PPS PCN - Great Weatern Hotel Swindon - ticket incorrectly displayed

[corsairrunner]

Hello,

 

I wonder if you can assist, this evening I parked in a "PPS" pay and display car park, I paid for my ticket and put it on the dashboard, however it was particularly windy. Upon my return I have a parking ticket and look through to see the ticket facedown on the dashboard, I filled in an initial appeals form attaching a picture of my ticket showing I paid to park there, however after reviewing their website it says the following:

 

Appeals will NOT be considered for the following reasons:

Your ticket fell down/was blown off the dashboard/on the seat etc.

Your ticket was not displayed clearly, face up, on the dashboard of your vehicle

You forgot to display your ticket

You went to get some change

You did not know it was a Pay & Display car park

You were only a few minutes overdue

You only stopped for a few minutes

 

This seems backwards to me as they're making a claim for loss, but there's no loss? I paid to park there, the ticket was just incorrectly displayed. Is there anyway I can fight this? Any advice on how to proceed would be much appreciated!

[f16]

Hi Welcome to CAG.

 

What date was the "offence" ?

Have they provided a POPLA code with the rejection?

 

EDIT : Have you sent the "appeal" or not ?

[corsairrunner]

Hello,

 

Thanks very much!

 

Date of the offence was actually today 12/01/2015, from what I've read in various places and what it says on the website it seems likely it's going to be rejected, so was hoping to get some information on how to proceed assuming it does get rejected to avoid shooting myself in the foot. Any advice?

[armadillo71]

Wait for the NTK in the post....

[corsairrunner]

Yeah appeal already sent unfortunately!

 

What's the NTK?

[armadillo71]

But you have already appealed and identified the driver I take it?

[f16]

Double post !!

[corsairrunner]

Yeah I pretty much identified myself as the driver, appreciate that was likely a mistake and should've asked for advice prior to submitting the appeal.

[armadillo71]

You wait and see what the reply is, and we go from there...

[corsairrunner]

Okay, I'll sit tight for now, shall I leave this here to update when I hear from PPS? Or just delete it and create a new thread once I've heard back from them?

[armadillo71]

Keep it all on this thread please.

[JoeyJoeC]

Bottom line is you paid for the parking, they haven't made a loss, they are not allowed to issue fines, they can only ASK you for money they think you owe. Since you paid, you don't owe anything. They will try to scare you with different tactics to try to get you to pay up.

 

If you reject it all the way, they would have to take you to court when they know they won't win. You might be better off to ignore anything they send you at this point since you identified yourself as the driver and thus you won't be able to appeal via POPLA (As far as I know).

 

Post up anything they send you to this thread.

[corsairrunner]

I'll post the appeal reply once they contact me, can anyone explain the legal reason why it won't hold up in court? I'm ex-police so quite interested in the legal technicalities that result in it almost never going to court and what the success rate is like when ignoring.

[armadillo71]

Anyone can appeal a Parking Charge Notice to POPLA, if they are issued a valid code;

 

 

'Anyone can appeal such a parking charge notice providing they follow the process below. If you want someone to appeal on your behalf, such as a family member or friend, they can do so but there can only be one appeal for any one parking charge notice.'

 

 

http://www.popla.org.uk/makinganappeal.htm

 

 

 

 

The legal reasons behind challenging these invoices is all about contract law.

 

 

Get a picture of the signage to see what contract you allegedly entered into.

 

 

1000's of court papers have been issued regarding Parking Charge Notices in recent years, by certain PPCs, but this process is really just an extension of the debt collection chain.

[JoeyJoeC]

Any company can send anyone an invoice asking for money. If you don't owe this money, then why should you pay it? Parking companies make their money by issuing fake fines for anything they can. Most people pay up because they look official.

 

You paid for parking there, you have every right to park there. They made no loss for the ticket not being displayed correctly.

 

Many parking companies actually pay the landowner to allow them to "patrol" the car park and issue fines to people. It's just a huge [problem].

[armadillo71]

 

Most parking companies actually pay the landowner to allow them to "patrol" the car park and issue fines to people. It's just a huge [problem].

 

 

No they do not.

 

Most offer their 'service' for free. And keep all the gpeol payments that the victims hand over....

 

Some offer kick backs from every paid up invoice though.

[JoeyJoeC]

No they do not.

 

Most offer their 'service' for free. And keep all the gpeol payments that the victims hand over....

 

Some offer kick backs from every paid up invoice though.

 

i'll change "most" to "many", as many of them do it. Parking Eye tend to "buy" their way into patrolling car parks that they know will earn them big money.

[armadillo71]

i'll change "most" to "many", as many of them do it. Parking Eye tend to "buy" their way into patrolling car parks that they know will earn them big money.

 

If you are trying to bring the Beavis car park into it, then that is one of few and not the norm with PE ' mananged ' car parks.

But thread going slightly off topic...

[ericsbrother]

Ok, to answer one of yoyur comments, you are not ignoring this matter but waiting for the parking company to make the next move in a series of protocols that they must follow to get any money out of anyone.

As already stated, the critical thing is that you have paid the prescribed fee so there is no breach of any condititon that has caused them a loss. This means that any claim for larger sums of money is likely to bean unenforceable penalty charge and the company knows it. They admit that they wont consider an appeal on the grounds of a number of things that are actually considered good reasons in law by means of test cases so that is shooting themselves in the foot to begin with. Let them hang themselves with their own rope and wait for the NTK. This has to arrive between 29 and 56 days after the date of the event, any other time and it is invalid and removes any keeper liability. As you have essentially identified yourself as the driver they now have 35 days to consider your appeal and if they dont accept it issue a POPLA code and you can appeal to an independent assessor, where the company will lose the appeal if you offer the correct appeal reasons. come back here when you ahve a response from the parking co and do tell us if they send anything else that is not a notice of rejection and that appeal details and code.

[corsairrunner]

Hi guys, I've received an email refusing my appeal on the basis the ticket wasn't visible. They've included a POPLA appeal number in the letter. Is there anyway I can attach a copy of the letter to this thread for your review?

[JoeyJoeC]

It's a good thing they have given you a POPLA code. This will allow you to appeal independently where with the right words, you will very likely win at this stage.

 

Someone else will be able to help with this.

 

The other good thing is that by giving you a POPLA code, that has cost them around £28 .

[ericsbrother]

before you fire off your appeal to POPLA, go and photograph the signage at the entrance to the car park and also the signage at the machine. Post them up here and we will tell you what to mention in your appeal.

For starters there has been no loss to the parking co as you bought and displayed a ticket. Basically paying the prescribed fee meaqns that anything else they claim is then a penalty as they dont have the luxury of the Road Traffic Act to allow them to impose penalties for breaching parking conditions as councils do. This is a critical point. the worfing on the signs will determine whether you were offered a contract or an invitation to treat and the ticket machine conditions will determine whether there has been a breach of the contract IF it actually exists. If the parking co cannot satisfy those precursors then they cant claim a breach can ever occur for anything as there will be no contract in the first place.

Most of them dont know how to write a legal document so they lose.

[corsairrunner]

They included a (somewhat bad) picture of the parking signage on their reply. I'll see if I can upload it, failing that I'll go and grab a picture of it later. Thanks for your help so far! I'll update this post with the necessarys later.

[corsairrunner]

Removed link due to being unable to showing personal data, will edit accordingly later

[ericsbrother]

Make sure that you get piccies of both types of sign and know which is which. As said, probably an invitation to treat which is not a contract. They generally dont know the difference and will claim that all the signs make up the contract or its conditions-wrong.