I live in Ingress Park, Greenhithe. Back in February, I came back late at night to find a car parked in my allocated bay. This is not the first time it happened. I took photos for proof. and parked temporarily in a Visitor Bay. In the morning I had a ticket (as I hadn't been able to find a visitor permit and there is no out of hour number to call) I assumed it would be fairly simple to get this sorted , and possibly even send a warning note to the owner of the car in my bay. How wrong I was - PCM refuse to back down. Ingess Park management didn't really help much. I've been keeping a quiet record of other misuses since, including cars without permits continually parked in a disabled bay. In fact , I have an email on record that PCM decided not to check the disable bay. I have been through all the various nice letters. Now I get threatened with court action. To me, I have a reasonable counter claim, which is that PCM / Ingress Park failed to adequately enforce parking restrictions on the allocated bays, so those in the know simply park in them with impunity. Any thoughts? Do I have a good case? If I lose, will my credit rating be screwed for years?

I'm looking for some advice on what my options may be (if any!) in the following situation.... I am a tenant of Peabody Housing Association and I have an allocated parking space on my estate. I pay rent for this space direct to Peabody by direct debit. Peabody have contracted MET Parking services to administer the parking controls on my estate and residents apply to MET for our parking permits. In June I received a Parking Charge Notice from MET Parking for £60 for parking without having a valid permit (my permit had expired). I appealed against the charge using their online appeal form on 25 June (1 day after the ticket was issued). Unfortunately for me, I then forgot all about the ticket, and I received no correspondence from MET Parking at all. Then yesterday (13 Nov) I received a letter from Debt Recovery Plus demanding £150 for the unpaid parking charge, saying that MET Parking had referred the matter to them as the original charge had not been paid. I have phoned both DRP and MET, both of whom have been extremely unhelpful. MET claim that 3 letters were sent to me, telling me that my appeal was unsuccessful and the charge needed to be paid; however I have not received any of them. Apparently I am now unable to pay the initial £60 charge as the deadline has passed, and I also missed out on the opportunity to appeal to POPLA as this information was also in the missing letters and that deadline has also passed. I don't generally have a problem with my post so I feel it's extremely unlikely that 3 letters have been lost in transit, but MET say that they can prove they've been posted. DRP say that I have 10 days to pay the £150 or they will take me to court. They did offer me a 20% reduction but that's still £120 which I really feel I should not have to pay. At this point I would be willing to pay the £60 even though I think it is excessive - I was still paying for using the parking space even when my permit had expired, so there was no loss of revenue to Peabody (unfortunately I've only just learnt of gpeol (via this website) so didn't use that in my original appeal!). My real concern is that they actually will take me to court and I'll be faced with a bigger bill to pay, but I also really don't want to pay £150 when I haven't received the information that I should have done which would have allowed me to pay the original charge or appeal again. I don't know what my best course of action is. It seems like all the relevant deadlines for appeal have passed, so am I able to appeal to anyone, and if so who? Any advice gratefully received.

This post is just a reminder to read the timing on your Parking Eye ‘Parking Charge Notice’ Our tale of these companies in this regard is one of amazement! According to Parking Eye data, my daughter arrived at Morrisons carpark (Stratford) at 22:25:09, didn’t pay for the appropriate parking time etc etc and has now started to receive the automated paperwork as discussed on this forum So far from Parking Eye: Paper 1 Parking Charge Notice for £85 demand with £50 discount if paid within 14days Paper 2 Duplicate of £85 demand with £50 discount if paid within 14 days Paper 3 Reminder 29days have passed and £85 now due From DebtRecoveryPlusLtd: Paper 1 Demand for £135 Paper 2 Notice of intended court action for £135 AND if goes to court additional £15 court fee, £50 solicitor cost and 8% interest per annum Now here’s my reason for this post title... Should any of you ConsumerActionGroup members/readers get the above said paperwork from Parking Eye, check the timing! Look at this Parking Eye sign: In particular the wording: For use only whilst shopping in store Ignoring the argument of you could state in your defence: "you weren’t shopping" or "parked car to run across the road to another shop" etc etc this will be a very, very, very interesting court case I am looking forward to going to court with my daughter on this one because Morrison’s in Stratford closes 22:00hrs! (On the day in question, it opened 07:00 and closed 22:00) This means, (and I’m sure the judge will agree) that Parking Eye has broken their alleged contract with my daughter for issuing her with a charge that they had no right to issue! They state their parking tariff applys 24hours 7days a week Yes BUT... How can my daughter spend £5+ to get back a parking fee refund upon production of the refund portion of ticket when Morrison was closed AND their sign implies that drivers only need to Pay&Display if shopping in Morrisons Stratford? Makes me chuckle again and again So, if you, or anyone you know has been issued with a pretend Parking Charge Notice, check the timing on the paperwork and the time when the store closed because you just may have a case like ours where the timing part of the alleged parking contract is contradictory making it impossible for the alleged contract to be fulfilled by either party! Zoe PS Couldn't get the sign image to display any bigger Just trust me that the wording is there OR do a double take when next see a similar Parking Eye sign