UKPC Parking Charge on rental car

Coupon-mad

It would be like Sixt just paying £150 to Travelodge if they got a letter saying that the driver of car xxxxxxx was smoking in a bedroom (as per last week's Watchdog!). It's as much their business as any private allegation like that.

For new fake PCNs issued for incidents on or after 1st October 2012, BVRLA current advice is similar to before - that their members should be able to simply pass on the driver's details. Then the driver can either ignore the scam or try the POPLA appeals service to cost the PPC money. But no doubt plenty of lease/hire firms will still just pay:

''Protection of Freedoms Act
The BVRLA will now be working with the British Parking Association to ensure that customers' details can be passed to private parking firms in a simple way, without the need for complex evidential requirements such as copies of rental and lease agreements.

Further information on road traffic offences can be found here.

Contact:

Amanda Brandon, legal and policy executive
Telephone: 01494 545701

Email: [EMAIL="amanda@bvrla.co.uk"]amanda@bvrla.co.uk[/EMAIL] ''

http://www.bvrla.co.uk/Lobbying_and_Campaigns/harmonising_road_traffic_legislation.aspx

Anyway, your case is simply a matter of using those emails as you can see that they worked for the pepipoo poster before.

bazster

Askew wrote: »

I tried arguing this on the phone earlier but the employee in question did not want to touch it.

Put it in writing to them that this was an unauthorised transaction.

Askew

So here's a draft I just completed, last couple of paragraphs shamelessly copied from that pepipoo thread referenced earlier

Dear sir/madam,

I write in regard to a charge dated 17th of Sept 2012 to my credit card account by Sixt Newtonards. Inquiry at one of your branches confirmed that this charge was regarding a parking charge notice issued during the rental period of reservation: [#####]

Firstly I would like to note my surprise at the lack of notification from Sixt that a parking charge notice had been received and also that a sum would be debited using the credit card details on file with Sixt Northern Ireland.

Using the email form on nir.sixt.com, I notified Sixt of the parking charge received and specified the following:

"1.) I received a speculative invoice from UKPC while in possession of a vehicle registered to Sixt.
2.) I do not intend to make payment to UKPC.
3.) I dispute the legality of their charge.
4.) I dispute that any contract was entered into and deny any debt to UKPC.
5.) Sixt would not be a party to any such contract, had it existed in the first place, and is therefore not liable in this matter.
6.) I do NOT authorise Sixt to take any action on my behalf in this matter, and any sums debited from my credit card in relation to this by Sixt, will be the subject of a County Court claim to recover such sums, and associated legal costs."


Obviously this message did not reach the correct destination even though one of your employees said:

"This fine has not yet been received by our office and it has now been noted onto the system that you do not wish for this fine to be paid.This fine has not yet been received by our office and it has now been noted onto the system that you do not wish for this fine to be paid.

If UKPC do issue a fine we will contact you directly before any action is considered."

At this point I feel I should reiterate why I believe Sixt not to have been authorised to take any action in this matter.

In the terms and conditions of hire quoted on your website at http://www.sixt.co.uk/fileadmin/sys/agb/sixt_GB_en.pdf section 7.1.5 on charges states that I agree to pay you:

"all fines and court costs for parking, traffic or other offences, including any costs which arise if the vehicle is clamped, and any civil penalty payable for the transport of illegal immigrants under immigration control legislation. You must pay the appropriate authority any fines and costs if and when the authority demands this payment. You will be responsible to pay our reasonable administration charges which arise when we deal with these matters."

The invoice issued by UKPC is not a Penalty Charge Notice, nor is it a fine, nor any kind of notification of a traffic offence. It has not been issued by any UK authority and was not issued as a result of a contravention of any current UK traffic legislation. It is therefore not covered under the terms of my rental agreement with Sixt and Sixt had no authority to charge my credit card for either the UKPC invoice or any admin fee as there was no requirement on Sixt to take any action on receipt of this invoice.

Due to the reasons given above the charges against my credit card were unauthorised and should be immediately refunded.

Regards,

Askew

Any comments, feedback, corrections welcome! Thanks :-)

edit: fyi, I have been unable to locate a separate t&c document for Northern Ireland, so I'm operating under the assumption that they use the GB terms & conditions

Coupon-mad

Yep that looks fine, I suspect you will need to use more of the emails from the pepipoo thread until they give up though!

The only question I had was this repetition:

"This fine has not yet been received by our office and it has now been noted onto the system that you do not wish for this fine to be paid.This fine has not yet been received by our office and it has now been noted onto the system that you do not wish for this fine to be paid.''

So good they said it twice?!

Askew

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Yep that looks fine, I suspect you will need to use more of the emails from the pepipoo thread until they give up though!

The only question I had was this repetition:

"This fine has not yet been received by our office and it has now been noted onto the system that you do not wish for this fine to be paid.This fine has not yet been received by our office and it has now been noted onto the system that you do not wish for this fine to be paid.''

So good they said it twice?!

woops got a bit enthusiastic with the copypasting, thanks!

traceymcc

Hi there - this was a really interesting thread. Just wondered how it all panned out?