Mistaken Parkingeye Charge **Won at POPLA**

[Swirly]

Hi,

 

I pay for my parking at a ParkingEye carpark which I park in every working day. The payment is made by me via my salary and was taken from me during the relevant month by my employer.

 

ParkingEye have sent me a £100 parking charge notice for one of the days I was there last month. I have appealed (and reminded them one week later since I hadn't had a response) and have had this rejected (together with a POPLA code) with the reason being given as, "no parking was purchased on the date of the parking event".

 

I know I've paid the monthly charge and have parked there every working day ever since without charge - and for about two years previously actually!

 

Soooo, I think I have a pretty solid case and also think I should be able to get some recompense for the hassle of the three letters and two replies I have had to compose to respond to their 'threats'. How should I go about this?

 

Clearly, a court would throw this out but I would like to make a rather costly point of how ParkingEye treat people who are in the complete right.

 

Any interesting ways of making this gradually expensive for ParkingEye would be welcome

[DragonFly1967]

All the costs are fairly 'set in stone' unfortunately. Despite the fact that PE will try to claim £ lots for solicitors costs should this ever get anywhere near a court, the general consensus of opinion is that they have their own 'in house' solicitors to "solicit" for them, so claiming solicitors costs on a court case would be, in actual fact, double charging. If that could be proven, PE would be in very hot water indeed!

 

It's already cost PE £27+VAT to issue you with a POPLA code, so you could just play along with that. You would win at POPLA on the grounds of GPEOL alone, then you've got your added defence of having already paid, from your salary, for parking.

 

This would however, limit their losses to £27.

 

If you really wanted to have some fun with them and cost them some real money, you'd have to wait and see if they took you to County Court. This would probably be issued through the Northampton BCC, and once you receive those papers, you can apply to have it transferred to your local county court. If they decided to press ahead with it, PE will then be landed with a listing fee, hearing fee and whatever travel costs and expenses they incur to get their 'team' to your local county court.

 

When they lose, you can also claim your expenses and any loss of earnings for having to take a day off work to attend.

 

You'd win either way, so its just a case of how badly you want to play them, and how much you want to cost them

[JoeyJoeC]

To be honest, the POPLA appeal would be the best route, to avoid all of the aggravation of having to go to court and deal with these people.

 

Appeal to POPLA stating you already paid, and you want to see a full breakdown of the £100, as well as the contract which allows them to claim parking charges on behalf of the land owner.

 

You will win it there.

Edited August 14, 2014 by honeybee13

[themagician]

To be honest, the POPLA appeal would be the best route, to avoid all of the aggravation of having to go to court and deal with these people.

 

Appeal to POPLA stating you already paid, and you want to see a full breakdown of the £100, as well as the contract which allows them to claim parking charges on behalf of the land owner.

 

You will win it there.

I agree, but not so much fun!

Edited August 14, 2014 by honeybee13

[ericsbrother]

I wouldnt ask for the breakdown of their loss as it is completely irrelevant to your case as there has been no breach of contract by you.

Your appeal should just state clearly that you pay a monthly fee via your salary and that Parking Eye's claim is a systemic error and that their claim has no basis of fact to support it.

By appealing you cost PE the £27 POPLA fee and hopefully tech them a lesson. A complaint to the BPA should also be made, point out how you pay your monthy charge and that PE have been utterly idiotic in failing to accept your appeal to them as your claim is easily proven and that PE are either deliberately misrepresnting the facts or are incompetent and demond what the BPA are going to do about this as you dont want a repeat.

[armadillo71]

POPLA is the route to take I believe.

Appeal as ericsbrother has written above and include the proof that you pay monthly in the appeal.

Now obviously that should win at POPLA but you never know...

If it didn't then it is not binding on you and PE would spend money chasing you to pay up.

But this ultimately may lead to PE issuing court papers and leading you to put in some effort defending (costing PE money).

You would surely win any court hearing based on what you have told us and have cost PE hundreds...

But if you want a guaranteed win at POPLA then you have to include not a Genuine Pre Estimate Of Loss among other things in the appeal.

[Swirly]

Thanks for all the valuable replies; very interesting.

