ParkingEye have now contested over 80 cases at POPLA where their charge level was contested, and the score is currently Motorists 81 ParkingEye 0.
Motorists can therefore feel fairly aggrieved that they have to spend time and effort preparing a POPLA defence when ParkingEye have no chance of winning; ParkingEye's accounts show they make a profit of over 30% on parking charges and as they are required to be a genuine pre-estimate of loss this is an obvious impossibility.
One motorist therefore warned ParkingEye that if they refused to cancel his charge and that he was forced to continue to POPLA he would charge them for his time and effort if he won. ParkingEye refused to cancel the charge. The motorist appealed to POPLA and won, and duly issued his invoice to ParkingEye.
ParkingEye ignored the invoice and all subsequent communications and hung up the phone whenever the motorist tried to contact them.
This is surprising, because in all their court documents ParkingEye roundly lambast motorists for ignoring letters that they send.
In the end, as a last resort, the motorist has been forced to issue a court claim against ParkingEye.
The Parking Prankster will follow the case with interest. ParkingEye now have 14 days to acknowledge the claim or face default judgement.
Will ParkingEye finally spring into immediate action? Will they pay up? Will they attempt mediation? Will Capita send a few lawyers over to help out? Will ParkingEye use a photocopied signature on their witness statement or will they follow proper procedures?
Only time will tell.
Happy Parking
The Parking Prankster
I go for a default judgement and sending the boys around ;)
ReplyDeleteInteresting. The PE will defend like hell. If it goes to court then perhaps the alter the claim to include a specific tort like misrepresentation.
ReplyDeleteDo you think PE may contact Parking Prankster for advice ?
ReplyDeleteIf PE actually lose that will certainly set the cat amongst the pigeons...
ReplyDeleteAre those court papers for real? There is no seal and it says "reference only" on the watermark.
ReplyDeleteI think that's a downloaded image from MCOL. The real papers will have been sent direct.
ReplyDeleteI'm really hoping that PE forget to defend this one, though it might be even more fun if they try and argue their way out of it.
I have one to do for Tesco, they have told me they will only correspond with a solicitor, which I guess means they will ignore it and will get the default :)
ReplyDeleteI think the easiest way for them to argue they are not bound to pay those costs is because they do not represent the claimant's losses and, instead, include a significant amount that would only be seen as profit, in other words, the claimed costs are penalties which are unenforceable under contract law, so all the claimant would be entitled to is his actual losses (which won't be a lot, maybe postage and some pennies for printing the letters). Of course, if they argue this in court then one wonders how they can justify their own charges? Clever approach by the claimant, and definitely worth getting this in front of a judge :)
ReplyDeletebut he is asking for 150 in damages, which, as he details are actual losses because of the conduct of another party in a contractual agreement. That IS reclaimable in court, because if PE hadn't acted in this way those costs would not have been occured.
ReplyDeleteThe difference with PE is that their costs remain if you never turn up to the car park.
So we agree that the 100 "in compensation" is basically an unenforceable penalty. The 150 "in damages" consist of 20 hours of labour (you can't claim for that), stamps and expenses (you can) and three visits to the site (not sure that they're justified, if they are then you can claim for that). So all in all I would say 90% of the claim is not recoverable. Which is pretty similar to ParkingEye's claims :)
ReplyDeleteI suppose it's worth a try!
ReplyDeleteAny update on this one?
ReplyDeleteANy update?
ReplyDeleteI am agog !
ReplyDeleteHow does the story end ?
As this is now in the court system, we now have unfortunately to wait a while before the next episode. The Prankster will report back as soon as there is any news.
DeleteI see I'm not the only one watching this. At least Parking Eye will learn what a GPEOL actually looks like. Muahahahaha!
DeleteAnything on this now Prankster?
Delete