Highview and CP Plus dredge up old cases

The Prankster has previously lost a few POPLA cases while trying single point defenses out for the benefit of other motorists. These were all double dipping cases where flaws in the operators' ANPR technology meant they recorded one long stay rather than two short stays.

Following these cases, The Prankster produced digital photographs with embedded geo-location evidence proving his vehicle was elsewhere when the operators claimed he was parked. The operators then went quiet, apart from muttering darkly that POPLA had found in their favour so it wasn't fair for The Prankster to do this...

...until today, 9 months later, when The Prankster got a nice surprise in his mailbox.

Both CP Plus and Highview Parking use the same third party, Ranger Services, to process their charges for them, which is why the two letters are almost identical, the signatures are the same and the address to reply to is the same.

CP Plus do appear to have negotiated a somewhat worse deal with Ranger Services than Highview; their charge has increased from £100 to £140, while Highview have gone from £100 to £120. Perhaps CP Plus should ask Ranger Services why they charge them £40 to send a letter, while Highview only get charged £20.

In any case, it will put them on the spot when they try and justify their pre-estimate of loss calculations as to why the identical services company is charging half the price to their competitors for exactly the same service.

The Prankster has sent a stiff rebuttal, reminding them the vehicle was not parked in the car park and so there was no breach of contract. He has invited them to cancel the charge or issue a letter before claim compliant with practice directions.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

Picture of the week - CO-OP wash their hands

Looks like the Co-op are fed up with problems with their car parking agents

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

UKCPS claim dismissed. Judge rules signage is 'gibberish'

A0QZ7658 UKCPS v Mr X (04/07/2014 Bradford) Claim dismissed. Signage was gibberish.

In a hearing this Friday UKCPS scarcely lasted  longer than 5 minutes. The judge criticised their lengthy and rambling claim; it was a scattergun of arguments against possible reasons the defence may raise, most of which had nothing to do with the actual defence submitted . He explained that the ParkingEye v Beavis case quoted by the Claimant had gone to appeal. Steve Hall, acting for the claimant, tried to correct the judge on this point, but the judge was having none of it. The judge then referred to the signage as gibberish and dismissed the claim. Mr X, the defendant, did not have to say a word.

Afterwards Steve Hall tried to laugh off the loss, saying you win some and lose some and telling Mr X he was lucky as the signage has now been changed. However, it appears from this post on moneysavingexpert regarding a different case that UKCPS are somewhat experts on losing cases due to bad signage.

Last Wednesday I was taken to court by UKCPS for not paying £100 fine, for parking in the wrong place in a free car park. I hadn't paid the fine (the amount of which kept altering) because I felt very strongly that it was unreasonable to demand so much money when I was not aware of having done anything wrong.

The judge found that the signs, although large had too much information on them to make them easy to read and ordered that signs should be put up which made it clear that although it was a free car park, penalties could apply. The UKPCS man said that this had already been done, although after I had got my parking ticket. 

The Prankster helped Mr X with his defence, pointing out the misspellings in the signage, and also that according to the terms and conditions the only people allowed to park in the entire car park are disabled drivers parking in a disabled bay with a badge showing. Non-disabled motorists are not allowed to park at all, anywhere in the car park.

The signage also displayed terms conflicting with other signs in the car park.

Lastly, the fact that a charge would be applied was hidden in the small print, which is not allowed by the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

MET Parking operate 'customer not here' scam at McDonalds

This post on pepipoo shows how MET Parking operatives operate a parking scan at McDonalds.

The scam works as follows:

The MET Parking operative issues large numbers of tickets at once for 'customer not on premises'. He has no idea whether the customer is or is not on the premises; he doesn't go in the restaurant to check; he just issues large numbers of tickets.

When the customers leave McDonalds and find the ticket, they complain to the operative who fobs them off.

They then go back and complain to the manager. It appears the manager may be in on the scam as he did not cancel the ticket despite the customers having just been in the restaurant. In any case, the manager certainly did nothing to help, which allows MET Parking to carry on with the scam.

When the customers appeal to MET Parking, they continue the scam by rejecting the appeal:

Whilst you have supplied receipts for the purchases at the restaurant a site survey was conducted whilst your vehicle was on the premises and as there was no one to take accountability for your vehicle a parking charge notice was issued. We can confirm that the charge was issued correctly and we are upholding it.

Obviously the statement that a site survey was conducted was false. No-one came round the restaurant calling out vehicle numbers and asking if the occupants were present. No doubt an enquiry to McDonalds would reveal that such a site survey has never happened.

This kind of predatory scam shows why certain sectors of the parking industry need to be weeded out. MET Parking issue large numbers of fake tickets in the hope that some motorists are scared into paying up.

This is not an isolated incident. MET Parking have a history of deceiving motorists and have been caught out in the past issue tickets under the wrong regulations in railways station car parks.