 

I agree that POPLA is the route to take since taking it to County Court would be far too much inconvenience for the possible benefit. What evidence would I have to submit with my POPLA appeal? I only have my payslips which show a monthly amount being deducted for "Car Parking" since it's my employer that actually pays the bill to the hotel/Parking Eye. Obviously, I'll mention that I park there every working day and haven't received any parking charges before or since the date of the notice (21st July). In addition, many of my colleagues are provided the same parking facility and none that I know of have received a similar parking charge.

 

What would constitute a GPEOL?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

John

[armadillo71]

You only have to say you want a breakdown of the genuine pre estimate of loss that the charge must represent.

 

PE then have to show how they have arrived at the figure and how your parking has cost them this ' loss '.

 

Of course they can't.

 

PE will offer no evidence to POPLA when they see the words genuine pre estimate of loss.

 

Your employer must be able to provide some form of proof that you pay for parking surely?

( although that won't be looked at if you use gpeol. )

[ericsbrother]

The evidence you need is a letter from your employer saying you pay the prescribed fee by way of salary deduction. As it is a PE screw up demand what proof that they have that your salary deduction covered every day for the last X months and the time up until the current date but not that particular day? They will not be able to answer as it is just a cock-up as said.

When you write to the BPA with your cmplaint about PE stupidity point out that your employer has had to waste time dealing with this matter and that their action is not only pig headed in the extreme but a breach of the contract they entered into with your employer and misrepresentation

[D P Dance]

This has to be worth a complaint to Trading Standards.

[Swirly]

Thank you to everyone for their advice. My appeal to POPLA is below:

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Following a parking charge notice received from Parking Eye for an event on 21st July 2014 and issued on 25th July 2014 I appealed via their website.

 

My appeal detailed the fact that my parking fees at the Park Inn Hotel were paid on a monthly basis via my employer (xxxxx xxx Ltd) who occupy land next to the hotel and provide this facility to many of their employees via their monthly salary. These charges have been paid via my salary since I began working for them in November 2012 and via my previous employer (xxxxxxx xxxxxxx Ltd) since August 2001. This facility allows me to park my registered vehicle at the Park Inn without charge at any time of day.

 

In fact I have parked my car almost every day since the start of my employment(s) to the present day without issue and I continue to do so. As such I find it very strange that they have issued a parking charge for parking on 21st July 2014 and not for any day before or since. I also find it doubly strange that they have decided to reject my original appeal.

 

I can understand an error in their sophisticated computer system which would issue an initial Parking Charge but I cannot understand a rejection of my appeal when further details were supplied. This would appear to be complete idiocy resulting in costs to both Parking Eye and myself rejecting the accusal. Clearly, their processes are lacking in governance and without compliance to the contract between Parking Eye and the Park Inn hotel. This lack of coherence will affect the relationship between Parking Eye and the Park Inn since I will be making a complaint to the hotel regarding this matter.

 

In addition, I will be informing my employer of the poor service received by Parking Eye via the Park Inn hotel and will bring this matter up with the British Parking Association and Shropshire Trading Standards.

 

A sensible reponse from Parking Eye would be interesting.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

I also sent an anonymised payslip .jpg which showed my payment for parking.

 

I hope it does get interesting

Edited August 24, 2014 by Swirly
Added info about evidence to POPLA

[armadillo71]

Well that is half appeal half complaint as I read it.

 

I couldn't guess how the assessor would rule on that....

 

obviously you are in the right and will not be paying any money.

 

I suspect PE will offer no evidence.

[reallymadwoman]

POPLA can and do pass on concerns to the BPA and a complaint coming from them does carry some weight. Also, they may have seen other similar incidents so are in a better position than the average motorist to judge if an apparent fault is a one off or systematic.

[ericsbrother]

also, it is an evidential paper trail and if POPLA make a determination without considering all of the facts they are open to having their determination challenged in a higher court. This should mean that PE will have to provide all of their evidence or just shut up.

[Swirly]

The position I've taken is to provide enough evidence to discredit PE but also to point out their failings. No matter which way the POPLA appeal goes I'll still have enough evidence to make a fool of PE which in turn will focus attention on PE and the way their systems are at fault.

