ANPR Parking ticket

blue_lady_56

Hi. Can anyone help? About two months ago we parked in a town centre car park which was monitored by ANPR Ltd. We looked at the tariff. It was 6 o'clock in the evening and we knew that we would be back around 10pm. The day ticket was marked as £5 (or so we thought) What we hadn't read was that the day ticket expired at 7.00pm and after that the night rate was £2. Confused!! Of we went to the theatre to return to a ticket on the car saying that we had overstayed our time, which in effect we had. I immediately wrote to ANPR following the appeal process on the ticket and explained that had we paid correctly i.e. £2 from 6-7pm and then £2 for the night from 7pm then we would have only paid £4. I sent a copy of our ticket which shows entry time and amount paid but heard nothing. I watched the web site which showed a picture of our car and the fine increased to £100 but still had no correspondence.
Today a letter arrived demanding £100. It was a standard generic letter with no reference to any communication that we had made at all. I have just prepared a written reply....no money of course.. and I am going to send it recorded delivery tomorrow.
Does anyone think that we have a chance of getting away with this or should we bite the bullet and pay? Unfortunately as they know who we are and have admitted that we were at fault we are not sure.:(
Thanks

Joe_Horner

If it's private then, even if they go to court and win, they've suffered no loss seeing as you've actually paid more than you needed to (and even saved them the paper and ink cost of printing the extra ticket!) so compensation due = £0, plus a probably pretty ticked off judge for wasting his time

pogofish

Have a look at the most recent threads in the Parking Forum. There have been several threads in the last few weeks giving up to date advice on dealing with these scammers.

Crabman

Hi blue lady 56 & welcome to MSE :hello:

I've moved your post over to the dedicated Parking sub-forum.

Stroma

You've paid so there's no loss, you've proven to them you have paid. Now as they have ignored your appeal they are in breach of the BPA Code of Practice. They must respond to an appeal within 28 days of it. They haven't so it's timed out.

But this company run by a very long winded and extremely boring chap called Trevor Whitehouse, are basically a joke of a company, he was trying to sue the government for millions when they banned clamping, you see his company national clamps were also knuckle draggers as well.

There is almost no chance that they will try court as they know that they would be humiliated there, as the £100 is no reflection of loss at all, and the only that could be claimed is for the loss. But as you have paid this can only be a penalty which is illegal .

So you should make a complaint to the dvla - foi@dvla.gsi.gov.uk - asking them when was keeper details were released to this company, why have they released details to a company that has breached the bpa code of practice, and demand that they take action against them.

Please don't pay this company anything as they don't deserve your money, and certainly wait until the dvla has come back to you with your complaint, read through the CoP for other breaches to add to your complaint first, do a draft here if you wish and we can help you.

Coupon-mad

Portly_Pig wrote: »

If it's not a council car park just bin it and save the stamp money.

No, never bin these things in case they have a rush of blood to the head and try a small claim. You'd then need their rubbish letters and pics of their signs, as part of a defence to send them packing.

Blue lady 56, please understand that this is a scam and you do not have to 'get away with it'. You will not be paying this.

If this was in England/Wales, please amend your letter you were about to send, to say that your previous appeal was ignored and if they do not send you a POPLA code then their charge is null and void. Enclose a copy of your previous appeal letter if you have it.

The important appeal wording will be at POPLA stage. Don't know what POPLA is? Please read any threads on the parking forum about any PPC:

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

Please tell us when you get a reply, do NOT send a POPLA appeal without 'legal' grounds of challenge because POPLA decisions are made by law students who seem to like certain arguments that we can advise you about.

blue_lady_56

Thank you for all of your advice. We will ignore it, but hold on to all the evidence just in case. I just can't find on here an outcome. Lots of people have said ignore, but has anyone ever been taken to small claims?

Stroma

blue_lady_56 wrote: »

Thank you for all of your advice. We will ignore it, but hold on to all the evidence just in case. I just can't find on here an outcome. Lots of people have said ignore, but has anyone ever been taken to small claims?

Yes people have been taken to the small claims, but none from these lot at all.

Coupon-mad

blue_lady_56 wrote: »

Thank you for all of your advice. We will ignore it, but hold on to all the evidence just in case. I just can't find on here an outcome. Lots of people have said ignore, but has anyone ever been taken to small claims?

Lots of people come back a year or so later and confirm that nothing happened. It's just almost impossible to find such threads from a search as the forum is so busy.