Successful complaints about private parking tickets - how to get them cancelled!

Coupon-mad

Very good to hear.

Umkomaas

HanlonsRzr said:

I had a successful 'Plan A' appeal to BP following a parking charge issued by MET Parking for overstaying the permitted 30 minutes at a BP Garage in South London.

Nice one, and thanks for the feedback. 

95Rollers

pustit said:

95Rollers said:

I complained to Asda about a Horizons about one I got using their carpark - I can't recall if I just went over thr free hour or didn't punch in my reg correctly. Anyone I got a PCN through the post then before I knew 2 DRP letters and complained to Asda management and they got the invoice cancelled abd I've not heard anything since .  Thr manager was pretty nice about it and said they have a contractual override as they want it to deter "pi** takers" and not penalise customers. 

The problem, of course, is that a lot of non-pi** takers will just pay up.

Very true. I have a colleague who just paid one up without question from Waitrose carpark. I told him he could of probably had it cancelled if he spoke to the store manager - but he simply hadn't thought of that so an easy £60 for whatever firm it was.

pustit

The worry for me is this forum, Facebook, Pepipoo etc  and all the other campaigners only reach a minute proportion of "victims" - probably less than 1%.     
I dread to think what on earth is going on out there with the rest.  Not only those who pay the easy £60 but those who finally crumble when the problem doesn't "go away"  and costs are added and the threats escalate.

Coupon-mad

Worries me too, hence stuff done off forum.

Redx

For those who come here because they don't know how to write a bespoke complaint to a company about a spurious parking charge notice ( plan A in the newbies FAQ sticky thread near the top of the forum in announcements ) , read this thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6298123/mcdonalds-met-parking-demand#latest

It's about a MET PCN for an overstay at McDonalds !

The gist of the written complaint could be used in most PCN cases

Dave_Sk

I've had success with HX Parking at St Bees Beach Front Car Park

Thread here - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6295069/bought-ticket-received-pcn-from-hx-car-park-management#latest

- Bought ticket
- Warden didn't see it. May have been a fluttering ticket?
- Appeal refused as "failed to display"
- Landowner initially refused to help
- I left his hotel a bad review on Facebook with threat to leave more and threat to chargeback the initial £5 parking (paid for service not received)
- I paid the charge (sorry everyone. Don't do this)
- Landowner contacted HX and got it cancelled and apparently they are sending a cheque for the amount I paid. 

Coupon-mad

Very good to carry on with a landowner complaint and force a refund!

nicestrawb

Exactly. If the nice approach doesn't work to start with, a lot of landowners are property companies renting out the adjacent land to local businesses. If you are smart about it you can threaten to expose the fact they are screwing their own customers. It worked for me, you just have to be as aggressive and underhanded as they are :-)

wowwwooo

I just want to share my experience of successfully getting a PCN cancelled. This forum really helped me, and I hope my experience can help others. I’ve copied my complaint email below, for anyone who may want to use it as a starting point to write their own. Half of this email was from another post in this forum, which I used as my starting point but I can’t find it now (sorry to the author, should have given you credit here…)

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Some details for those who want to see how relevant this case is to their own:

Location: London NW9

PCN issued by: CPM (UK Car Park Management)

Car park type: Residential car park. A marked parking bay, no allocated number. I was visiting a friend who lived in that residential development.

Property developer: Fairview (who didn’t respond to the complaint)

Property management company: Crabtree (who kindly responded to the complaint and got the PCN cancelled)

Job title of the problem solver: Property Manager. She responded from the property management company's site specific mailbox.

Signage in car park: Yes, 3 big ones in the small car park. But it didn’t say exactly in which bays visitors are allowed to park their cars.

Visitor permit: Scratch card type, clearly displayed in windscreen.

My mistake: On the Visitor Permit, it did say ‘USE IN BAY: PF’, but the ‘PF’ didn’t really mean anything to me at the time. Later we found out that it meant visitors should only park in bays that are marked as ‘PF’. We didn’t see any bays marked as ‘PF’. There wasn’t one in this car park, but there were a few in another part of this residential development, about 100 metres away.

