Hello. Initially I have followed advice of ignoring all PE letters. At first I didn't even know I had them as they looked like junk mail and got filed as such. I am trying not to give anything away that might identify me, so please ask if more detail are required.

I am the RK of the car in question. The car overstayed in a retail park with free parking for 2 hours, by no more than half an hour. I have a receipt from the first shop. I have the final shop receipt timed minutes before finally leaving, having spent about 50 mins to an hour in there. We were genuine shoppers.

I have tried to find out the landowner details. I've got as far the estate agents but no further. Stores head offices are reluctant to give me email addresses of customer services managers let alone names and all have said they aren't interested in helping getting the charge quashed as they only rent the properties.

Now I am at the stage of Debt Recovery Plus, Notice of intended court action. The final payment date is very soon. I have called PE four times over the months asking to speak to someone, find out the land owner and asked for confirmation that they have permission to issue charges. Each time the call was ended by them. I spoke again today and as I couldn't give my ref no. they would only suggest trying an appeal even at this very late stage, although they wouldn't say if it would be considered.

I am now concerned as I have been reading that PE have become litigious and suspect that I will now receive a Letter before court action any day.

Any advice on my next move?
I am thinking;
Try an appeal today, if only to get a POPLA code
POPLA appeal if I get a code
Lose appeal? Then pay up or let it go to court and show that I was a genuine shopper and argue the charge.

All advice appreciated. Thanks.

( I have posted this on money saving expert as well as time is of the essence! )

Letters received;
PCN
PCN reminder
Letter saying requirements of schedule 4 now met
Letter Before Action
Debt Recovery Plus Demand for payment
Debt Recovery Plus Notice of intended court action-unpaid parking charge

hi if i was you just hold fast did the debt recovery plus say that you had 14 days to pay
and if you did not pay they would recommend that the landholder commence county court
proceedings.

i had the same letter in april this year i have just added it to all the other letters
that have been sent to me.
i am waiting to see if a letter turn up from the county court
if so i will be fighting this in court so hope this helps

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate it.
It says almost the same "we will recommend to the creditor's solicitor that court action should be taken to recover what you owe."
I think you may be one of the luck ones that ignoring worked for. I was taking the same course of action and hoping for the same outcome.
From what I have been reading the past week or so, PE are now taking court action on current cases, unfortunately.

That's an interesting turn of events. I would take it up as you are under an obligation, like them, to mitigate any loss.

Soft appeal and a POPLA code.

"Ignore" is so last year......

Local authority can often tell you the landowner, there is invariably some recent planning applications or commercial rates bills for the units. If the retailers don't give you their customer services dept just write to their CEO's at their Head Office - they will find their way to the right dept. Being a genuine customer should give you leverage with the retailers, landowners and Parking Eye to prevent it going to court, so appeal mention your documented genuine customer status and hope if they don't do the fair and decent thing (do they ever) by canceling it that they will issue a POPLA code.
Do pursue the retailers and Landowners too, they need to put Parking Eye straight on how to provide the service they expect for their customers.

I would appeal, asking for POPLA code. If they refuse, you could even name the driver assuming different from RK and then restart the process with POPLA.

Thanks for the replies.
I am just waiting to hear from the estate agents of the site.
No one else, ie the retailers, are able to tell me who the land owner is or get involved.



My thoughts were the council. I went to Land Registry site, but there are charges and I really don't want to throw more money at this!
I haven't yet researched company heads, but will do and email them about my disappointment of the companys attitude and lack of value of a regular customer.

You have to go along that line as a better way out of this.
However you do need to get back and either appeal directly or tell them the name and address of the driver. If you appeal include copies of all receipts,
PE appraently allow 50% of all appeals. Like hell they do....
All appeals and complaints musf be put in writing and should be forwarded to one of the addresses below. All appeals must be received within 28 days from the date of our initial correspondence, Please include all information fo assrst with the appeal. This may include: a store receipt from the day in question; proof of purchases via a bank statement etc. lf the appeall.s unsuccessful, you will be advised in writing and you will also be provided with details of the lndependent Appeals Service (POPLA), their contact details and a unique appeal reference.

