Parking Eye PCN while shopping at Aldi

[Frosty0908]

Hi,

 

I have been an avid reader here for many years the amount of things you have helped me sort out is unbelievable and thank you for that I regret that my first ever post here is one asking for advice but here we go.

 

I today got a PCN through the post from Parking Eye from my recent and only visit to them on the 6th September times were hard and after seeing the advertisement on the telly boasting how cheap they was we took what little money we had at the time to stock up the cupboards as much as possible I parked my car in a designated bay unloaded my two sons and went and did my shopping it states I was in there car park for 33 minutes and some seconds.

 

I did not visit any other store I completed my shopping and returned to my car and left, The fine they state is for not inputting my car registration inside there store as clearly stated on there signs.

 

I have never heard of this practice before and after only passing my test less than eight months ago I am usually always extra careful when parking my car more so than other motorists when our local Toby Carvery changed to a Pay and Display overnight I noticed it and obeyed the charge.

 

I did not see no signage and even if I had of seen it I doubt I would of read it due to the fact I am used to shopping at Asda/Tesco who do not have this policy and the usual rules apply not parking there and shopping elsewhere, causing an obstruction , Not parking correctly in a bay and leaving within a timely manner.

 

What annoys me is I was a paying customer having two children with me a three year old and a nine month old my attention was focused up on them with it being a busy car park I am pretty sure though if there was a blatant sign in my face I would of obeyed it. The lady who checked out our shopping did not mention this requirement which if Aldi want to take this stance then surely they should protect there customers as much as they can.

 

I have contacted Aldi about it who say they can remove the PCN if I can provide them with a valid receipt for my visit I do not make a habit of keeping grocery receipt's so it has since been binned. I feel like there abusing this knowing that I can not prove I was in there store.

 

I hope this makes sense if I have failed to provide any information let me know and ill provide more. Just as a finishing note I have no intention of paying this fine and would rather if need be it go to court as I am pretty sure that this practice is not only unfair but it is also immoral.

 

Thank You

[Scouse Magic]

Hi there, you are not alone......

 

PE have been sending hundreds if not thousands of these speculative invoices relating to Aldi....They patrol these sites to look for potential vulnerable people who will cave in (As stated in their job description), or, at the eleventh hour they try to avoid court and ask you to pay a reduced cost of £60 to drop the claim and cover their expenses........

 

Do not be fooled, in my opinion no judge in the land will uphold such an outrage....Others will be along to help regarding POPLA appeals if you wish to go down that route....

 

If the signage was inadequate that is another argument as well as the unfair contracts act etc...

 

So what ? Your tyres may have been over the white line !!!! Frank Lampards ball against Germany was miles over the line but it didn't make a blind bit of difference if you see what I mean....

[DBC]

If you are on Facebook , then go on to Aldi's Facebook page and complain about this outrageous treatment and kick up a real stink. Others have done this and (with any luck) Aldi should cancel the charge. By the way it's not a "fine", it's an invoice.

[Frosty0908]

Thank you for your replies I most defiantly wish to go down the POPLA route as I feel this "Invoice" is unjust have been looking through old threads and am starting to understand a little more what I need to do. I would rather have to pay them £5000 at a judges order than pay them £40 reduced rate £70 full rate or the cancellation rate of £60

 

The first thing I did was take to facebook

 

Received a PCN from Parking Eye today for not inputting my car reg inside your store. I never seen any signage telling me to do so and feel even more annoyed as it was my first visit to you. When parking my car at a supermarket my attention is on my children and not your signage when I assume the parking is free due to inadequate signage. Thank you Aldi you have made my shopping experience with you a negative one what I saved on my shopping bill I have to now pay for by paying this notice.

 

Which got what seems to be a generic response

 

Hi Richard, thanks for letting us know. Our customer services team can assist with any appeals to parking charges and can be contacted by emailing all relevant information to -removed due to post count limitation-. We hope this helps, Aldi UK Facebook Team

 

I then followed that up with

 

I see you have put this on other messages that have appeared on here I have sent this information to you but felt obliged to put my case here to. I see this is not a new problem but has not been addressed to the wider public by Aldi I dread to think how many people pay up without putting up a fight I am severely annoyed that you would encourage this practice against your customers. Asking me to deal with it one on one with you is not going to help other people.

 

I have spoke to Aldi about it who seem to be right behind Parking Eye on this if I can provide a valid receipt or bank statement they will remove the charge which unfortunately due to paying cash I can not.

