Parking Eye ANPR PCN - HOME BARGAINS CROSSHANDS - PE ignore Stores Instruction to Cancel Invoice. Whats my best cause of action?

[Rosso123]

Hi

 

Could I have some advice on how to reply to a Final Demand letter from Private Parking Company.

 

The complication here is that the land owner, who have been amazingly supportive have told the Private Parking Company to cancel the invoice several times. They would have had the first instruction from the store owner way before the POPLA appeal.

 

The back story.

I am the registered keeper and not the driver.

The driver was 8 months pregnant and felt sick so pulled off the road, 1^st car park was said store.

The store was closed.

They stayed in the car park while working out if safe to drive or if they needed to call for help.

As the store was closed, the Private Parking Company sent the registered keeper an invoice.

 

19/7/22 – Invoice sent.

23/7/22 – Spoke to Store and was told to come back in the week to talk to Dept or Store manager.

23/7/22 – Sent an appeal to Private Parking Company via Appealmyticket, so that the appeal deadline would not be missed.

27/7/22 – Store messaged me confirmation they had ticket cancelled.

29/9/22 – Appealmyticket contacted me to say that their appeal had failed and that the POPLA appeal had also failed. I contacted the stored again to tell them that Private Parking Company had ignored their instructions to cancel and could they sort it out again.

30/9/22 – Store confirmation that the manager had again told the Private Parking Company to cancel.

 

Everything goes quiet, so the we all thought, including the store that the matter was closed.

 

Then out of the blue I get a Final Notice increasing the fee to £100 and 14days to pay.

I went back to the store and the manager, again very very helpful, apologetic and supportive again emailed Private Parking Company telling them to cancel the invoice.

 

Private Parking Company replied to the store manager who forwarded me their response:

 

“Unfortunately there is nothing I can do regarding this PCN as the motorist had appealed to POPLA (Parking on Private Land Appeals) who are the independent and impartial ombudsmen for the industry.

 

Based on the evidence provided by both parties, POPLA upheld the decision made by Parkingeye and the motorist must pay the PCN.

 

All POPLA decisions are final, and motorists are always made aware of this by POPLA at the time of making the appeal – if the decision is made in favour of the motorist, then Parkingeye must cease to pursue and conversely if the decision is made in favour of Parkingeye the motorist must follow the procedure accordingly.”

 

How do I best reply to the Final Notice and how do I advice the store to reply to the above statement?

 

I am not naming the Store because they have been extremely helpful thus far and I do not want them to be put off from helping other drivers.

[BazzaS]

You need to fill out the 'sticky' : they may have failed to comply with the conditions to create 'keeper liability'.
Have you identified the driver at any point, or just responded as the RK ?

[dx100uk]

please complete this

 

 

[lookinforinfo]

You said that Appeal my ticket said that both them and POPLA had refused your appeal but it doesn't seem that you appealed to POPLA separately. If you did appeal, what grounds did you appeal?

[Rosso123]

1 Date of the infringement 14/7/22

 

2 Date on the NTK [this must have been received within 14 days from the 'offence' date] 19/7/22

 

3 Date received Can Not recall
 

4 Does the NTK mention schedule 4 of The Protections of Freedoms Act 2012? [Y/N?] Not sure I only have a scan of the front of the page now (as I thought this had been cancelled by the store, I will try and find the orignal)
 

5 Is there any photographic evidence of the event? Yes
 

6 Have you appealed? [Y/N?] post up your appeal] Yes
 

Have you had a response? [Y/N?] post it up Yes
 

7 Who is the parking company? Parking-Eye

 

8. Where exactly [carpark name and town] Home Bargains, Crosshands, Wales
 

For either option, does it say which appeals body they operate under.

BPA

If you have received any other correspondence, please mention it here. A Final Notice, after the store have confirmed several times they have instructed the parking company to cancel it.  Text and Emails from the store confirming and showing their attempts to tell Parking Eye to cancel the invoice.

 

Here is the POPLA appeal. 

 

As I understand the POPLA appeal had to be appealed on a matter of law and the contract or lack of contract of entering the land.  The emergency pregnancy issue of the driver would not be taken into account with the appeal with Parking-Eye or POPLA. 