And this from an ealier court claim presentation:
ParkingEye upholds over 50% of appeals, and so it is necessary for us to actively reject an appeal before further costs are incurred in a POPLA appeal. Furthermore, over 50% of motorists whose appeals are rejected by POPLA continue to dispute the charge and court proceedings are still required to resolve the matter. We therefore consider this an inappropriate form of dispute resolution at this stage of proceedings.
ParkingEye would also like to add that on the reverse of all correspondence sent to the defendant, ParkingEye has stated that all appeals should be put in writing and sent to ParkingEye within 28 days.
ParkingEye believes that the defendant broke the terms and conditions of parking and that therefore they are required to pay the outstanding charge. However, had the defendant corresponded with us initially, as requested, ParkingEye believes it could have answered many of the defendant's points directly and resolved the matter without having to issue court proceedings. However, as we have had no correspondence whatsoever from the
defendant, we have had no choice but to enter into legal proceedings, and have incurred further costs in pursuing this matter.

Over 50% appeals upheld by PE, then there's the ones upheld by POPLA and we aren't told what that percentage is, but 50% of POPLA rejected appeals still need court action.
That's still one hell of a lot of court cases.

Doesn't really matter who the landowner is, you just need to set your sights on the people in bold above. Your receipts should EASILY be enough to get this farce cancelled.

And stop phoning up Parking Eye, NEVER phone a PPC! Have you simply sent them (not Debt Recovery Plus) copies of your receipts and said you've 'spoken to the Managers of xxxxxx store and xxxxxx shop and both are supporting you in getting it cancelled and they suggested you sent your receipts in because genuine customers are not supposed to be penalised.'

I've only ever phoned PE anonymously, asking if under these circumstances, with receipts, would an appeal be successful. They said not necessarily. I asked to speak to someone that deals with appeals and was refused, as expected.

Store managers, though sympathetic, are unwilling to commit anything in writing. Even their head offices aren't willing to help.

And what proportion of the appeals that are upheld are where the "genuine customer " term in their contract kicks in or they are told to by their Principal .

Try again only in assertive mode like all these people have done in just 6 weeks of me collating this thread of successful complaints:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4766249

You should not be asking about an appeal or 'can they help'? Start the conversation 'This is an official complaint' or email the CEO of the retailers, all of them. You only need one to act. Also do the same with the managing agent of the site (NOT a query or 'can you help please', a COMPLAINT). Stand up and dress smartly even if on the phone, not joking, it makes for a successful outcome with assertive complaints! That means telling the Manager what you want them to do about it to resolve your distress and customer dissatisfaction, not asking.

On the case SchoolRunMum
My original Parking charge notice was dated a little before March 2013.
Does anyone know if this paragraph from the March 2013 BPA code of practice was relevant then or would be now?

19.9 You should warn drivers that if they delay payment
beyond a payment period of 28 days, and you need
to take court action or use debt-recovery methods to
recover a debt, there may be extra ‘recovery’ charges for
debt-recovery action. However, you do not need to say
how much these recovery charges are in advance, on
your signs or notices.

I can scan both sides of mine up to here, and unless I'm mistaken, it doesn't mention extra costs beyond the full charge.
I've seen mentions of pcn's not describing the "creditor". Do they have to specifically say we, PE are the creditor?

SchoolRunMum...pm for you but your inbox is full

While PE are on a run with these damn things at present they're also held under the obligations of the same Act they invoke.
PoFA does give them the right to chase the keeper in the event of them following the formal route to obtaining driver identity.
They are able, after 28 days from delivery of the NTK to commence recoverey against the keeper.
Howeve, they never do this until some much longer period has lapsed.
In the meantime, up until such time as they do ACTUALLY commence legal proceedings, you're able to get them off your back by providing the drivers name and address.
The commencement of legal proceedings does not include debt recovery letters or a letter before action.
So, unless they have actually issued a claim form, send the drivers name and address. If they allow it, it can go through the process until it gets kicked out at POPLA. If they don't allow an appeal then they're not in compliance to PoFA and a judge may well take them to task over that.
He certainly should strike out a case when they haven't upheld the very Act they're invoking.

POFA puts no obligation on PPCs to have any form of appeal process. The only requirement under POFA is that if there is an appeals process then it must be described on the NTD or NTK.

Just a quick update.
Charge cancelled
I didn't want to say until I had the confirmation.

I got in touch with the agents of the landlord just before my original post. I wasn't hopeful and therefore came on her to ask advice as to which direction to take should the agent not come through with a solution.

I had done much of the reading in the previous months so I had a bit of a head start, luckily. I still had to get my head around the new and more current opinions and arguments.

If there are any moderators, admins or anyone with specific interest in or information on the "genuine shopper" argument, please feel free to pm me as I may need some further assistance if I take things further.

Thank you all that replied and to those that have shared their info and experiences over the site, especially those that have had far more important things to be attending to.