APCOA Parking Enforcement Notice

Alan_Chippenham

Hi, I have just registered on this forum which appears to be excellent, hoping someone can provide some advice.

In June 2009 I bought a 12 month parking season ticket from APCOA for Chippenham station. I have been using it most days since then without incident but yesterday found an APCOA Parking Enforcement Notice on the windscreen. It claims "Parking attendant xxx who had reasonable cause to believe that the following parking contravention had occurred: 02 - No Valid Permit" Also hand written "Only valid in Car Park One". The notice goes on to say you are therefore required to pay a enforcement charge of £80.00 within 30 days........ Discounted to £50 will be accepted in settlement of the enforcement charge is payment is made within 14 days .... (their poor English). The rest of the notice is a payment slip, much as others have described from APCOA, with the a statement that a summons will be issued in the county court if payment is not received.

When I bought the parking permit form APCOA I did not appreciate that the permit would be valid in only one of the 2 car parks at Chippenham station. Their is nothing in the permit that make this restriction clear to ordinary people. It says: PC1\xxx (which is my permit number); Chippenham Car Park; my car's reg number; 30/06/2009; No xxxxxx; 29/06/2010.

I did look out the letter that came with the permit and it does say "... your permit for Chippenham Car Park 1 ...". I did not pay attention to that point thinking that Chippenham Car Park on the windscreen disc meant either car park at Chippenham station.

First Great Western own the car park and APCOA are their car parking operations contractor. I cannot see anything on their websites which show car parks 1 and 2 and I do not think there is anything on display in the car park that says it is car park 1 or 2, but I will check this. What is displayed is
RingGo information and they identify the car parks by unique numbers (Car park 1 is 1928 and car park 2 is 1950). I phoned APCOA with a general enquiry about purchasing an annual parking permit at Chippenham and was told I would need to specify which car park. I don't remember being told that last June, but their letter implies the same.

It seems incredibly small minded to have season parking permits which are restricted to a particular car park at the same station and to 'enforce' a penalty of £80 or £50 for parking in the wrong car park. I would be very grateful for any advice.

Coupon-mad

Alan you can safely ignore the ticket and the letters which will follow - threatograms spouting rubbish about Court and CCJs.

Nothing at all will happen once their standard letter-chain fizzles out and if such a company ever did decide to chance Small Claims court (they won't, but just for the sake of argument) do you think the judge will be impressed by their hidden t&cs or your paid annual car park ticket, displayed every day in good faith for almost a year without any suggestion that you were in the wrong place?

Stop worrying, you don't have a fine. Read other threads on this sub board until you are confident about this scam and ready to ignore the letter deluge completely:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/...play.php?f=163

HTH, I also answered the same to your other post.



P.S. Just a thought, the only thing you will just need to double check is that the ticket does not specifically state Railway Byelaws have been broken, and also double-check who it says to appeal to. If the appeal says Magistrates Court then it's not a bog-standard ignorable fake PCN, but if it gives the addy of the Parking Company as the place to 'appeal' to (LOL, don't bother!!) then my advice stands and it's a piece of loo roll.

dontpayscammers

I parked in a quiet part of MK shopping centre for about half hour I did not purchase a ticket as I did not have cash on me, (I did not realise I could pay by phone) 2 weeks later I recieved a parking enforcment notice saying I have to pay a £75 fine now or £150 in 2 weeks, I know that these fines are un-enforceable as I was told this about 20 years ago because a private company cannot impose fines only the law can do that. I am eagerly awaiting the next and subsequent demanding money with menaces letters, I will keep you all informed of events as they happen.

You cannot fool someone who is not a fool.

McKneff

I know its not enforceable and i have every sympathy with people who inadvertantly get these invoices but you did it deliberately as you said and its that sort of thing i find unacceptable.

Coupon-mad

McKneff wrote: »

I know its not enforceable and i have every sympathy with people who inadvertantly get these invoices but you did it deliberately as you said and its that sort of thing i find unacceptable.

Personally I don't find it unacceptable.

I draw the line at taking up disabled spaces but apart from that I have no qualms in not paying a penny to a PPC and taking up a space for several hours.

They should blame themselves for being so flippin' greedy with the amount they have been scamming off people for years. Now that lots of people know these tickets are a scam, and some people are deliberately PPC baiting by taking up space in private car parks on purpose, hopefully their business model will fail.

Supermarkets, service stations and shopping centres simply don't need a PPC parasite on their land, annoying the customers and breaching the DDA at every opportunity.

Sir_Roger_deLodger

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Personally I don't find it unacceptable.

I draw the line at taking up disabled spaces but apart from that I have no qualms in not paying a penny to a PPC and taking up a space for several hours.

They should blame themselves for being so flippin' greedy with the amount they have been scamming off people for years. Now that lots of people know these tickets are a scam, and some people are deliberately PPC baiting by taking up space in private car parks on purpose, hopefully their business model will fail.

Supermarkets, service stations and shopping centres simply don't need a PPC parasite on their land, annoying the customers and breaching the DDA at every opportunity.

I agree 100%.