 

The actual reason for stopping on the land was given to the land owner / store manager immediately, eg pregnant person feeling ill and they fully supported this and gave retrospective consent for parking on the land. 

 

One thing POPLA fails to account for is that it was night time and dark, either way that last thing a pregnant person who is feeling ill and worried is going to do is start looking at signage. 

 

Attached is the POPLA.

 

2023-02-10 PE final notice.pdf

2022-07-19 PE PCN event 2022-07-14.pdf

Popla Assessment & decision.pdf

[BazzaS]

1 hour ago, BazzaS said:

Have you identified the driver at any point, or just responded as the RK ?

 

[lookinforinfo]

Also could you please post up the reverse side of the original PCN.

 

At  least you now know what a scummy bunch of people that you are dealing with. And PE are slightly better than some of the others.

You would think that as the new government legislation is due out this year that the [edited - HB] in the parking industry [ie virtually all of them] would take note of one of the exemptions they will have to take into account.

 

Private Practice Code of Parking

 

Annexe F  Exempt Circumstances

 

e) a vehicle that has been driven onto controlled land due to an emergency which could not be avoided due to the exceptional nature of an incident outside of the control of the driver, e.g. illness or vehicle breakdown;

 

You would have been better to have stayed on the road as even double yellows would  have more than likely  allowed for your emergency.

[Rosso123]

I dont have access to the PCN at the moment, Im away from home.  Hopefully I can find it next week and post the reverse side of it up.

Edited February 18, 2023 by Rosso123

[FTMDave]

Firstly, don't worry.  "Final Notice" written on a letter means nothing.  The fleecers have to send a formal Letter of Claim before they can proceed to court.  That hasn't arrived yet and may never arrive.

 

LFI beat me to quoting the government Code of Practice!

 

Then they were told by the organ grinder to withdraw the charge way before the POPLA appeal.

 

They are also lying about "there is nothing I can do" because the matter has been to POPLA.  The charlatans can withdraw the charge whenever they want, they just don't want to because going to POPLA has cost them money.  Plus the only reason the matter got to POLA was because they ignored the government CoP and didn't accept your appeal.

 

However, please learn from this experience for the future and never appeal.  The appeals process is crooked.  Appealing does no good whatsoever and indeed can complicate your position legally.

 

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by FTMDave
Typo

[FTMDave]

Can you please also post up the appeal you made to Parking Eye?

[Rosso123]

sorry I dont have the appeal to parking-eye..... Appealmyticket did the appeal.  I was only sent the POPLA appeal pdf which is in one of the above posts.  I assume the appeal to parking eye was the same grounds as to POPLA.

[FTMDave]

In the second line of the second page of your POPLA document there is someone's name.  is this your real name?  If so it needs to be edited.  We are anon here.

 

Or is it someone from Appealmyticket?

[Rosso123]

Well spotted. Not my name, its from appealmyticket.  I have blanked it out and attached the new pdf here.  Are you able to swap the pdf's over?

popla 3.pdf

[FTMDave]

Although you're not in any imminent danger, the more I think about it the more I reckon you haven't done yourself any favours with these appeals.

 

The forum's advice is never to appeal, simply because these vile companies never accept appeals anyway.

 

We regularly have people start threads who have naively appealed and of course had the appeals rejected, which is natural enough as they hadn't realised the appeals process is a sham.

 

However, I've been here seven years and I've never seen anyone go through the whole appeals procedure and never once mention the real reason for appealing.  I hope you didn't pay anything to this appealmyticket lot.

 

What concerns me is this.  If by some horror this goes to court, PE will make great play of the fact that you went through both tiers of the appeals procedure and never once mentioned a medical emergency.  Frankly the medical emergency could come across to the judge as a tall story you've made up because story A didn't work during the appeals.

 

I'm thinking it might be a good idea to go against the general advice of the site just once and write to PE now about the medical emergency.  It won't work, they won't withdraw the invoice, but at least it will be down in B&W that they knew long before court action was mooted that the car stopped due to a medical emergency.

 

However, no rush, I'm thinking outside the box, let's see what the other regulars reckon.

[Rosso123]

Thanks, yes I did pay Appealmyticket.  I have the original email that I sent to appealmyticket that explains to them about the medical emergency.  I also recorded all my conversations with the store that explains the medical emergency to them. The store were 100% aware of the pregnancy issue from day 1.

