Parking charge appeal allowed!

2ddesign

Hi Coupon-mad
I had a letter on the 31st of July from Roxburghe claiming £207.25! So I did send a copy of this letter to the BPA association as well!!
The reply from the BPA is below:
I can confirm that Vinci Park Services UK Ltd is a Member of the BPA’s Approved Operator Scheme (AOS) which was developed to bring a degree of regulation to an industry without primary legislation. We are not a regularity authority though and as such we cannot handle specific appeals against parking tickets or other enforcement actions taken by our members but we can take actions where we believe they are non-compliant with our Code of Practice. Although we sympathise with your predicament we have no power to get an operator to cancel or refund any parking enforcement charges.

However, there is a clear expectation that the members of the BPA operate in a professional manner and those who are responsible for parking enforcement on private land sign up to our Code of Practice. We receive a number of complaints and all of them are investigated. If following an investigation, a member is found to be non-compliant of the Code, they would be subject to our Sanctions Scheme, where Operators who are not compliant with the Code can expect to receive a number of penalty points depending on the severity of the offence. As with driving offences, once an operator’s ‘licence’ has reached twelve points in any given 12-month period, then they are likely to be faced with suspension or expulsion. The Code of Practice can be reviewed on our website- https://www.britishparking.co.uk.

You will appreciate that while we will endeavour to investigate every case to the fullest extent and to the best of our availability, we are not a regulatory body and as such do not have the powers to overturn decisions made by operators. As a consequence we focus our efforts on the investigations and whether the operator meets the requirements of our Code of Practice.


Yours sincerely

AOS Investigations Team

Guys_Dad

Well, thanks for that.

Now, what the **###*** does it actually mean in the real world?????

Please , please write back to the BPA quotiting the following from their Code of Practice on the web

22.17 If POPLA decides that you have failed to demonstrate that a parking charge should be upheld, in whole or in part, you must follow its decision.

22.18 You may not continue with a claim for debt-recovery against a driver, keeper or hirer if POPLA has decided against you and grants the appeal.

Now, that is as clear as it can be and BPA need to answer the question "Can I be assured that you will exercise your suspension sanction if the PPC does not cancel all legal action or are you just a toothless old boys (or lags) club?"

The_Slithy_Tove

That's a lot of words to say precisely nothing.

nigelbb

Sorry to disappoint but the BPA Ltd CoP does not say that the PPC should call the dogs off while an appeal to POPLA is in progress. This is the 'toughest' the CoP gets:-

22.6 When you receive a challenge about the issue of a
parking charge, you must stop work on processing the
charge immediately. You must not increase the charge
until you have replied to the challenge.

i.e. after the PPC has replied to the challenge (not even rejected the appeal) then they can increase the charge & unleash the debt collectors even if an appeal is made to POPLA.

Guys_Dad

nigelbb wrote: »

Sorry to disappoint but the BPA Ltd CoP does not say that the PPC should call the dogs off while an appeal to POPLA is in progress. This is the 'toughest' the CoP gets:-

i.e. after the PPC has replied to the challenge (not even rejected the appeal) then they can increase the charge & unleash the debt collectors even if an appeal is made to POPLA.

Nigel -2ddesign has won the POPLA appeal. It's not in progress.

Appeal won in June. Roxburghe still chasing at end of July.

2ddesign

Hi All

Just an update from the BPA, over my complaint about still being chased for money by Roxburghe:

We have been in contact with the operator in regards to your complaint and can advise that the operator states a notice to keeper was sent out by their debt collection team. This was sent out before they were made aware you had appealed to POPLA.

On the 22nd May 2013 the debt collection database was updated to inform them that the case was at POPLA and a decision was pending.

The operator has recently received information from POPLA advising them POPLA have allowed your appeal and the case has been closed on their database and that of the Debt Collections database.

We hope the above is to your satisfaction. We now consider the matter closed.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Kind regards,

AOS Investigations Team

Under the freedom of information act I received Vinci's defense pack on the 19th of April, this must have given them an inkling I was appealing the PCN! So the demand on the 16th of May by Vinci for a £100 was a database error?

Also the appeal was won in June and I get a demand for £207 by Roxburghe 6 days ago on the 31st of July. It seems the BPA are very easily satisfied and do not rock the boat!

To all posters!
Thank you for your help and comments over this long drawn out drama!!

Guys_Dad

2ddesign wrote: »

We have been in contact with the operator in regards to your complaint and can advise that the operator states a notice to keeper was sent out by their debt collection team. This was sent out before they were made aware you had appealed to POPLA. Yes, that's how one gets to request a POPLA Code

On the 22nd May 2013 the debt collection database was updated to inform them that the case was at POPLA and a decision was pending.

The operator has recently received information from POPLA advising them POPLA have allowed your appeal and the case has been closed on their database and that of the Debt Collections database. Case was won before 28th June, still being chased at end of July. Seems to have taken a long time to update database

We hope the above is to your satisfaction. We now consider the matter closed.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Kind regards,

AOS Investigations Team

Under the freedom of information act I received Vinci's defense pack on the 19th of April, this must have given them an inkling I was appealing the PCN! So the demand on the 16th of May by Vinci for a £100 was a database error?

Also the appeal was won in June and I get a demand for £207 by Roxburghe 6 days ago on the 31st of July. It seems the BPA are very easily satisfied and do not rock the boat! Of course - just an Old boys' club & trade association whose income comes from the PPCs whose income comes from punitive charges.

To all posters!
Thank you for your help and comments over this long drawn out drama!!

Thank you for coming back with this.

You will know what to do next time and may even come on advising others.