is this scenario why they have a ParkingEye car park in the first place? Sleeping drivers are prime targets aren’t they? Entice them in then get em when they don’t wake up in time. It feels like entrapment. Sorry, rant over. Is the outline defence statement for this claim form? Section 3 of the defence and counterclaim section gives space to ‘set out your defence’. I’m going to do some more reading over the weekend of the links that have been suggested. DragonFly, should I PM you my appeal letter? It contains my initial claims about GPEOL and a bit of other stuff, which they completely dismissed in their rejection letter of course and spouted a load of cases where they’d triumphed (though I’ve read that is bog standard ParkingEye manipulation and not to be taken seriously).

Forget my last post, I can't afford to be fussy. I've read those stickies before thanks and have just re-read them again now. But it doesn't cover the defence section of the form I've got today, unless I'm missing something. What got me stuck before is that I don't know what my defence is, despite all my research. I know what part of it is, and I know what it isn't (like the signage arguments can't apply to my case can they?) but there's so much other stuff that I'm not getting my head around sufficiently to apply correctly. I thought my type of case must be really common, it seemed like such a predictable sequence of events that led to it. But I can't find any particularly comparable cases where I'm not disputing the facts, just that it's a disproportionate punishment.

It only arrived today. There doesn't appear to be an option to request transfer to my local court. But is that a key element of fighting this? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with my name being on court lists where it might be recognised. At least in Northampton there's no risk of getting noticed by anyone I work with. I'll request it if it's worth the risk though.

Thanks DragonFly, that's a great help. The date of the incident is May 16 and their initial notice is dated May 21. That list of requests I should be asking of ParkingEye - how and when should I request them? I mean do I write to them now directly or will the court send further paperwork covering such requests? Thanks for the blog link. That's quite a list. I'd like to see their PR man try and defend those one-by-one.

Phew, thank you DragonFly1967.

Hello all. I’m hoping for some help regarding a ParkingEye county court summons. The background is I was falling asleep at the wheel of my car late at night on the motorway while driving home from a meeting at the other end of the country, so pulled into the nearest services for a nap and a coffee. I was aware of the two-hour parking limit and so set my phone alarm, but was so tired that it didn’t wake me and I overstayed my welcome. There were signs but I didn’t make any attempt to read them because I was aware of the two-hour rule and had no intention of staying longer. I did purchase coffee during my stop and the car park was virtually empty so I’m quite sure I did no harm, especially with it being an alternative to falling asleep in the fast lane. Thus far, I haven’t done the right thing with this ParkingEye saga and this latest development has had me in tears wondering how the heck I’m going to get rid of it without sacrificing my credit rating or my sanity. I run my own business and the last year has been tough, extremely tough. I’m up to my eyeballs in debt and have been working 18-hour days for months trying to stave off bankruptcy. Thankfully there is now light at the end of the tunnel but the last few weeks it’s really started to catch up with me. My head’s mashed, I’ve become an adrenalin-fuelled zombie and I’ve just packed my child off to her grandmother’s for a few days to try and catch up. It’s like I’ve thrown everything I’ve got at keeping our heads above water this year to avoid defaults and CCJs - and then along comes ParkingEye to slap one on me anyway for oversleeping in a car park. I don’t want to sound like a whingebag in explaining that, or to sound like I think sympathy will get me anywhere with ParkingEye. What I mean is I haven’t had either of the things one needs to get rid of ParkingEye: time, or money. So when their initial demand dropped onto my doormat my response was “no chance”. No chance am I paying £60 (upped to £100 for any dawdling) for 45 minutes parking when I can barely afford food or childcare. Yet I can no more afford the alternative: days of researching a fight-back. But appeal I did. I spent hours researching this forum and others, stated my legal arguments (primarily genuine pre-estimate of loss), but was so hacked off at being made to drop everything and respond to their demands in their timescale that I’m afraid it did deteriorate into a bit of a rant towards the end which in hindsight I regret. I may have suggested they take me to court, without having thought through the fact I don’t have the time or energy for that sort of fight. Needless to say it got rejected. So I set aside a morning to write my POPLA appeal but after a whole day of researching reams of information on legal arguments I took the decision that I couldn’t waste a third day on it, that I wouldn’t complete the appeal, that I couldn’t get it done properly before the deadline and that surely they wouldn’t take it all the way to court anyway. Instead I contacted ParkingEye’s client, the motorway service station, in the hope they might help this to go away quicker. I spoke to two duty managers and they were actually quite approachable and listened and promised to pass my details to the site manager. I haven’t had a response but didn’t chase them up, hoping they might have called off their dogs without feeling the need to inform me and so waited to see if I heard from ParkingEye again. Wishful thinking that was. The letter before county court claim is still sitting in my in tray, and of course now the actual claim form from Northampton County Court has arrived. Much as it would stick in my throat to do so, if I had the ever-increasing sum of money needed to make this go away I would, shamefully, pay it. I haven’t got spare days to research, prepare, write, attend court and fight yet more stress without driving myself into a big hole. I don’t think I even have the mental capacity to get my head around the legal arguments anymore but as a company director I cannot afford a CCJ against me. So I’m going to have to find the will and the time to fight this aren’t I? And hopefully I’ve made a start by posting this today. But goodness do I resent this pressure at having to defend myself from for such a miniscule crime that had no bad intentions behind it. Apologies for such a long post. Any general advice would be appreciated, but specifically I’m hoping for guidance on: Now it’s got to court summons stage, does the landowner still have the authority to call it off or is there no turning back now? Does anyone know if any public safety arguments have been made in court in similar cases when a tired driver overslept after trying to do the sensible thing and pull off at motorway services? Is there any defence in that angle at all? My main concern is the CCJ. Is the only way to guarantee avoiding one to pay up without going to court? Or to agree with the claim? Are there any clear lines of defence on this one that I might have missed? Thanks for reading and for a very helpful forum.