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Background

I went to visit a friend who lives in a new build flat in a residential development. My friend gave me a visitor permit. I parked the car in the residential car park next to the building, had the visitor permit clearly displayed. A few days later, my wife (registered car owner) received a PCN from CPM (UK Car Park Management) for a £100 charge, with the reason ‘Not Displaying a Valid Permit’.

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Actions taken

1. I appealed to CPM online, within 28 days, using the standard template from this forum. No response, I wasn’t waiting for it anyway. (Note there’s no web address on the PCN for appeal. Google is your best friend.)

2. At the same time, I wrote a long email (see below) and got my friend to send to the property developer and the property management company separately. I thought they would care more about a complaint from him than one from me as a random visitor. In terms of the recipient's email address, I found a mailbox of the developer from their website, a mailbox of the property management company’s customer experience team from their website, a mailbox of this particular site my friend lives in, and an outlook email address of the property manager of this site (the latter two were found in a leaflet my friend was given when he moved in).  

*************************************************************

Result

A few days later, the customer experience team responded first and said they can't help, you have to take up with the car parking company. She also said your [xxx] property manager (xxx is the name of this specific site) will explain to you why you have been charged so you don't make the same mistake again. At the end of the email she included an "over to you" note to the site mailbox. 

The property manager of the site then replied from the site mailbox, apologised and said she would get CPM to cancel the PCN. 

10 days later, I received an email from CPM confirming PCN cancelled.

************************************************************* 

Email to property management company

(I sent the same email to the property developer but they didn't respond.)

From: my friend who lives in that residential development

To: the property management company

Subject: FORMAL COMPLAINT ABOUT CPM AS YOUR AGENT 

Email text:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am the owner and resident of [full address]. I am writing to make a formal complaint to you because the action of your agent, UK Car Park Management Ltd (CPM), is unfair, upsetting and intimidatory.

On [date], I invited my friend to my flat. My friend was driving, so I gave him a Visitor Permit (see attached photo of the permit used on that day). A few days later, the owner of the car received a letter from CPM purporting to mimic a parking ticket (PCN Number [xxxxxxxx], see copy attached), and claiming “Not Displaying a Valid Permit”. As you can see in the second photo on the PCN, the Visitor Permit was clearly displayed on the dashboard.

This is extremely frustrating, because on that day we tried very hard to make sure the car was parked correctly and the permit was displayed and clearly visible from outside. We walked around the building, looked very carefully and found a marked parking bay that didn’t have a number – I knew those with numbers were allocated to other residents. None of parking bays were marked as specifically for visitor parking, we did try very hard to look for one, but there wasn’t one in sight. We also read the text on the parking sign very carefully. While the text was confusing, we read twice, it did NOT say cars with Visitor Permit were not allowed to park there.  Then my friend parked the car in that parking bay and displayed the Visitor Permit on the dashboard.

My friend travelled a long way to visit me. As the host, I am very embarrassed and feeling increasingly angry about what happened. I did get a Visitor Permit for my friend, and we used our best efforts to find the right place to park the car and clearly display the Visitor Permit. Now the car owner (not even my friend himself, which makes it even more embarrassing) has to deal with this aggressive third party private company (CPM), who she has no dealings with, no contract with, and this company is demanding a lot of money from her.

I have researched this matter online and found that CPM has terrible reputation and is one of the worst and most litigious parking companies, they are suing innocent residents and visitors without referral to their clients, like yourselves, who may still naively believe that their agenda is ‘parking management’. Having spoken with a few neighbours, obviously I’m not the only one, many residents have had issues with CPM. I am very upset that such an aggressive agent has been appointed to manage parking here and have free reign to intimidate residents and residents’ visitors for their own profit. 

I would welcome your own view on this harassment and hope you see fit to ensure that CPM cancel the PCN immediately. My research about this matter has revealed that you have the authority to make sure CPM cancel these PCNs, as they are your agent. My friend has advised the car owner to not pay the PCN, and he’s preparing for court, knowing that CPM will take the car owner to court soon. I sincerely hope you can help with this matter so it doesn’t have to end up in court.

Thank you.