Gatwick Airport Parking Charge

Sharon_W

Hiya, I'm new to this forum today. I came back from Amsterdam last Monday and Easyjet hadn't put my suitcase on the plane. My Dad was picking me up in my car, and was having a coffee in the Gatwick McDonalds whilst waiting for me, and if my case had been on the plane, he would have been out of the carpark within the 60 free minutes, but as I was faffing around waiting for my case and then having to fill in paperwork, he went 16 minutes over the hour. I have now got one of these parking charge letters (as the registered keeper).

Have been Googling and some sites say ignore all the letters, whereas others say write to them and use a template letter quoting various laws and regulations. Not sure what to do for the best.

There was one article on the net where MET Parking sent in bayliffs to an elderly disabled couple and it was only because the local paper got involved, that MET apologised and cancelled the charge.

One thing bothers me, as a private company, how did they get my name and address? Isn't that protected by the FOI Act?

Sharon

Crabman

Hi Sharon_W & welcome to MSE :hello:

I've moved your post into a new thread so any replies can be kept in one place.

Details of a vehicle's registered keeper are obtained from the DVLA, which made £10 million out of doing so last year (link).

Sharon_W

I've just written a letter to DVLA:

DVLA DIVULGING MY NAME AND ADDRESS TO COWBOYS


Dear Sirs,

I recently received a "Parking Charge Notice" from a cowboy company because someone else using my vehicle overstayed in a free period in a car park by a mere few minutes!

I know that the law allows the DVLA to disclose vehicle keeper information to those who can demonstrate a reasonable cause for requiring it. Reasonable cause is not defined in legislation but the Government’s policy is that it should relate to the vehicle or its use, following incidents where there may be liability on the part of the driver.

However, the company wants me to pay £150 for those extra few minutes and is clearly only in business to rip people off! I don't believe that by merely overstaying by a few minutes, this was a reasonable cause for you to divulge my name and address and I am furious. I thought there were acts of law in this country to protect my identity from unscrupulous people and companies!

Please explain yourself, and you'd better make it good!

Regards

Sharon_W

I feel like sending them a cheque for 70p which I consider fair. Should I do that, or just ignore it?

Sharon

Umkomaas

Have a read around some of the latest threads to get an understanding of what all this stuff is about. Don't waste time or energy writing to the DVLA about releasing your information, they've had 'your' letter any number of times. Instead devote your efforts to fighting your charge directly with the PPC.

To start things rolling can you give us a couple of dates and a bit more information in the timeline of your parking event.

Date of event
Date of first letter
Was first letter headed (something like) Notice to Keeper
Did first letter identify the creditor in a statement like 'The Creditor is ......'

Get back to us on the above, but do some research (there have been similar and recent MET/McD cases), so type MET and McDonalds into forum search engine and have a read through those.

The forum regulars will help you with this, but you will need to do most of the legwork and to do that effectively you will need to get a good handle on how it all works.

Coupon-mad

Sharon_W wrote: »

I feel like sending them a cheque for 70p which I consider fair. Should I do that, or just ignore it?

Sharon

Neither of course, did you not read any other current threads about any PPC?

You seem to have searched and read OLD stuff ('ignore' was the old advice so that was pointless, searching without noticing a thread is old is pointless) whereas for the past 5 months we have NOT advised that. As you'd find on the forum now, simply by NOT searching but just reading page one or two etc., of the forum! Could have found the current advice in minutes.

Hoping you didn't just post and run (without simply reading a few threads on page one) when the info is everywhere, every thread, every day:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/62827554#Comment_62827554

Strong challenge wording I wrote yesterday, to suit Airport/Railway land cases, amend this and DO NOT talk about what happened, nor who was driving:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/62859837#Comment_62859837

HTH, read up on POPLA, read other threads. Links on threads will show you how to word a wining POPLA appeal at stage 2, if the PPC do not cancel. MET or APCOA?









P.S. And by the way, MET could not send in bailiffs, did you just mean they sent some letters from a debt collection firm?!! You've wasted time searching and randomly reading old irrelevant stuff - and somehow also seemingly misunderstood what debt collection junk mail is (it's not bailiffs!). And if you simply do the challenge our forum advises, then win at POPLA with our links, there will be no junk mail in your case because the scam fake PCN will be cancelled.

P.P.S. The thing about the DVLA giving out data to private firms is something you could have found stuff about easily - then you'd know your planned complaint is pointless, so you need to concentrate on learning about how to win at POPLA instead:

http://www.nmag.co.uk/lobbying/private-land-parking-and-the-dvla.php#.Ug-Zwuhwapo

http://www.ico.org.uk/for_the_public/topic_specific_guides/dvla

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2309098/DVLA-10m-selling-millions-drivers-names-addresses-parking-clamping-firms.html