Mr Mustard has seen plenty of adverse publicity for ParkingEye (now owned by Capita) when they have penalised someone who stayed a minute too long in a car park and are now being hounded to death for £100, so when he sent the following email, on behalf of a rather ill client, he anticipated that he would soon be in court as a lay representative fighting a rearguard action. He was wrong.
I represent Jane Doe as per the attached authority.
My client is mentally ill as she suffers from illness1 & illness2 as per the attached report from a consultant clinical psychologist.
My client is also physically unwell. She has a blue badge as she suffers from illnesses 3,4,5 & 6.
I think there is more than one branch of Morrisons in Harrow but I do know that my client is a regular shopper with that firm (although she does not keep her receipts) and whilst I doubt she will be able to remember anything meaningful about what she did on dd/mm/yyyy due to her mental state (and I doubt that any of us could without reference to some sort of diary, if kept) I am going to accept your record of the visit for the sake of this without prejudice offer only.
My client is unfit to work and exists entirely on state benefits. If she had to pay a penalty to you she would be unable to afford the essentials of life. I know she is financially embarrassed as she has been summonsed for non-payment of council tax and should you obtain a judgment an application would be made for payment by instalments in the nominal sum of £1 per month.
I would rather see the file off my desk and so in order to see an end to the matter I am personally prepared to pay the sum of £20, and no more, which I estimate will more than cover your costs to date.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Back came the response fairly quickly.
Thank you for your recent correspondence in regards to this matter.
Please take this as confirmation that the above referenced Parking Charge has been cancelled as a Gesture of Goodwill.
Kind regards,
ParkingEye Enforcement Team
Well, strike Mr Mustard down with a feather. He thought he would be shelling out £20 of his own hard-earned but no, Parking Eye employ at least one person with a heart. Everything Mr Mustard said in his email was true and could be supported with evidence so don't try a similar approach unless it is the truth.
Please also bear in mind that it is only exceptionally that Mr Mustard will step into the murky world of private parking enforcement as he prefers the devils he knows, the ones in council employ.
Yours frugally
Mr Mustard
Parking Eye also cancelled a charge I incurred at the Royal Free, when I overstayed because we were discussing turning off life support with the medical staff.
ReplyDeleteTheir contact procedures leave a great deal to be desired (there was no publicly available phone number, for example, and no automated email acknowledgement); you just shove your message into a black hole and hope for the best (or so it seemed) but yes, as you say, it does seem that they do employ some staff with a degree of compassion.