 

Hopefully, this will make them reconsider their way of working (I doubt this) and by costing them money will take a look at themselves.

 

If PE take me to court I'll be making the most of it and will be publishing the full details to all media outlets.

 

I've informed my employer of their poor performance and they're completely behind me with this. Obviously, they'll be able to use this case as a way of negotiating a lower cost for parking in future!

[armadillo71]

As said before , I suspect PE will offer no evidence to POPLA, thereby dodging any explanation...

[Swirly]

OK...I've just received the evidence that PE have provided so it seems they they want to press ahead with the claim. Frankly, it's pretty weak; it consists of 32 pages of guff including 11 pages of pictures of signage, 7 pages of previous emails (ie, two of my emails saying I don't owe this - why does this take up seven pages?), etc.

 

Their compelling evidence seems to be 'Section G - Other Evidence' where they do a search for my car reg on their whitelist of cars that are permitted to park on the land - it come up with nothing hence why they are waving their hands. I have been legitimately parking there for several years using my employers agreement/payment with the hotel and still do to this day; since the start of this farce I have been parking every working day in their car park without a charge because I pay for it.

 

This sounds to me that PE are trying to use me as some sort of test; probably because they are watching this CAG thread.

 

I'm quite happy to take this to court since I will easily win but thought I'd let everyone know of the hassle that ParkingEye are creating me.

 

John

[unclebulgaria67]

Surely it is just the case of having evidence of your company paying for the parking. If this is provided, then it is the end of the story.

 

Perhaps your employers did not make the payment and PE are using you as a way to deal with the situation.

[armadillo71]

As your employers are behind you ,then they must have checked that payment was made surely ?

 

 

I cannot see what sought of ' test ' you would be either...

 

 

Do PE somehow think they will win at POPLA because you haven't mentioned GPEOL? ( correctly imo ). As said before, I can't guess which way the assessor will decide...

 

 

But if they took you to court then you would certainly win.

[unclebulgaria67]

As your employers are behind you ,then they must have checked that payment was made surely ?

 

 

I cannot see what sought of ' test ' you would be either...

 

 

 

Perhaps the employers did not pay for all the parking provided and they are hoping that this gets reported back to them, with a resolution between employers and PE.

[reallymadwoman]

Your 'bundle' sounds identical to the one they sent me. In your reply, point out that their check of the 'whitelist' doesn't show the date they checked or the date they were checking for (if that makes sense!) and could have been done at any time, and was obviously not done before your invoice was issued - early on in the bundle should be a list of what date they did everything.

 

Also say that your vehicle not being on the whitelist check is only proof it wasn't there, it isn't proof that they hadn't made a mistake and not put it there when it should have been.

 

Finally, as you have proof that your company paid for the parking, they have suffered no loss anyway. I won on this point since PE hadn't even mentioned it in their bundle.

 

I'd be tempted to mention that their bundle seems entirely generic and doesn't address any of your specific points of appeal - they've already had a telling off from POPLA for doing that.

[reallymadwoman]

Duplicate post.

[ericsbrother]

Just because PE are stupid they expect everyone else to believe that they are right. Well, this is how they make money but if your employer really wants to back you this can bite their backside a damned sight harder then they could possibly imagine. I'm not sure what the contract is worth overall but the loss of amenity damages will be at least a years charges and probably a bit more.

[Swirly]

Thanks for all the advice that everyone has given me with my Parking Eye problem.

 

As expected, I've won my appeal to POPLA. I think the kicker for the evidence was the £6000+ invoice sent to my employer from the hotel for the rental of 38 parking spaces for the period covering my charge date. Obviously this had been paid and Parking Eye offered no defence against that.

 

So, the next step is for me to start making complaints about Parking Eye's behaviour to the various bodies. Clearly, a formal complaint to the hotel is in order as is one to the BPA and the local Trading Standards department. Are there any other suggestions of organisations that I should contact?

 

Also, I would be grateful for any suggestions as to what I should include in the complaints I make.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Tony P]

I would be grateful for any suggestions as to what I should include in the complaints I make.

 

Members of Parliament for both your 'home' constituency and that of the hotel.

 

DVLA, for supplying Keeper information applied for in pursuit of fraudulent gain.