The Prankster would be happy to pass on the location of the MacDonalds in question to the BPA so that they can investigate further. If the motorist in question wishes to contact him, please use prankster@parking-prankster.com

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

Devere try and frighten motorists to hide the fact their contract is squiffy

Devere have been writing to motorists threatening legal action if they ask POPLA to check that their contract with landowners is valid.

The Prankster usually finds that when companies threaten legal action in this way, they have something to hide. Take ParkingEye, for instance, who have written all kinds of legal letters to The Prankster trying to stop him exposing their shambolic business and deceptive processes.

The Devere letter is therefore a red rag to a bull, requiring further investigation into Devere's contracts. Here's one, which was signed on 11th July 2011.

That proves to be an interesting date, because Devere Parking Services Ltd did not exist at that point in time.

Devere Parking Services Limited was only incorporated on 15 July 2011. As they did not exist on 11 July 2011, they would have had difficulty signing any contracts on that day, and in fact the contract does not include their company number. This does seem a bit squiffy to The Prankster.

The Prankster therefore recommends that any motorist charged by Devere asks to see the contract and checks at least the date on which their contract with the landowner was signed.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

ParkingEye to stop charging motorists £27 for POPLA

A BPA spokesman has confirmed that ParkingEye will no longer be charging motorists £27 if their POPLA appeal fails. Following a tip off the BPA investigated the situation and confirmed that ParkingEye will in future be obeying the government requirements that the parking industry provide POPLA free to the motorist.

The change will not be retrospective, so ParkingEye will not be refunding motorists who have already paid the £27.

ParkingEye will also not be amending any claims in current court actions, so if they are already claiming the £27 they will continue to do so.

The Prankster therefore recommends that anyone currently involved with court action with ParkingEye post POPLA should check the claim, and if if includes a POPLA fee include relevant material in their claim to contest this.

Following further tip offs, the BPA are currently investigating other parking firms charging for POPLA. These investigations are not yet complete.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

VCS and ParkingEye court cases adjourned to wait for Cambridge appeal

A case involving Vehicle Control Services Ltd was adjourned for a second time on 16/06/2014. The first case was adjourned to await the result of the Cambridge case, ParkingEye v Beavis and Wardley, heard by HHJ Moloney. It is clear that courts around the country are viewing this as some kind of test case.

Despite this, Joel Douglas the VCS legal beagle was apparently not too well informed about this case (or possibly just in a fluster because he arrived 2 hours late) and told the defendants before the hearing that he was unaware that HHJ Moloney had given leave to appeal. Luckily the defendants had downloaded HHJ Moloney's document from The Prankster web site and were able to give this to the judge.

During the hearing Joel Douglas had a sudden attack of memory unfailure and started to tell the judge all about the appeal he had earlier claimed to know nothing about. He argued that the defendants had waited until the last minute to appeal the Moloney case.

The judge adjourned the case a second time, told him to go away and wait for the appeal outcome.

Following on, the next case the judge heard was a ParkingEye case. He asked ParkingEye's representative from LPC Law whether it was true the Moloney case was being appealed. The LPC Law wallah did not know so went off to phone ParkingEye. He returned to say that ParkingEye did not know whether an appeal was submitted but word on the grapevine was that it had.

The judge adjourned this case too. No doubt he was suitably unimpressed that VCS seemed to know more about the appeal than ParkingEye were admitting to knowing, and that none of this had been bought to his attention previously by the claimants.

The ParkingEye wallah submitted a claim for over £200 for his time which was held over.

Prankster Analysis

It is clear that many judge's are reluctant to overrule HHJ Moloney's ruling, despite the clear warning he made in both his judgment and his leave to appeal, and despite the fact that the car park in question was a one-off in that ParkingEye pay £1,000 a week to the landowner.

However, when shown the leave to appeal document, they do take note of this and often adjourn the case rather than make a ruling of their own. This is sensible because if they follow the HHJ Moloney ruling they would be duty bound to allow an appeal too, which would further clog up the courts.

Given that an appeal is underway, if your case hinges on the fact that the charge is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss, it is therefore worth any defendants writing to both the court and ParkingEye.

To the court manager

ParkingEye are relying on the case of ParkingEye v Beavis and Wardley. However, HHJ Moloney recognised there was no higher case law backing his judgment and therefore gave leave to appeal. I enclose a copy, which shows his thoughts clearly. Paragraphs 1a to 1c of his judgment also go into more detail. This case is now being appealed to the court of appeal.

Several subsequent hearings have been adjourned on the day, after the leave to appeal was brought to the judge's attention.

I therefore ask whether the court can use their discretionary case management powers to adjourn this case until after the appeal is held. This will save court resources and also the time and money of both myself and ParkingEye.

If the court does not adjourn your case beforehand, but does on the day, you can then use this letter to argue against any ParkingEye costs, and argue for your own costs to be paid by the court.

If your case hinges on other matters, such as double visits, signage and so on, you may prefer to get it over with rather than wait a long time with this hanging over you.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster