MET parking charges: £100 for staying 17 min too long at McDonald's - won

[Pyrococcus]

Hello

Thank you so much for all the posts about unfair parking charges and the expert advice given!! I read through quite a few of them as we are in a similar situation. We received a PCN from MET for overstaying 17 min at a McDonald’s car park. The driver had no intention of doing anything wrong, and in fact only realised that there must have been some sort of sign when we got the PCN through the post (nothing on the car). We were on holiday when it arrived, and when we got back we were already too late to pay the ‘reduced charge’ - so they now want £100.

I tried to call the restaurant but couldn’t get through to anyone who could help. Unfortunately, we did not keep a receipt for the purchases (never thought we might need it!).

I then used their online appeals procedure with the following text (thank you mystery1!)


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Dear Sirs,
I, as registered keeper, wish to invoke your appeals procedure. The driver was a genuine customer.
I note that the notice to keeper is fundamentally flawed when compared to the protection of freedoms act 2012 schedule 4 paragraph 9.
Should you reject my appeal, please supply a popla code.
Yours sincerely

-------

I have now received a letter rejecting the appeal and providing a POPLA code.

I would very much appreciate any advice on what to do now!

[mystery1]

Re: MET parking charges: £100 for staying 17 min too long at McDonald's

Leave it with me.

M1

[Pyrococcus]

Re: MET parking charges: £100 for staying 17 min too long at McDonald's

Thank you so much for looking into it M1!

[mystery1]

Re: MET parking charges: £100 for staying 17 min too long at McDonald's

Edit to suit.

Pyrococcuspopla.rtf

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co...a-process.html

M1

[Pyrococcus]

Re: MET parking charges: £100 for staying 17 min too long at McDonald's

Thank you so much for this, M1! This is awesome!

I have two questions:

For point 2 (Signage), your letter states: The entrance sign has the P with the logo on it and says “McDonalds customers only maximum stay 90 minutes.” I've been looking at the Google images of the restaurant and from what I can see the sign says '60 min' which would match the PCN. Am I right to assume this is a typo - or do you have any additional images where they say 90 min? That would be a big thing ....

Your wonderful response is much longer than the 2000 characters I can put in the online POPLA form. I would just post it to them instead. Is this a good way of doing it?

Many thanks again.

[mystery1]

Re: MET parking charges: £100 for staying 17 min too long at McDonald's

Yes that 90 needs changed.

As per the link i also posted, save as a file

M1

[Pyrococcus]

Re: MET parking charges: £100 for staying 17 min too long at McDonald's

Thank you!
I must have missed that 'trick' in the link.

[Pyrococcus]

Re: MET parking charges: £100 for staying 17 min too long at McDonald's

The POPLA appeal was successful!!!
Thank you so much for your help M1 - you guys rock!

[mystery1]

Re: MET parking charges: £100 for staying 17 min too long at McDonald's

Can you post up the decision so we know why please ?

M1

[Pyrococcus]

Re: MET parking charges: £100 for staying 17 min too long at McDonald's - won

Below is the short decision message. Does that actually mean that MET didn't even look at it, or did they look at it and consider their chances of success very low?

Dear ___________

Thank you for submitting your parking charge Appeal to POPLA.

An Appeal has been opened with the reference xxxxxxxxx.

MET Parking Services have told us they do not wish to contest the Appeal. This means that your Appeal is successful and you do not need to pay the parking charge.

Yours sincerely

POPLA Team