Parking Eye ANPR LOC Now claimform - Teanlowe - Booths Poulton Le Fylde

[lookinforinfo]

Strange also that they have gone for the more recent of the two PCNs if indeed there are two.

[lookinforinfo]

Robert the PCNs we need to see are not the reminders but the first PCNs your wife received often referred to as the Notice to Keeper. The one good thing about PE is when they are not using the dodgier solicitors they only charge the actual amount of £100 rather than adding fictitious and unlawful amounts to the charge.

 

[lookinforinfo]

PE are usually pretty good at getting their PCNs compliant wordwise  with the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. Act . But there are questionable factors involved that a Judge may or may not agree that they are compliant. 

For instance  they have failed to specify the parking time which is a requirement under the Act.  Yes there are photos showing the arrival and departure times but those are not parking times since the car has not been parked for that length of time since the driver will have to find a place to park [perhaps a disabled bay or mother and child one] then manoeuvre the car between the lines to comply with the T&Cs. Then after packing the car with shopping and taking the trolley back driving from the parking spot to the exit all detracts from what P is claiming as the parking period.

The good news is that you have not appealed so PE do not know who was driving. I assume that as your wife appears to be getting the PCNs that she is the keeper. If you [or someone else] is the keeper then if the Judge accepts the PCN is not compliant then PE lose in Court  since non compliance means the charge cannot be transferred from the driver to the keeper.

Even if your wife is the keeper that is not enough to prove she was the driver. You for instance are probably able to drive the car as is anyone else who has a valid motor insurance policy. 

 

We still haven't seen the second PCN original copy since the Reminders do not have the same requirements on them as the original. Could you please post it up front and back as well as the back of the PCN you posted a few hours ago. As i said at the start of the post PE usually get their wording right but now and again they slip up so fingers crossed.

 

 

 

 

[lookinforinfo]

From their letter it doesn't look as if they regarded your  SAR as a request for your data .Did you use our SAR template. If you did use our one then PE have failed to answer your request.

I would tell them that you are still waiting for them to send your data. Give them two weeks to complete.

[lookinforinfo]

If it were me I would be complaining to the ICO about DCBL. 

 

They are acting as a shoddy debt collector in this instance and this letter is designed to put the fear of God into those who are unaware that the debt collection arm of their  business has less power than a dead cat. yet their letter uses the phrase Direct Collection Bailiffs three times. Then they compound in on their Collections  phone number by still mentioning that they are a bailiff company rather than the scummy debt collectors that they are. 

 

It cannot be right that they can masquerade as bailiffs when they are not acting as bailiffs. They should have a phone number that states they are debt collectors with no mention of their bailiff section at all. 

 

Draw their to the new Private Parking Code of Practice Annexe E3  Wording used by debt recovery agents (DRAs)

"

The principle of engaging a DRA where the creditor and their customer are unable to achieve a satisfactory conclusion, especially when standard appeals/arbitration protocols have been exhausted, is established, but must be on the basis that the DRA’s role is to strive to come to an arrangement (debt resolution) not simply enforcement (debt recovery). While a minority of cases might still need to be settled at Court it is important that in making the customer (driver/keeper) aware of the implications of non-payment (including, should the Court find against them, the risk to their credit rating.

DRAs must not use terms which would mislead the average consumer or make them reach a decision that they might not otherwise have made – such terms include the list in E.2 and the following:

• summons
• justice
• prosecution
• excessive use of “County Court judgement” (CCJ)
• calling round
• earnings attachment or
• bankruptcy.

Nor should DRAs use terms that:

• imply that they are writing from a legal or litigation department or team
• imply that they have a formal role in adjudication
• refer to pre-action protocol at a point when they are not yet using it
• threaten an in-person visit
• misrepresent whether the timing for appeal has expired"

First even here they do not even include the word bailiff since it would be  so wrong to use it as a DRA

Second they are implying that they are writing from a legal or litigation team

[lookinforinfo]

You could remind them not to use the teaboy to reply to mail since your request was obviously not an appeal. Give them two further weeks or you will begin proceedings against them for failing to provide the data in time.

[lookinforinfo]

I am grateful that Mr Ford did not write War and Peace

-his idea of keeping it brief is not mine but I will try and keep mine a lot shorter [and more accurate than his].

