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lookingforhelp
Hi, I have a telephone mediation between myself and parking eye coming up soon over a dispute over a unpaid parking fine. Has anyone got any tips on how to approach this?
are there any points that might make PE settle for a lower figure that the court papers ask for?

I would be grateful for any help.
Gan
To start the discussion rolling :

A court case will give them the expense of their solicitor so they will lose money, even if they win at a hearing

If you have a reasonable defence that includes many of the points in the Parking Prankster guide, offer £25 for their cost of bringing the claim

Tell them that it would have cost them £27 if you had taken it to POPLA where you would have won on the grounds that the amount isn't a genuine pre-estimate of a loss. You're also saving them the cost of the solicitor that you won't be paying for. You know perfectly well that Rachel Ledson is an employee of their company and you will be disputing their claim that she charged them £50.

That sends the message that you know that a settlement is very much in their interest

If you take that hard line to begin with you have a very good chance that they will settle in the region of £50 - £80
Salmosalaris
They will almost certainly settle for the undiscounted ticket price , maybe the discounted , maybe lower .
I would also perhaps bring up that if they progress to a hearing you would reserve the right to ask it to be adjourned on the penalty issue pending the CoA appeal ,should the rest of your defence fail . This would be at least 6 months away and the possibility of them incurring the cost of two hearings .
How thorough was the defence you submitted ?
lookingforhelp
thanks for the quick response guys.

I believe the defence I submitted was quite good as it was written by a very helpful member of this site biggrin.gif , I am going to need to reread it and refresh myself before this call.
Salmosalaris
Your defence isn't that important for the mediation , the mediator is simply there to try and facilitate a settlement .it is important to let PE know you know your stuff though as this may encourage them to settle
Gan
The mediator isn't interested in whether they're entitled to the payment
His only priority is to reach a settlement and we've seen a few cases where the mediator told the OP he had no defence and should settle

You're doing this for the first and probably only time in your life
For ParkingEye, mediation is somebody's full time job so you're at a considerable disadvantage

Preparation is essential - have a figure in mind that you won't go beyond and makes a hearing inevitable
They have their own figure that they're prepared to settle for and it's lower than you would think - as Salmosaris says, somewhere near the discounted price and maybe lower.

Start with a very low offer and make only small moves
If you get to the last couple of minutes of the call and you've inched it up from £25 to £35, you're into territory where a settlement is possible and puts them under the time pressure to make a deal.
emanresu
Its this case

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=87931


Mediation is an excellent idea as long as you are doing it directly with PE and not through the courts. Gan has nailed it above. And if they do not agree, present the details of the times and amounts offered as this will be relevant to the case.

The Courts hate people like PE that muck about and do not attempt to seek a resolution before going there. Start low and work up - and take notes for you case.
The Rookie
PE make no money from court hearings, they make a loss, the primary reason for bringing them is scare people into paying without going to court, the secondary reason is 'pour encourage les autre' with successful case files on their website.

If you let it be known you are prepared and will be prepared to slug it out then anything they get now is better than they will get in court. We have heard of settlements as low as £15, but £25-35 will see them better off than winning in court so always keep that in mind, and tell them you are keeping it in mind.
lookingforhelp
Thanks everyone for the advice, I will sit down this weekend and write out what i plan to say.

Have any of you got an idea on the ratio of cases parking eye win if it goes to court? Is it 1 in 10 or 1 in 100 for example? or have i got the wrong idea and they win a lot more than this.
Salmosalaris
I think the latest claim was they win 65% although that may be increasing at the moment in the wake of the Cambridge case .
lookingforhelp
Thats more than i expected, I thought most of the cases against them got thrown out.
Im not aware of the Cambridge case, have you got a link?
farmerboy
http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=88568
emanresu
You can always mislead with numbers. PE are experts at it

For example PE get 800,000 details a year. 20,000 claims are issued 97.5% do not get a claim.

Do those 97.5% pay? Well at £70 per ticket their turnover would be 780*70 = £54.6mn. But it is only £14mn so on that basis 75% do not pay or the number do not square.

Going back to the 20,000 claims. Only 2,000 ever see court so 1-in-400 get to court.

Half the people do not turn up (undefended CCJ's) so 1-in-800 have to sit there and PE win just over half of those but lets use the the 65%. That means you have a 1-in-1200 chance of losing.

That's numbers for you.
matt285
Exactly. Even if court claims proceed to hearing lots of people simply don't turn up - see the Parking Prankster's report as a typical example.

So the numbers are massively skewed.
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