Athena ANPR Ltd - Lidl Leatherhead

Half_way

Coupon-mad wrote: »

Yep, send a letter to Athena and Lidl pointing out that you are diabled, which their agent knew as your Blue Badge was displayed.

Inform them - as advised by ManxRed - that you deny any debt to them, to desist sending you letters, and that any further correspondence from them, other than an apology and confirmation that they have cancelled the ticket, will be treated as harassment under the Protection From Harassment Act 1997 and the Equality Act 2010, and that you will consider taking legal action against both Athena and Lidl, who you will hold jointly and severally liable for the actions of their agent, Athena.

Enclose a printout of this BBC article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8488737.stm

Raed it and you will see that they have actually broken the law! You could actually sue them both (Lidl and their agent Athena) for compensation!

Stuff Athena, if you want to take action you should go for who ever owns the car park, or who ever allows athena to opperate on that car park.
They are responsable for the actions of thier agents ( in this case athena) and although you need to copy athena in on any action the main target is the car park owner/who ever it was that aloowed athena to opperate.

Its highly likly that other people in a simalar situation to yourself have paid up, after being threatened and intimidated with the express permission of that Lidl store ( that is if they contracted athena to operate) and to help others in a simalar situation you should go for the car park owner, as they are probably in breach of the equalities act.

Coupon-mad

Hurricane_Tazz wrote: »

...would emailing Athena make things worse even thou l would tell them that l am a blue Badge holder would this inturn cancel the ticket once they were aware of the Blue badge ?

You are still thinking that you've done something wrong. You haven't!

You are still thinking that the parking time limit applies to you. It doesn't!

You are still thinking it's a 'ticket' worth 'cancelling'. It isn't!

This is NOT a parking ticket. YOU MUST NOT PAY IT NOR APPEAL IT. STOP WORRYING, THEY CAN'T SEND IN BAILIFFS!

As we have said, their continued harassment is breaking the law and you could actually get them for harassment and claim compensation. All you need do is print off that BBC article which explains why they have to allow more time for disabled drivers otherwise they are breaking the law.

Put a covering complaint letter with it, enclose a photocopy of both sides of your Blue Badge (as they are too narrow-minded to realise it doesn't apply and it explains your position clearly). It's probably the only thing they will understand. Send the letter & enclosures to Athena and Lidl and see what you get back.

If they don't apologise and 'cancel' the fake PCN then you really can sue them for compensation because for them to continue would be inexcusable.

By the way, if you want to find contact details for any company, just Google their name and the words 'contact us'. Works for all companies with a website.

Stephen_Leak

At this stage, just write to Lidl. They're the softer target.

If Lidl don't call off Athena, or Athena ignore Lidl's instruction to stop, and you have to actually make good your threat of legal action, then the first step will be to send a formal "Letter Before Action" to both Lidl and Athena.