Printfriendly

Saturday 12 April 2014

Guest Blog - Bailiffs turn up at ParkingEye headquarters

Here is a guest blog report regarding the follow-up to Mr Slijvic's case.

Bailiffs visit Parking Eye. No April Fool.
The bailiffs from Preston Court popped into Chorley Towers on April 1st.

There was no fooling around by Mr Sljivic who was awarded costs against PE on 10th March in Warrington County Court after the sage Judge ruled that ParkingEye’s case had zero merit. The Judge ordered ParkingEye to pay Mr Sljivic his £108 in costs within 14 days. However it seems that the education system is somewhat lacking in Chorley as clearly their employees’ arithmetic does not extend as far as the number 14. Note is clearly required for Mr Gove to look into the teaching of the 3Rs in Lancashire.

As no cheque had arrived after 14 days, Mr Sljivic popped back to Warrington Court to get an enforcement order for these costs to be paid. Mr Sljivic happily wielded his piece of plastic for the £100 court fee required for enforcement. Thereby another 100 quid was added to the bill due for payment by the arithmetically challenged ParkingEye .

ParkingEye’s cheque for £108 did arrive several days later, together with a compliments slip dated 24th March. However ParkingEye left sending this cheque until the very last minute and took a gamble on Postman’s Pat’s finest being able to deliver this on time. Their luck was out and the payment arrived after the required 14 days ordered by the court. Therefore the enforcement order stood and ParkingEye now needed to pay £208.

On April 1st, the bailiffs (as we all know so often threatened by PE against motorists) from Preston Court wandered up to Chorley Towers to do the necessary and duly undertook the enforcement to recover these costs.And therefore in unison we all cry Schadenfreude from the hills and steeples

So, time now to do some maths.

If ParkingEye’s pet lawyers from LPC charge £300 for their sterling day’s service in court on behalf of ParkingEye, plus this £208 that is now payable (for costs and enforcement), the fee for ParkingEye for all their futile efforts for their rapacious illegitimate claim has resulted in Mr Sljivic now being up £108 and ParkingEye being down £508. ParkingEye also had to spend £2.50 to the DVLA, £15 court filing fee and £25 hearing fee, taking them past £550.

If everyone went to court and did the same as Mr Sljivic, with ParkingEye pursuing circa 12,000 court actions a year and if every time they lost in court and it were to cost ParkingEye 550 quid +, this means Chorley Towers would be shelling out over £6 million a year on failed litigation.

Now if every one of the 700,000 DVLA enquiries (that presumably ParkingEye then goes on to send their illegitimate claims onto unsuspecting motorists), were subsequently challenged and referred to POPLA, this would mean 700,000 referred to POPLA costing £30 a pop would mean £21 million exiting Capita’s finest Lancashire acquisition.

ParkingEye would be down £27 million per annum.

Methinks, Capita would be somewhat concerned with their Lancashire investment if everyone getting pursued by ParkingEye went to court or appealed to POPLA.



Happy Parking indeed.

(Not the ) Parking Prankster

11 comments:

  1. fantastic , I could have driven over with the popcorn , but was worried about the parking

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. funny enough, ParkingEye doesn't "patrol" the car parks around their business park in Chorley... guess they don't want to endure themselves the trouble that they inflict on others.

      Delete
  2. Indeed Capita should be concerned about their investment. ParkingEye may be following a last ditch attempt to regain credibility with their masters at Capita. It appears to be misfiring sensationally.

    At the time of the takeover Capita said in their press release:

    "Based in Chorley, Lancashire, ParkingEye has around 160 employees, managing more than 830 car parks across the UK."

    PE's accounts for the year ending August 31 2013 state they manage in excess of 750 car parks for 169 customers.

    The press release by Capita also says:

    “ParkingEye is forecasting an operating profit of £8.1 million on turnover of £25.8 million in its financial year to 31 August 2014.”

    But PE's accounts for the year ended 31 August show a profit of £1.02M a fall from 2012's £3.29M. The turnover for 2013 was £14,2M a slight increase from 2012's £13.9M

    The forecast for 2014 in the press release of a profit £8.1M with a turnover of £25.8M, given it appears by PE, and which may have been relevant to the price Capita paid for PE i.e. £57.5M is probably deserving of a major prize for fiction. The words pig in a poke come to mind. But miracles do happen!!!

    If I were a Capita shareholder I think I would be asking about the wisdom of acquiring PE and what kind of due diligence was done to verify whether PE's forecast profits were reasonable. Perhaps Capita should have noted the various fictional costs etc. presented to courts by PE and have realised that accounting/arithmetic is not PE's strongest suit.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ha ha coming from Warrington myself best news I've heard in a long time ,

    ReplyDelete
  4. And a quick check reveals that Parking Eye LTD have a CCJ against them 10/03/2014 £108 3JD04274, and interestingly they have another CCJ, 06/02/2014, £325.00, Edmonton Court , 3JD11031, any ideas who this was?
    This has severely affected their credit rating, which is 25/100, "Higher than average credit risk" Looking at their new accounts, their profit has fallen by 69.96%, and their Net worth has fallen from £7.2m to £2.7m, a reduction of 61.5%. Nice one Capita, you have certainly bought a turkey.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We must remember that ParkingEye should have considerable capital expenditure this year, as they must change their signage to conform to BPA standards by 2015. I doubt that this fact was emphasised to Capita during the takeover.

      Given PE manages 830+ or 750+ Car Parks and there must be a number of signs in each Car Park to be replaced, the expenditure will be considerable. A turkey indeed.

      BTW I notice that PE's auditors have resigned - presumably replaced by Capita's auditors.

      Delete
    2. dave...how do you find these cases??

      Delete
    3. gd tex - All this information is in the public domain from Credit checking agencies. I have checked another and they actually have a third unsatisfied CCJ 11/11/2010 £190 Melton Mowbray Court 0MM01619, and one satisfied 01/09/2009 £60 Preston 9QT48712 which was only paid 25/09/2012 !!!! 3 years late ! Their credit rating has dived from 94/100 on the 9th Jan 2014 to 38/100 27th March . They appear to have no regard for orders from the court.

      Delete
    4. Not much of an advert. for the Legal Dept at PE!!!!

      Delete
  5. after reading MSE , I for see another CCJ heading towards PE

    ReplyDelete
  6. What a brilliant story. This has cheered up my Monday morning! Would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when the bailiffs turned up. I wish my charge from Met Parking had gone to court! I'm very tempted to park in the same McDonalds for 61 minutes to see what happens.

    ReplyDelete