Free Traffic Legal Advice

My husband has received a claim form from a company called DCB Legal. They are saying his car was parked in a bay outside a closed-down shop that was previously free, apparently the parking company is called i-park services Ltd that are now charging people to park there. He went back and had a look for signage and there is a small sign high up on a wall, about 7 feet up with tiny writing, saying vehicles must have an e-permit - not obvious at all. No ticket machines or whatever supplies an e-permit.

The parking occurred last July and my husband ignored the letters that arrived. The claim form has only arrived today, it says it's from Civil National Business Centre and they are asking for £160. Then a bit further on they are saying it is £251.52 with costs etc.

We would really appreciate any help and guidance with this issue. Do we complete the acknowledgement of service and defence part of the form?

Hi bananaboop

Did you get the PCN for the same car park? Popla rejected my appeal. I've also noticed that there are threads about the same place/issue on Facebook, Parking Eye must be raking it in. I also noticed some people saying that they appealed to Parking Eye and were offered a reduced charge of £20.

I contacted the owners of the car park who offered support and were told by Parking Eye that it has been 'sorted', but the only thing I received from Parking Eye was a further demand for money.

I went and photographed the three ticket machines which are all in relatively close proximity, with the only obvious one in the outer car park being the one with the big yellow pay here sign on it.

Hello

I went shopping in Kendal in July, tried to park in Booth's car park but it was full so drove out and immediately left into Wainwright's Yard car park, hadn't parked in there before. I went to buy a ticket and at the entrance to the car park there were people queuing at a ticket machine with a yellow sign above with Pay Here written on it. Got a ticket with Wainwright's Yard written on it. Did my shopping and returned within the allocated time. A couple of weeks later I got a PCN from Parking Eye saying I had parked in Wainwright's Yard without a valid ticket. The ticket was still in the car so I sent them a photo of it by way of appeal, thinking they would just say 'oh sorry our mistake' but they refused my appeal saying I had used the wrong machine. So I did the POPLA thing, and Parking Eye sent their evidence, showing an Evology machine and some signs supposedly in the car park I used, which have been there since May this year.

Sorry this is a long story - I contacted the company that owns the Wainwright's Yard area and they said 'we don't own the car parks, they are owned by Booth's and the council'. I contacted the council and they said that yes they owned some of the outer car park but not all of it, and that I had bought my ticket from the council owned machine. They did not know who owned the area of car park i had parked in. I emailed Booths and they replied that they owned some of the car park but not the bit I had parked in.

So today - I went to Booths and spoke to the manager - he said they are getting 3 - 4 emails a week about the same issue and that he thought the area of car park was owned by Westmoreland Gazette but not certain.

I photographed the ticket machines and tried to work out which ones serve which areas of the car park. There is an Evology machine outside the exit of the Booth's area of car park which says Pay on exit, and looks like you should pay there before leaving Booths. Wrong. The Booths Evology machine is not visible from outside, and is tucked away just inside the car park, under cover. The council machine is at the entrance to the car park I parked in so looks like that is where you get the ticket for that area. Wrong again. It serves the area in front of it, which is the council owned parking spaces. So the Evology machine outside the Booths exit actually serves the area of car park at the rear outside that I parked in. I took lots of photos that show how bizarre it is, and spoke to several confused people. Also, I'm relatively small and the signs weren't legible as they were too high for me to read all the small print.

I've already done an appeal with POPLA which is in process and also written to Trading Standards as this looks like deliberate confusion to make lots of money from fines. What else can I do?