Just after settling up on my Italian misfortune, I managed to 'acquire' a PCN from ParkingEye. They had previously 'got' me in the same car park a long time ago (which I mistakenly paid when I should have known better), but I'd not been there for a while and didn't know that cameras had been subsequently installed.

 

Knowing that the law had changed since my last costly experience, I decided to appeal with some perfectly valid points - but only to have them declined and point me towards POPLA. However, on the same weekend that I received their letter, the Sunday Times had an article regarding a service offered by Parking Ticket Appeals which offered to get parking tickets cancelled or they would pay the PCN, all for £16.

 

Following on from the ST's recommendation, I stumped up the £16 and lo and behold, have now had a letter confirming the ticket has been cancelled. Anyway, (at least until February when there is a High Court (IIRC) case going through regarding such instances), I'd like to recommend that site as a easy way of 'resolving' your parking tickets. After all, £16 is far cheaper than what it would cost if you finally ended up in court with them.

Interesting, the website domain is registered to a private residential address in Sheffield.

 

As they specifically mention parking eye I did wonder if this organisation was operated by parking eye, and seems a good way to get at least some money from their PCNs.

Interesting, the website domain is registered to a private residential address in Sheffield.

 

 

 

Next time, just pay me direct please John

You don't live in Renishaw Damo!

I doubt very much that its connected to PE. Probably just someone who's formulated a template that manages to cover all the possible get out clauses? To be honest, good luck to the lad and I hope he makes some money whilst he can.

Johngetoutofjailfreeboy

Link to the site?

Johngetoutofjail£16boy

Corrected that for you Bryan!

Link to the site?

Hyperlinked in post 1!

Corrected that for you Bryan!

I knew you'd do that

I knew you'do that

I knew you'd want me to too!

Did you check its actually cancelled with Parking Eye themselves? Or have you just paid £16 for someone to send you a letter on Parking Eye stationary and won't know the truth until bailiffs turn up.

Did you check its actually cancelled with Parking Eye themselves? Or have you just paid £16 for someone to send you a letter on Parking Eye stationary and won't know the truth until bailiffs turn up.

Now that would be entrepreneurship at its very finest

Did you check its actually cancelled with Parking Eye themselves? Or have you just paid £16 for someone to send you a letter on Parking Eye stationary and won't know the truth until bailiffs turn up.

 

I'm guessing that you're a teeny bit sceptical? 

Anyway, the bailiffs wouldn't turn up without it progressing an awful lot further.

 

Have a read or the original article and see what your thoughts are then:-

 

 

Just £16 to get off any private parking ticket

An online service claims to be able to overturn all charges not issued by a council. Could this lead, asks Dominic Tobin, to a parking free-for-all?

 

DRIVERS are avoiding hundreds of thousands of pounds in parking charges by using a website that guarantees to cancel any parking ticket issued on private land.

The service costs £16 and promises to overturn charges incurred in supermarket, hospital and train station car parks, as well as tickets issued on private residential streets.

Since it launched in March, the Parking Ticket Appeals website claims to have won every one of the 7,500 appeals that it has lodged. It says that demand has grown so much that it is now fighting up to 400 cases a week on behalf of motorists.

For each ticket, the firm bombards car park operators with challenges. These target areas from poor signage to overly high charges. On each occasion at least one of the allegations sticks and the charge is eventually cancelled, it says.

There are questions about the morality of the company’s actions. Private parking operators argue that without their services disabled bays would be blocked, restaurant forecourts would overflow, rail station car parks would be jammed with commuters’ cars and emergency vehicles would find it harder to enter private housing and estates. Nevertheless, the company’s business model is entirely legal. It is a response to a change in the law, introduced in October 2012 with the Protection of Freedoms Act. This made vehicle owners liable for tickets they received when they parked on private land.

Until then, private car park operators could impose charges on only the person who was driving the car when it was parked without a valid ticket, took up two bays or committed some other infraction. As parking firms could rarely identify the driver, large numbers of motorists simply ignored demands for payment and got off scot-free.

Now it is far easier for the firms to pursue claims in court, which has led to individuals seeking other ways of evading parking charges. One of the most successful tactics is to claim that companies cannot justify the high charges that they are attempting to impose.

Unlike local authorities, which issue penalty charge notices on the road and in council car parks, private firms are not allowed to fine drivers for breaching the rules. The cost of their parking ticket is supposed to be no more than the amount that the firm lost because of the infraction.

“You can only impose damages in contract law,” says Jo Abbott from the RAC Foundation research charity. “You can’t impose a penalty. You have to ask, if you are paying £5 for parking, should you be asked to pay £100 when you overstay for 20 minutes?”

When this principle is brought up in an appeal, companies are often unable to justify their charges and will cancel the ticket. Driving tested the apparent loophole by deliberately getting a parking ticket in a private residential street and then using the Parking Ticket Appeals site to challenge it for us. The motorist was a resident and had the right to park there but did not display his permit. A ticket was issued for £100. There was a discount to £60 if the charge was paid within nine days. We passed it on to Parking Ticket Appeals but did not disclose that we had been parked legitimately.

The company went through the free-of-charge process that is available to any private motorist and initially appealed to the company that issued the ticket. In this case, it was Gemini Parking Solutions. All of the arguments put forward, which ranged from being unable to display a permit to the charge being unreasonable, were rejected by the operator.

The next stage was to take the case to the independent Parking on Private Land Appeals (Popla) service to make the same case. The appeal was promptly upheld and Gemini was told that it should cancel the ticket immediately.

