Towed at the drop off at Luton airport

ic

It looks to me like the OP parked in the "priority drop off zone", which has a £1 fee allowing ten minutes to drop off (not park and leave the vehicle unattended) - the full rules are here: http://www.london-luton.co.uk/en/content/7/1164

Coupon-mad

That link is uselful, ic. :T

To the OP, I would appeal and require that the Airport show what lawful authority they relied upon to tow the car away. If it was under any bylaw you require details of which paragraph of which bylaw applied, and a link to it.

And if they reject your appeal you need to know about any other official complaint/referral open to you, if any, before you consider taking Court action.

''14 Appeal against enforcement action

14.1 If you wish to appeal against any action that we have taken under clause 13.1, you should write to us at our address stated below (see How to contact us) within 48 hours of you becoming aware of the enforcement action that we have taken, setting out the relevant facts. If you delay doing so, it may be difficult for us to establish what happened and this may affect our ability to deal with the appeal.

14.2 Clause 14.1 does not stop you from taking legal action against us if you think that we have acted unlawfully. However, we ask that you do not do so before using the appeal procedure set out above.''

blah554

Hi jean232, have you had any luck pursuing this matter directly with Endeavour Vehicle Services, though the magistrates or though the county court? I am very interested to hear as my wife has just been caught out in almost precisely the same way as you at the new "Express Drop Off" area at Stansted.

She accompanied her mother to the entrance of the terminal, not realising that this new system did not allow her to leave the car unattended - she did not notice the signs which were in a discreet blue next to the bright yellow signs stating the fees. Upon her return a couple of minutes later she found the Endeavour Vehicle Services tow truck about to take her car away (the wheels had been tied to the lift, but the car had not yet been lifted). The driver demanded £180 for the release of the car, which after much arguing was paid under protest. She also had to pay the parking fee to exit the car park.

The invoice provided to her by the driver has no explanation of what the charges are for - the whole fee has been lumped into the "other charges" section.

Any insight gained from your experience would be invaluable to us.

Coupon-mad

Well IMHO these are towaways where there is no apparent lawful authority, so it's a criminal offence and should be reported to the police.

Maybe you could pm each other and report both incidents using as evidence, the links we have provided which show it's apparently APCOA assuming an authority they don't have and using a third party tow truck - which probably doesn't even have the VOSA licence it needs either:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showtopic=65997

The VOSA thing would be another criminal offence...in the old clamping days pretty much every tow truck fell foul of these rules.

arcon5

Agreed the fee is excessive... but it could well be to discourage this from happening and from ensuring others don't think it's acceptable.. They simply do not want vehicles left unattended in this area, full stop - makes identifying suspicious vehicles much easier.

To leave the vehicle was reckless to say the least.

Although in your circumstance i'd be fighting for it back, doesn't necessarily mean I think you'd deserve it.

blah554

My better judgement is telling me to ignore arcon5's personal opinions; nevertheless, I will clarify some details in order to (hopefully) avoid further comments of this nature.

This is a new car parking system at Stansted which is situated along side the Short Stay car park where there used to be a 15 minute pickup. In the the former 15 minute pickup and current short stay car parks there have never been any security concerns over leaving vehicles unattended for 15 minutes in the one case, or days in the other. This is because there is a significant distance between the car parks and the terminal building.

I will happily accept that the entity that manages the car park has every right to determine the rules around parking and they were well within their right to impose a fine. The point, however, is that they must do it within the law, and towing a car and imposing an excessive fee for release on the fundamentally flawed grounds of security does not seem reasonable or, perhaps, legal.

RENEGADE_2

arcon5 wrote: »

but it could well be to discourage this from happening and from ensuring others don't think it's acceptable.. They simply do not want vehicles left unattended in this area, full stop - makes identifying suspicious vehicles much easier.

To leave the vehicle was reckless to say the least.

Although in your circumstance i'd be fighting for it back, doesn't necessarily mean I think you'd deserve it.

Absolute trash from end to end.

The private companies are not armed with the task of "discouraging" these things from happening, their continued mugging at the hands of weak authority is the source of their survival.

The "unattended vehicle is reckless" argument is stale and irrelevant. Security threat? Police problem. Period. For people crying over cars left at airports, they need only shift their eyes a few yards in a certain direction whereupon they will find thousands of unattended cars dumped in that layout they call a "car park"; doesn't change the fact that the owners may be in New Zealand, Africa or South America - those cars are no more "attended" than the one left where the parking company doesn't like it.

RENEGADE_2

blah554 wrote: »

I will happily accept that the entity that manages the car park has every right to determine the rules around parking and they were well within their right to impose a fine.

On the contrary, no private enterprise may impose 'fines'. That statement alone anticipated your next line in the post.

The best thing to do in future is have one passenger remain in the car and then if they attempt to move it, they really are committing a criminal offence, one which the police wil take more seriously than this which they claim does not contravene POFA.

blah554

RENEGADE wrote: »

On the contrary, no private enterprise may impose 'fines'. That statement alone anticipated your next line in the post.

Ah yes, "fines" was a poor choice of word. I suppose I meant that they have the right to offer a clearly signposted contract which contains reasonable penalties for certain breaches.

Coupon-mad

blah554 wrote: »

Ah yes, "fines" was a poor choice of word. I suppose I meant that they have the right to offer a clearly signposted contract which contains reasonable penalties for certain breaches.

Nope! They don't have the right to do that either.

No person or company can legally issue penalties! :rotfl: