Parking Eye ticket at Morrisons - ok to ignore?

[Koofler]

I've just received a Parking Eye fine for over staying at Morrisons last Sunday.

I know it used to be ok to file these in the bin, but is that still the case? I might head down to Morrison to see if their customer services can do anything as I turned up on the Sunday expecting them to be open but they weren't. So by the time they were open and I'd finished shopping I got an overstay ticket.

Any one know what the gospel on these things is now?

[silverfoxcc]

Register with pepipoo.com

Enter the situation, and see what advice they give you

However

DO NOT

Write to PE at all

If you have to, write it in the 3rd person, ...the driver did.. the driver did not..type of thing

Beware as PE are taking people to County court if you ignore everything and think they will go away.

Pepipoo will give to a good defence at POPLA which normally is upheld under the
'genuine pre estimate of loss ( or something like this)

Keep all bits of paper, take Peipoos hand and they will guide you ok

[mattyn1]

We ignored ours to start with - the "fine" was increased.
We ended up referring it to POPLA. If you need them I have my letters which I can let you have a copy that resulted in it being revoked. I have been informed when it is referred to POPLA it costs Parking Eye money!
PM me if you need copies of the letters which I will sanitise for you.

[blueg33]

See the Parking Prankster Website for Parking Eye cases.

The law has changed, don't ignore it, you can have much more fun now........

[Red Devil]

The OP doesn't say how long he was over the time. It is not well known, but some supermarkets have a grace period within which the PPC is not supposed to issue PCNs. Morrisons doesn't appear to be one of them though.

No GPEOL is proving a winner at POPLA. Suggest the OP looks at the MSE site (Google - parking eye morrisons no gpeol). Plenty of examples to chose from.

[kiethton]

Also was the ticket placed on the car or ANPR in entry/exit?

If the latter the car wasn't observed parked?

[Koofler]

I was about 30 minutes over and received a letter with photos of the car being driven in and then out, so nothing placed on the car.

Thanks for all the responses, looks like a little homework needs doing. Hopefully my email to customer services will do something in the mean time.

I'm still quite shocked that any supermarket would want tickets issued when the store isn't even open in the morning. All for a £10 backhander from Eagle Eye.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

If the rules are posted & you choose to ignore them then them's the breaks

[Le Mans Visitor]

I would try the Morrisons Customer services route. Say what happened, and threaten to boycott their store. see what happens.

[blueg33]

2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:

If the rules are posted & you choose to ignore them then them's the breaks

But only if the parking company has a contract with you, has robust evidence that the terms of the contract were broken, has a suitably worded contract with the land owner and claims only a genuine pre estimate of loss.

If the car park was free then the loss is nil.

Yep both sides have to comply with the rules and Parking Eye are well known for acting outside their legal remit.

[10 Pence Short]

blueg33 said:

If the car park was free then the loss is nil.

You say this with certainty, yet it illustrates your ignorance of contract law.

In enforcing a liquidated damages clause, the claimant need not demonstrate any loss on that particular occasion.

[rscott]

10 Pence Short said:

blueg33 said:

If the car park was free then the loss is nil.

You say this with certainty, yet it illustrates your ignorance of contract law.

In enforcing a liquidated damages clause, the claimant need not demonstrate any loss on that particular occasion.

And how is that related to pretty much any PPC ticket? I've not seen reports of any which actually have a relevant clause.

[10 Pence Short]

rscott said:

And how is that related to pretty much any PPC ticket? I've not seen reports of any which actually have a relevant clause.

'Genuine pre estimate of loss' is a phrase specifically associated with liquidated damages claims. If you use GPEoL arguments, that is what you are defending.

[Who me ?]

I got one a ticket (another supermarket who smacks bums) for allegedly overstaying by three hours, bringing my time in the shop up to five hours. I took it to customer service and it was decided it was issued in error. Weeks later I got a reminder, which got taken to customer service to be killed. I also e mailed online customer service with details and promised press coverage of their faulty parking system. I've also seen a letter from a customer, in a local paper, who shopped in the store, then used the cafe and shopped at adjacent stores to get a ticket for overstaying the two hour period. Massive back down and in paper apology to customers. I'd suggest first approach is to local customer service. If no joy- local press always almost gets results- the Stores just don't want the bad PR.

[blueg33]

10 Pence Short said:

blueg33 said:

If the car park was free then the loss is nil.

You say this with certainty, yet it illustrates your ignorance of contract law.

In enforcing a liquidated damages clause, the claimant need not demonstrate any loss on that particular occasion.

Firstly, I am well versed in contract law, I have been doing it for 20 years and have good understanding of penalties and liquidated damages, plus I have 3000 managed by parking companies (not parking eye), I fully understand the contracts I placed with those companies and the way they are able to act on my behalf as landowner. What is your knowledge of this situation based upon?

Contract law does not permit a penalty, a breach of contract only allows for the claimant to be returned to the position he would have been in had the breach not occurred. So if parking is free what is the loss?