 

I intend to be very vocal about this through social media and am more than prepared for a day in court if they wish to go down that route. Before I received this notice I had no knowledge of parking charges but now seem to be learning more each day

[Scouse Magic]

The fact that you have been issued with a pcn proves you were there....The court will not need to see any till receipts because on the balance of probability you did shop there.....

 

You will see on the facebook thing that aldi do get involved but ask the motorist to pay PE's £60 expenses cost before they will intervene......Rubbish !!!

 

I like your attitude, have a day out in Court you will win blind folded

[Tony P]

And if Aldi 'cancel' Parking Eye's Parking Charge Notice don't be grateful for Aldi's intervention - remain angry.

 

It would not have happened in the first place other than Aldi 'got into bed' with the wrong people who are sсаmming money from Aldi customers.

 

Aldi are stuffed - they entered a contract with PE but failed to realize what shisтers PE are.

 

But still in Court PE will not reveal the contract that allows them to take legal action over the land owned (?) by Aldi. This key point has caused PE to fail at any Court they bothered to attend knowing there was a robust defense.

 

Truck on!

[Scouse Magic]

I doubt very much this will ever see the inside of a court.....Remember Aldi's car park is free to customers and in order to bring a claim there has to be a financial loss...."" Under contract law the claimant should be entitled only to a sum which would put him in the same position as he would have been in if the breach of contract had not occurred."

 

Id be on my knees begging to issue the court papers

[dx100uk]

teo thingsmore for you

 

it is not a fine

 

nowhere I hope does any of their paperwork use that word.

 

any road marking on private land are purely graffiti and have no statute in any laws.

 

dx

[Frosty0908]

Tony P I read your facebook Posts if your indeed the same person I have admiration for your stance on this matter and that you are going out of your way to help other people I agree it should not be dropped Parking Eye seem to be bullies there letter is full of intimidating comments for a fraction of a second when I first opened the letter I was panicking if this has that affect on me I hate to think what effect it would have on an OAP or a vulnerable person.

 

I really do hope it goes to court as really it is pathetic that they would try to charge me for not inputting my registration and I can see no financial loss here at all

 

dx I see the word fine gets your goat I apologize was habit that made me use this word I won't be using it again.

 

Also I was using the road markings as an example of a reason I might expect to be charged I was not over any lines and its not a reason they stated for the PCN

 

I tried to call PE when I first got the ticket but they only have an automated payment line seems they really don't want to talk to me about it they would rather I just payed

 

Thank you for your advice so far guys I appreciate it it helps to hear other people say that I am not being unreasonable and that indeed Parking Eye are trying to abuse the position.

[DBC]

I have actually spoken to somebody in Aldi's "parking department". She come over as very aggressive, very pro-Parking Eye and in agreement that PE should receive that £50 for cancelling any court papers. So much for customer service.

[renegadeimp]

Thats probably because you spoke to soneone employed by parking eye.

[citizenB]

I wonder if you were able to say at what time you were in the store, how much you spent and perhaps some items that would show up on their receipt - if that would help !

 

I agree that very few people keep their receipts once they have unpacked their shopping and everything is as it should be.

 

Now had the ticket been on your car when you came out, you would have been able to deal with it there and then. But no, they send it via the post and some time after the event - hoping that you are one of the many who dispose of your till receipt.

[DBC]

Thats probably because you spoke to soneone employed by parking eye.

 

I did ask that, but she said she worked for Aldi, but I think she has been brainwashed by Parking Eye.

[martin g]

Good morning,

 

Please appeal to POPLA, as is your legal right, because this will cost PE £27.00 directly plus a further sum in answering your appeal.

 

It will also cost their trade body BPA Ltd a further £100 or so because the true cost of your appeal is about £130.

 

I urge everyone to appeal, and everyone will have valid grounds, because the more appeals the more it will cost the "industry".

 

It would appear that POPLA are very far from being an independent appeals body, and will lean over backwards to assist their paymasters, the parking scamsters.

 

Obviously you are not bound by POPLA's ruling, and you can keep the whole thing running by further appeals to The Lead Adjudicator. And then let PE try and take your to court if they wish.

 

I know that the site is not keen on posting external links, but I urge you to google the Parking Prankster blogspot for a good laugh and for the knowledge in his posts.

 

Knowledge is power as someone said.

 

Good luck

[renegadeimp]

I did ask that, but she said she worked for Aldi, but I think she has been brainwashed by Parking Eye.