 

if you are going to quote extensively from PE v Beavis it would seem in the interest of fairness that one would quote dissenting voices as well hose who agreed.

 

Lord Toulson for instance said this during the summing up-

 

314.          i am not persuaded that it would be reasonable to make that assumption in this case and i would therefore have allowed the appeal. 

it has been suggested that managing the effective use of parking space in the interests of the retailer and the users of those outlets who wished to find spaces to park could only work by deterring people from occupying space for a long time. but that is a guess. it may be so; it may not. 

parkingeye called no evidence on the point. 
but it is common knowledge that many supermarket car parks make no such charge.

 i return to the point that it was for parkingeye to show the factual grounds on which it could reasonably assume that a customer using that car park would have agreed, in individual negotiations, to pay £85 if he overstayed for a minute, or parked with his wheels not entirely within a marked bay, or for whatever reason returned to the car park in less than one hour (perhaps because he had left something behind). 

on the bare information which was placed before the court, i am not persuaded that parkingeye has shown grounds for assuming that a party who was in a position to bargain individually, and who was advised by a competent lawyer, would have agreed to the penalty clause as it stood.

 

On another point Mr Ford tried to compare driving on the road with driving into a car park. All drivers know that on the road you must be aware of the signs -especially the speed limits. But there are literally thousands of car parks through out the country and many of them are not infested with rogue car parking companies that are there to line their own pockets rather than to aid the smooth running of the car park to enable the owner of the site to maximise the number of cars that can enter the car park. Indeed some supermarkets as well as other land owners have banished the rogues from their car parks precisely because they realised that the car parking companies are acting in their own  best interest rather than the landowner.

 

It is disingenuous of Mr Ford to state that their contract with the land owner is largely irrelevant in the claim since a contract is a necessity under PoFA Schedule 4 S2 [2][a][b] under relevant contract. No contract with the land owner would mean that PE could not sue motorists on that land. In the light of the long meandering rubbish about agents and principals there may be something fishy with this contract so worthwhile scrutinising it if it does arrive in their next WS .

 

Mr Ford is totally wrong  on his next point about the keeper being liable for the charge. When he quoted from the Act Schedule4 S9 [2][e] he failed to mention a very important point. That it is only if the PCN was compliant with PoFA can the charge be transferred to the keeper from the driver. SAdly for PE they have not complied with the Act.

 

1. They have not specified the period of parking. They have only shown on photographs the arrival and departure times

 without providing proof that the two cameras were calibrated to the same time as each other. Nor have they taken into account the time it takes to drive around looking for a place to park and then once found, manoeuvring the car correctly between the lines to comply with the T&Cs and then driving out of the car park perhaps at a busy time on to a main road so waiting inside the car park to get out which is not considered to be parking. In addition, PE have not taken into account that there is a ten minute grace period allowed at the end of the parking period.

The PCN further fails to comply with PoFA Schedule 4 S9 [2]e][1]  "(i)to pay the unpaid parking charges; or" by not asking the keeper to pay the charge they have further failed to comply with PoFA.

 

In addition Mr Ford has confused the Grace period and the Consideration period. On arrival at the car park what he claims as the Grace period when the motorist reads the T&Cs is actually the Consideration period which according to the BPA Code is a MINIMUM of five minutes and the Grace period is a MINIMUM of ten minutes which Mr Ford fails to mention. 

 

Parking EYE is a member of the BPA which hardly means that the are a well regulated industry. Indeed the Government has brought out a new Private Parking Code of Practice precisely because the rogues [ as  said by the Government's spokesman] were causing havoc in car parks throughout Britain. Of course the parking industry does not want the new Act implemented since they will be unable to rip off motorists as much as they are doing  under the current legislation. 

As an example where PE is not observing the Act is that once the Consideration period has concluded, it is then considered as part of the contractual period of parking which is contrary to the Act and at odds with their counterparts in the ISC who believe it should not be included in the contractual time.

 

I would be inclined to send a copy of PE's claim whatever it is to the Court and ask whether it is their actual WS or can they file another and can you respond to this WS of their  and still do your own proper WS later.

See what the Site Team think about that.