In the case of parking penalties of the amount claimed by parking eye and others are not justifiable as a measure of the loss they have incurred. Indeed the only claim that can be made is the loss incurred by the landowner where parking eye are acting as agents.

10 seconds with google will show you a multitude of cases where parking eye have lost of this specific point.



here is one excerpt

court case said:

3JD04791 ParkingEye Ltd v Heggie (Barnsley, 13/12/2013). Deputy District Judge Obhi ruled that the amount charged by ParkingEye was not a genuine pre-estimate of loss.

This was the first reported case where ParkingEye's charges were ruled not to be a genuine pre-estimate of loss.

Report

In this case Mr Heggie entered the wrong registration number for his vehicle. ParkingEye were able to trace this and confirm that he had paid. However, because they had started court proceedings they refused to drop the claim.

ParkingEye argued that their charge of £100 was a genuine pre-estimate of loss because the whole running costs of the car park needed to be considered.

Judge Obhi ruled that there was actually zero loss incurred.

[10 Pence Short]

The leading authority on liquidated damages is Dunlop. In that case Dunlop won a claim for liquidated damages where they could demonstrate no actual loss nor provide an accurate calculation of loss, because it was impossible to do so.

In the same way, a landowner cannot calculate damages caused by people abusing their land, however the damage still occurs.

That the parker can park for a specified time at no charge does not mean you suffer no financial damage if they stay longer than permitted.

[blueg33]

10 Pence Short said:

The leading authority on liquidated damages is Dunlop. In that case Dunlop won a claim for liquidated damages where they could demonstrate no actual loss nor provide an accurate calculation of loss, because it was impossible to do so.

In the same way, a landowner cannot calculate damages caused by people abusing their land, however the damage still occurs.

That the parker can park for a specified time at no charge does not mean you suffer no financial damage if they stay longer than permitted.

And any litigation lawyer will tell you that Dunlop is only one case study and is not definitive, where we are talking a breach of contract law a penalty CANNOT be applied. It can only be a measure of the loss incurred.

This means that the parking enforcement company needs to demonstrate that its penalty charge relates to the loss incurred by either them, if their contract with the landowner is correctly written or by the landowner.

But the car park was free - so what is the loss caused?

The need to prove a loss is a very regular feature of contract law, I come across it several times a month.

As I said, please can you let us know your basis of knowledge in this matter? Do you do contract law daily for a living? Do you own car parks? I do, and I have based my comment son 20 plus years of sorting out these very issues with leading lawyers.

[Red Devil]

Le Mans Visitor said:

I would try the Morrisons Customer services route. Say what happened, and threaten to boycott their store. see what happens.

Probably not very much - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php... - see post number 15.

rscott said:

10 Pence Short said:

blueg33 said:

If the car park was free then the loss is nil.

You say this with certainty, yet it illustrates your ignorance of contract law.

In enforcing a liquidated damages clause, the claimant need not demonstrate any loss on that particular occasion.

And how is that related to pretty much any PPC ticket? I've not seen reports of any which actually have a relevant clause.

10 Pence Short said:

rscott said:

And how is that related to pretty much any PPC ticket? I've not seen reports of any which actually have a relevant clause.

'Genuine pre estimate of loss' is a phrase specifically associated with liquidated damages claims. If you use GPEoL arguments, that is what you are defending.

Guys, let's stick to the point of the OP's thread and not get sidetracked. AFAIK PE have yet to win a single case at POPLA where the GPEoL argument has been properly crafted using MSE's help.

[Terminator X]

10 Pence Short said:

'Genuine pre estimate of loss' is a phrase specifically associated with liquidated damages claims. If you use GPEoL arguments, that is what you are defending.

What might their loss be when one overstays?

TX.

Edited by Terminator X on Sunday 27th April 20:50

[blueg33]

Red Devil said:

Le Mans Visitor said:

I would try the Morrisons Customer services route. Say what happened, and threaten to boycott their store. see what happens.

Probably not very much - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php... - see post number 15.

rscott said:

10 Pence Short said:

blueg33 said:

If the car park was free then the loss is nil.

You say this with certainty, yet it illustrates your ignorance of contract law.

In enforcing a liquidated damages clause, the claimant need not demonstrate any loss on that particular occasion.

And how is that related to pretty much any PPC ticket? I've not seen reports of any which actually have a relevant clause.

10 Pence Short said:

rscott said:

And how is that related to pretty much any PPC ticket? I've not seen reports of any which actually have a relevant clause.

'Genuine pre estimate of loss' is a phrase specifically associated with liquidated damages claims. If you use GPEoL arguments, that is what you are defending.

Guys, let's stick to the point of the OP's thread and not get sidetracked. AFAIK PE have yet to win a single case at POPLA where the GPEoL argument has been properly crafted using MSE's help.

Agree. OP's first port of call is a POPLA appeal.

OP when you get the POPLA code check via the internet that it has been correctly issued. Some parking companies have been known to adjust the code making the appeal go out of time sooner.