 

I still don’t understand why parking eye think they have the right to ignore their clients (the store) institutions to cancel the ticket?  The store do not support this going to court.

Edited March 10, 2023 by dx100uk
unnecessary post quote removed

[lookinforinfo]

Mitigating circumstances were rarely taken into account by the parking companies which is probably why AMT didn't use it. I think that was a mistake but it's done now.

 

Perhaps when Parking Eye were told a different story by the store they stuck their heels in and waited to see if POPLA would cancel. Once they decided no deal I am still surprised that PE wouldn't cancel when asked by the store. It may lead to PE being kicked out if they continue to thwart their contract partner.

 

Your local MP can be a good source to put pressure on PE to think again especially as in the Government Code of Practice mitigating such as yours are explicitly mentioned. 

In the meantime you will be bombarded by PE and their rabid debt collectors to pay up. Just ignore them. It is by no means certain as yet whether

will decide to take your case further or just rely on threats  and eventually give up. 

However if they do decide to carry on they will send you a Letter  before Action or a Letter of Claim.. Do not ignore either of those and come back here  so we can give you advice which may decide them to give up.

 

[FTMDave]

So I would write to PE -

 

 

Dear Parking Eye,

 

Re: PCN no.XXXXX

 

thank your for your Final Notice which we both know is not final at all as it is not a Letter of Claim.

 

This letter places on record further information for you to consider and it will be referred to if you insist on playing your silly games with the court process.

 

You were told by your client Home Bargains in Crosshands on around 27.07.2022 to cancel this charge.

 

The reason for the "offence" was that the driver stopped due to a serious medical emergency which I can easily prove.  The government Code of Practice is quite clear - 

 

"Annexe F  Exempt Circumstances

 

e) a vehicle that has been driven onto controlled land due to an emergency which could not be avoided due to the exceptional nature of an incident outside of the control of the driver, e.g. illness or vehicle breakdown".

 

The government Code of Practice is being challenged on the grounds of the amount of private parking charges and debt recovery costs.  It is not being challenged on the grounds of medical emergency or any other grounds.

 

I know you will reply to me that you "can't" cancel the charge as it has reached POPLA stage.  Well the reason it reached POPLA stage is that (a) you did not accept my appeal and (b) you did not cancel the charge when instructed to do so by Home Bargains, Crosshands, two months before the POPLA stage.  However, that is not the main point.  This is your invoice, and of course you can withdraw it when you want, stating you "can't" due to the POPLA stage makes as much sense as saying you "can't" because Blyth Spartans didn't get promoted last year.

 

In the extremely vague hope that you will actually follow the law I trust I will not hear from your again save to confirm this charge has been cancelled.

 

Yours,

Edited February 20, 2023 by FTMDave
Extra info added

[FTMDave]

Two things.

 

Don't send the above until Tuesday, to give the other regulars the chance to give an opinion.  As scribbled above, it's atypical advice, because your case is atypical.

 

Secondly, don't expect any cooperation whatsoever from PE.  The point is solely to insert into the narrative now, well before any possible court action, that they knew full well about the medical emergency but carried on in defiance of the government Code of Practice and any reasonable best practice in the industry. 

 

 

[Nicky Boy]

How about starting the letter with something like?..

 

"This letter places on record further information for you to consider and it will be referred to, if you insist on playing your silly games with the court process".

 

Send second class (cos that's all the fleecers are worth).

Obtain free proof of posting and file it away.

[FTMDave]

Nicky Boy's excellent suggestion added to the above draft.

[AndyOrch]

Not sure.....sounds very school playground.

 

Quote

 playing your silly games with the court process.

 

" This letter places on record further information for you to consider and it will be referred to and brought to the court's attention, should you insist on abusing the court process and wasting valuable court time and recourses.".

 

Just a suggestion.

[FTMDave]

So send the letter off tomorrow, as Nicky Boy says, 2nd class, and get a free Certificate of Posting from the post office.

 

Either use Nicky Boy's suggestion or Andy's as your opening paragraph, your choice.

 

The important thing is to get something communicated to PE about the medical emergency before any court action.

 

PE are usually very quick at moving through the various stages before court action, so don't delay.