Yet another contravention notice

Olical

Hi there,

I have received two contravention notices in the past which each set me back £50. I pay for parking every single week at this station and have done for way over a year, but I have forgotten to renew that weekly ticket three times now.

This third time I decided to look into it. Everything about it felt unjust. My car is there every day, it's parked without a valid ticket for two hours and I get charged a huge amount. I have seen on this forum that you can actually ignore these because they are just notices, not fines as I, and MANY others, are lead to believe.

I only realised this after I made an appeal stating that I use them every single day and should be a valued customer that is allowed to make the odd small honest mistake that would be repaid almost instantly. After almost 14 days of no response (after 14 days the fine goes up to £75...) I realised that my appeal was useless. They will make me wait and then say no.

Even though I made the mistake of making an appeal, do I still have grounds to ignore the incoming pile of terrifying letters? Or do I have to pay up to these crooks yet again and make it a nice round £150 they've earned from me. Not including the weeks and weeks of £22+ I've been paying them to use their half empty station car park.

Any advice on this will be much appreciated. And I apologise for creating yet another thread for the same topic. I just really don't want to actually owe them any money, they've had enough off of me as it is.

Thanks a lot,

Oliver.

Stroma

Jeez you actually paid a parking scammer

Please don't make the same mistake again, who gave you this invoice ? Was it in England or Wales ?

Olical

Sorry! I should have given a bit more context. It was England, given to me by NCP in a National Express railway carpark outside of London.

I've now realised they have a text alert system buried deep within the RingGo app that I have been using to purchase my parking. So that should help to prevent this from happening again.

Thank you very much for the prompt reply!

Stroma

Well how long ago did you send a challenge ? They must either accept or reject your appeal within 35 days. You can appeal this through popla the independent appeals, this is free for you to use. And we can help you write an appeal to them.

bod1467

Do NCP own that station car park? (Are things different if the PPC actually own the land they are charging for parking on?)

Olical

I challenged it the day I received it, in the same way I paid the other two the day I received them So that was about 12-13 days ago? I have had no response, not even a confirmation email. And when I went to pay it to avoid the cost escalating I realised they block you from paying whilst it is in review. I.e. whilst they put the finishing touches to their beautifully crafted NO in fancy gothic font.

I may well have to try popla. Do you think using it on a very regular basis and making a mistake is grounds for an appeal? I would of thought no company in their right minds would make a decision based on sympathy.

Stroma

Don't expect sympathy or mitigating circumstances to be accepted. They must abide by the bpa code of practice, they should be acknowledging your appeal within 14 days of the date of your appeal, and accept or reject it within 35, if they fail either they time out of this.

And even if they are the landowner, they can only claim for actual losses, they cannot penalise you, they cannot fine you, and no offence is involved.

Olical

Well I will know if they have acknowledged fast enough soon. At the moment it looks like they won't be acknowledging it in time. I'm just amazed there wasn't even an autoreponse email when I initially made the request.

Isn't there a way I can pay them for what they are due, maybe a days worth, and then ignore the rest which has no legal standing?

Stroma

There is an option to pay the losses, so whatever that is plus a few quid for admin costs. This will of course be rejected out of hand as they want the unlawful penalty charge. But wait until they contact you first

Olical

Okay, only to be expected really. So the final advice for the time being is to wait until they contact me and potentially pay what they are actually owed. Or should I just wait it out completely and see what happens? I'm just really worried I'll get this wrong and they will make a HUGE deal out of this.

Stroma

You won't get it wrong as you are in the right place for advice. The users here has seen this situation thousands of times. As I said come back here once they contact you