Your Favourite Subject - Car Park Fine

[C.A.R.]

Received a letter in the post today for our family car having over-stayed our allotted time in a supermarket car park. Fair do's, I can't prove otherwise. The reason I'm miffed, is that it is claimed this is the 2nd letter they have sent and I'm being charged £70 rather than the 'lower fee' of £40 which they allegedly sent on a previous letter earlier in the month giving me 2 weeks to pay up.

I didn't receive that first letter in the post?

Can I contest it and ask to pay the lower fee?

The last time I got one of these was back in 2011 when it was advised to just ignore it, but I understand things have moved on since then?

Just about to go on holiday too, which doesn't help.

[Cyberprog]

You may want to wait until the Supreme Court has decided on Parking Eye vs Beavis - have a look at the Parking Prankster's website.

[Who me ?]

Local Asda (or rather their so called parking enforcer) was dishing out tickets a while back ,till one lady wrote in to local paper about it. She'd shopped at the store and stayed a while in the in store cafe. Next paper, store rep had a letter in with advice to take these into store to have them cancelled. I had one for 5 hours parking, when I know I made two visits over two hours apart. Customer services had this killed. Might be worth taking it into customer services. After all they don't like bad publicity over customers stopping a while in store.

[Red Devil]

Cyberprog said:

You may want to wait until the Supreme Court has decided on Parking Eye vs Beavis - have a look at the Parking Prankster's website.

Could be a long wait. According to the Prankster's blog the final judgement won't be handed down until October. The court closes down for the summer break today and won't reconvene again for another 2 months (1st October).

The other thing to be careful of is which PPC it is. Quite a few have jumped ship from the BPA/POPLA to the IPC/IAS. The latter is a kangaroo court and I suspect couldn't care less about Beavis or the SC. It is already attempting to circumvent the law (PoFA 2012) in its so-called appeal process.

[T1547]

[quote=Who me ?]Local Asda (or rather their so called parking enforcer) was dishing out tickets a while back ,till one lady wrote in to local paper about it. She'd shopped at the store and stayed a while in the in store cafe. Next paper, store rep had a letter in with advice to take these into store to have them cancelled. I had one for 5 hours parking, when I know I made two visits over two hours apart. Customer services had this killed. Might be worth taking it into customer services. After all they don't like bad publicity over customers stopping a while in store.
[/quote]

Definitely do this. I've had 2 'overstayed' parking fines cancelled by customer services in the past. Just take the letters back into the store and explain you took longer than expected to shop.

[velocefica]

Don't pay it continue to ignore or file in the nearest bin.

Other do gooders might say otherwise but chances of them taking you to court are minimal.

[allergictocheese]

Red Devil said:

Could be a long wait. According to the Prankster's blog the final judgement won't be handed down until October. The court closes down for the summer break today and won't reconvene again for another 2 months (1st October).

The other thing to be careful of is which PPC it is. Quite a few have jumped ship from the BPA/POPLA to the IPC/IAS. The latter is a kangaroo court and I suspect couldn't care less about Beavis or the SC. It is already attempting to circumvent the law (PoFA 2012) in its so-called appeal process.

The 'appeal' bodies aren't the final arbiter so their opinions on the court case are irrelevant.

Now the case has been heard and an outcome awaited, I would have thought the sensible approach would be to stay any proceedings until the outcome of Beavis is known.

Those receiving tickets should still appeal (assuming they have good reason) and exhaust the 'ADR' process. It might be they win their appeal and the threat of court disappears. If they lose at appeal outside of the court process then they have a second bite at the cherry, subject to the decision of the Supreme Court.

[Red Devil]

allergictocheese said:

Red Devil said:

Could be a long wait. According to the Prankster's blog the final judgement won't be handed down until October. The court closes down for the summer break today and won't reconvene again for another 2 months (1st October).

The other thing to be careful of is which PPC it is. Quite a few have jumped ship from the BPA/POPLA to the IPC/IAS. The latter is a kangaroo court and I suspect couldn't care less about Beavis or the SC. It is already attempting to circumvent the law (PoFA 2012) in its so-called appeal process.

The 'appeal' bodies aren't the final arbiter so their opinions on the court case are irrelevant.

Indeed they are not, but the point I was making is that the IPC/IAS is already thumbing its nose at the law re PoFA 2012.
Also the IAS is effectively run by a firm of solicitors in bed with the IPC. Unlike POPLA the appeal process is a charade.