 

I wouldnt put it past her to lie. After all, if you read the Parking Eye job description, you'll soon see they are capable of using any methods to get money.

[DBC]

Aldi's parking department is based somewhere in the West Country, not anywhere near PE's office in the North west. The woman I spoke to was Rachel Organ, who together with another woman are Aldi's parking department. Poor old Rachel really came out with a sob story, painting a picture of Aldi managers all with empty stores and full car parks because non customers were taking up all the parking spaces.

[Scouse Magic]

Much respect to the posters on here...

 

I love one of the Parking Pranksters argument that his registration plate is divisible by 1 and 3

 

Then roll out the big bombs.......

 

Dont forget PE are issuing thousands of pre court action claims...... if there were 30 court cases per day as a minimum, they would need a lot of staff up and down the country to attend

 

[Surfer01]

If every one enter a defence against PE, PE would not be able to cope as they would need to employ solicitors in every town! I like the idea of querying with the council whether the PPC has permission to operate a business on the car park and whether the PPC is paying business rates.

[renegadeimp]

PE do the same as various DCA's. The issue claims en masse and hope the majority get through and make them a nice profit. The ones that send in a defence, they wither dont turn up to court, or they discontinue the claim.

[Frosty0908]

This might sound silly but just curious as to what would happen if this did go to court if as part of my defense I included a counter claim for my "Admin" Fee ie time spent researching any postage costs or call costs and the time it actually took filling in appeals and preparing the defense I know the probability is that this will never see a court room just curious to where I would stand with turning the tables back on them.

 

I have stumbled across the Parking Prankster my favorite one is him being bitten by a radio active spider

[Scouse Magic]

If it goes to court and you win, you can recover costs associated with defending the claim which have to be reasonable E.G. postage, stationary, travel expenses, telephone calls and loss of income capped at £90 per day, this includes time allocated to prepare your defense and research etc....You can claim say 2 or 3 days depending..........

 

If PE drop the case they must submit the correct form to the court and pay your costs upto that point. Simply writing to you and the court is not enough........and you would be entitled to claim. What happens in most of these cases is that the defendent is so relieved the case is being dropped they do not claim, or realise that they can claim......

Edited September 15, 2013 by Scouse Magic
grammar

[Frosty0908]

Quick update,

 

I managed to find my receipt today for this shopping visit comes to a total of £25.58 and called up Rachael expecting for this to all be over only to be told that I would need to send my receipt to Parking eye to there P.O address or to her at her address apparently neither Parking Eye or Aldi have email addresses.

 

When I told them I do not feel comfortable sending in my only proof of purchase she became quite abrupt I also asked her what respectable company would operate from a P.O address and would not talk to me on the phone her answer to this was "For obvious reasons"

 

Call me petty but I also refuse to foot the cost of a stamp as little as it might be I asked her if she would return the cost to which she snorted "No".

 

I used to be one of them dreaded telephone debt collectors (I was young and did not know any better) so I knew which tatic she was trying to use she did not like my skill of talking without taking a breath to stop her talking and when I did finally let her speak it was "Mr XXXX are you going to let me talk" she did not like it when I told her that was the same tactic she was trying to use on me.

 

I have told her now that if they are not prepared to work with me I will work against them I am not the one in the wrong here.

 

I have sent of a weak appeal to Parking Eye now in hope that they refuse it I welcome them taking me to court and will now ignore any future correspondence from them or maybe downplay my hand and act dumb in any future correspondence.

 

I have also recorded the conversation I know this is illegal and can not be used in a court of law but I remember something being said in my union training that although it will not be included it will also not be dismissed. I keep my fingers crossed now that I receive court documents.

 

**Edit** - Forgot to mention her winning reply to another of my questions

 

I asked her if they want to take the stance that it is clearly signposted why is there no mention of having to input your registration at there POS and why there cashiers could not mention it to customers as they leave

 

"That would not be in our best interests" says it all really

Edited September 17, 2013 by Frosty0908
Forgot to add something

[renegadeimp]

Recording the convo is not illegal. I fact it is your legal right to have a copy of the call. Especially if they are threatening legal action.

[DBC]

That's Rachel for you. Aggressive and unhelpful. I wonder if Aldi's senior management are aware of this? They seem rather remote from what's happening. Their Facebook page is run by a third-party PR company and their parking department is located far away from the company's headquarters in Warwickshire.

[renegadeimp]

Yous ure thats an actual office in warwickshire? Or is it a redirection centre?