“The burden is on the operator to prove that the parking charge is a genuine pre-estimate of loss,” wrote Farah Ahmad, the assessor in the case. “The operator has not provided a breakdown of costs. I am unable to see how the parking charge amount has been calculated.”

Ricky Gater, 34, who runs the appeals site, claims that he cannot foresee circumstances in which a driver could lose, under the existing rules. His website promises that if an appeal is ever rejected, his firm will meet the full cost of the parking charge.

But the apparent ease with which tickets can be cancelled does raise questions about whether motorists should use the service to avoid paying when they were in the wrong.

“There is a danger with these websites because they make people believe that they can get them off parking tickets,” says Patrick Troy, chief executive of the British Parking Association (BPA), which represents private parking operators. “But if they did park in the wrong place, then they should pay the penalty.

“At the end of the day it is about managing parking in the interests of the majority. It is a compromise, and you can’t satisfy all of the people all of the time.”

The RAC Foundation says parking firms should not impose unfair fees, but that an alternative vision where tickets are unenforceable could result in clogged supermarket and hospital car parks and private streets crammed with cars avoiding pay-and-display charges on public roads.

“We behave quite appallingly in car parks,” says Abbott. “Without enforcement there would be chaos.”

Gater says that he has few repeat customers, suggesting that anyone trying to cheat the system isn’t using his service. “A lot of tickets are issued after genuine mistakes by drivers,” says the former IT worker. “People who spend too long looking for an expensive TV or sofa get caught out. The amount they are charged cannot be justified. This isn’t designed for repeat customers: we do not condone breaking the rules and then appealing.”

The BPA has estimated that its members issue 2.3m tickets a year, although the figure is now thought to be higher. It says that one in five tickets are appealed against. Of those, around half are cancelled by operators.

Fewer motorists take their case to the next stage with Popla. In the 12 months to April this year, 23,500 appeals were ruled on by the service, with 10,661 — just over 45% — succeeding. The service said that a small proportion of cases succeeded on the grounds of unfair charges.

But the loophole could be closed if the Court of Appeal rules next February against a driver who says he was overcharged. Barry Beavis, an Essex chip-shop owner, is challenging a parking ticket issued by ParkingEye. Beavis, 48, received a ticket in 2013 when he parked for too long at the Riverside retail park in Chelmsford, Essex.

He says the ticket is unfair because the operator is in effect charging him £85 — the fee imposed — for less than an hour’s parking. He lost his case at Cambridge county court, which ruled that operators such as ParkingEye are entitled to impose higher charges than they need to cover their outgoings, to act as a deterrent. If the Court of Appeal judge agrees, the verdict will set a precedent in law. It will be harder then for websites such as Gater’s to use the argument that parking charges do not fairly reflect the operator’s costs.

If Beavis wins, it is likely to make many ticket charges hard to defend. “I am a reasonable individual looking at these charges and these companies, becoming enraged at how they do their business,” he says. “I own my own business and could not imagine extorting money in such a way.

“I liken them to a playground bully going round knocking people’s lunch money out of their hands because they can.”

Now that would be entrepreneurship at its very finest

 

I'm just updating this as I've had an email from POPLA (dated 30/01/15) telling me that my Appeal has been upheld:-

 

Reasons for the Assessor’s Determination

It is the Appellant’s case that the parking charge notice was issued incorrectly.

The Operator has not produced a copy of the parking charge notice, nor any evidence to show a breach of the conditions of parking occurred, nor any evidence that shows what the conditions of parking, in fact, were.

Accordingly I have no option but to allow the appeal.

 

Considering that my 'cancelled' PCN from ParkingEye was dated 16/12/14, there seems to be a period of over six weeks between both notifications.

Maybe just down to officialdom but could it be something else? :wonder:

I'm just updating this as I've had an email from POPLA (dated 30/01/15) telling me that my Appeal has been upheld:-

Considering that my 'cancelled' PCN from ParkingEye was dated 16/12/14, there seems to be a period of over six weeks between both notifications.

Maybe just down to officialdom but could it be something else? :wonder:

So you now think it's a scam ? Oh and the hyperlink the appeals guy has ceased trading ?

Edited 5 February, 201511 yr by seboni121

So you now think it's a scam ? Oh and the hyperlink the appeals guy has ceased trading ?

Mmmmmm

Where's that 'rub chin smugly' smiley?

The plot thickens!

However, I'm just wondering if it's anything to do with the High Court case that was scheduled for February having already been heard? You would have expected that to have been a newsworthy item though?

So looks like this guy has made a small fortune ! £16 at a time kerching !

Cant you simply ignore parking fines from private companies? I thought they didn't have a leg to stand on, and you only had to pay council fines..... simply throw anything from a private company away....

Cant you simply ignore parking fines from private companies? I thought they didn't have a leg to stand on, and you only had to pay council fines..... simply throw anything from a private company away....

 

That's no longer the case but as I mentioned earlier, there's a High Court case this month (which should be so significant as to make the national news) that will clarify the matter.

 

So looks like this guy has made a small fortune ! £16 at a time kerching !

 

I wish it was me!

 

Interesting, the website domain is registered to a private residential address in Sheffield.

 

The address has now been removed and I think the registrant's name has been changed too. :S

Luckily I remember what it was and if I'm ever passing then I may just call to enquire what's happened! Purely to update the thread of course.

Did you check its actually cancelled with Parking Eye themselves? Or have you just paid £16 for someone to send you a letter on Parking Eye stationary and won't know the truth until bailiffs turn up.

So, as I was saying...

Good job you got it cancelled anyway.