If you doubt it, then consider this: The IAS is a trading name of the 'Independent Parking Committee Ltd'
The 'Independent Parking Committee Ltd' is located in the very same office complex as those solicitors.
The two principal movers and shakers at the firm of solicitors are directors of the 'Independent Parking Committee Ltd'
The IPC/IAS appoints the assessors and can cherry pick those who it can be confident will toe the IPC line.
The solicitors act for PPC members of the IPC in taking motorists to court.

Independent my a**e. The government should hang its head in shame that it ever allowed this state of affairs to happen.

allergictocheese said:

Now the case has been heard and an outcome awaited, I would have thought the sensible approach would be to stay any proceedings until the outcome of Beavis is known.

POPLA is staying appeals where the 'Beavis' grounds are used - http://www.popla.org.uk/ParkingEyeLimited-v-Beavis...

Quite a lot of court cases have been put on the back burner too. In many of them the defendant has had to ask for it as it took some time for the issues at stake to filter down to county court judges all around the country.

allergictocheese said:

Those receiving tickets should still appeal (assuming they have good reason) and exhaust the 'ADR' process. It might be they win their appeal and the threat of court disappears. If they lose at appeal outside of the court process then they have a second bite at the cherry, subject to the decision of the Supreme Court.

Agreed. With POPLA they stand a decent chance of winning anyway (or obtaining a 'Beavis' adjournment). With the other lot, in 99.99% of cases they will lose. It's then up to ********** to decide whether to pursue the matter. I'm not convinced that the Supreme Court case will be quite the magic bullet (either way) that people think, because PPCs which belong to the IPC tend to try to get round the problem by using a different contractual model/signage from the likes of PE.

I think the government missed a trick when permitting more than one ATA (which does nothing to promote sound and ethical practices, confuses the motorist, and allows PPCs to cherry-pick). If it can't or won't do something about it, then at least insist on a single appeals body for the whole industry (split a la PATAS/TPT for London and the rest of the UK if necessary, but using a common framework). The IPC/IAS has a clear conflict of interest and should never have been allowed to get off the ground.

[Boosted LS1]

T1547 said:

Definitely do this. I've had 2 'overstayed' parking fines cancelled by customer services in the past. Just take the letters back into the store and explain you took longer than expected to shop.

This. When you show them your debit card they can see exactly what you bought and when you were at the till.

[Who me ?]

I paid cash , and had no proof of purchase, but like the lady who wrote in, the mere threat of bad publicity was enough. it's dog eat dog in the supermarket business, and ANY bad publicity is not wanted. That purchase that might be 50% cheaper at ( e.g) Asda, might be a better buy at (say ) Sainsbury, if not accompanied by the problem of a trumped up excess parking charge.

[anonymous-user]

Red Devil said:

The government should hang its head in shame that it ever allowed this state of affairs to happen

True but isn't that a result of poor legislation in a knee jerk populist reaction to do away with clamping and not thinking through the consequences Wouldn't be happening if technology hadn't moved on with the advent of cheap ANPR as well.

hora said:

I had this recrntly with euro carparks. I wrote back that I'd like a popla appeal codeand if that failed I'd be happy to go to court

They never wrote back.

If its parking eye Crapita be careful though- they DO take people to court- alot.


Looking back at the stats, euro carpark -100 in a year. PE Crapita- circa 30,000+


DONT ignore the letter

Crapita have form amd practise though through their experience of running the TV licence racket.
It should be made quite clear to all who the parent companies are and how deeply the Governmentis in their pockets.

[blueg33]

velocefica said:

Don't pay it continue to ignore or file in the nearest bin.

Other do gooders might say otherwise but chances of them taking you to court are minimal.

Ignore this, it is the wrong advice!

I wish people would stop saying "ignore it" that strategy stopped working when the Protection of Freedoms Act was introduced.

Op, probably worth you looking at the Pepipoo website.

I currently have an appeal with POPLA, amongst the grounds are the same as per the Beavis case, but they say they will consider the case on 20th August which is before the Supreme Court will reach its decision.

[C.A.R.]

Just to update this (as I'm aware of how many of these threads are left open-ended)

Wrote to the generic customer services email earlier today not expecting a response - but PCN has been waived.

It pays sometimes to just be very good at writing a letter!