refused popla appeal

bernie2304_2

I have contacted BPA last night to see how I could complain if I felt a company had breached their code of practice and briefly mentioned the points I had issue with. They have replied today saying they can help in individual disputes but have asked for more details to see if issuing penalty points against ANPR might be an option, I believe continuing to send demands for cash with added costs is a 5 pointer, 12 and they are banned for a year?? I replied with the breaches of ANPR, ie ticketing a vehicle with a valid blue badge and also that they continued to send out further letters demanding payment and adding further charges whilst appeal was ongoing with POPLA. I also mentioned the data protection breach in their paperwork to me and POPLA including details of our vehicle and full details of another vehicle who had appealed following a permit only ticket printed on the same page as our details. Am awaiting their further response.

Emailed the owners of the shopping centre with the comments of the manager re disabled car park users and he wasnt really sure if it was something he could help with but had passed the complaint onto someone else who might be able to help?? Contacted local press and awaiting reply.

So far not received any further correspondence from ANPR since 9.8 and nothing since POPLAS appeal decision but sure we will over next few days.

Once again thanks for all of your advice an input in this matter

bernie2304_2

update on complaint to BPA re ANPR sending letters out whilst under appeal demanding further costs

25.9.2013

Approved Operator Scheme BPA Ref: BPA – 0***** – Q2****

Many thanks for your e-mail received concerning the parking incident you experienced with ANPR Ltd.

The Approved Operator Scheme and its Code of Practice was developed by the BPA to bring a degree of regulation to an industry without primary legislation. Regrettably as we are not a regulatory authority, we are not empowered to become involved in individual disputes between you and the car park operator and have no power to overturn an operator’s decision. Therefore, any action regarding your individual circumstances are out of our control and should be directed directly to the operator. Although we sympathise with your predicament we have no power to get an operator to cancel or refund any parking enforcement charges.

Having said that, I would be happy to make contact with the operator concerned to seek to determine whether they are non-compliant of our Code, as this operator is a member of the BPA. To do this I would need to be provided with some items of information including the incident number (which should be in the receipt for payment or on the Parking Charge Notice), vehicle registration number, date and location of the parking incident and copies of any correspondence which may have been exchanged.

If a member is found to be non-compliant of the Code, they would be subject to our Sanctions Scheme, where Operators who are non-compliant 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.

However there is a process for you to follow if you feel that the ticket has been wrongly issued and is seeking to get it cancelled. This would see you initially appeal to the parking operator setting out your reasons for challenging the issue of the ticket. If the operator rejects this challenge then they are required to give you, the motorist details of POPLA – the independent appeals service for parking incidents on private land. This is a free service to the motorist and the decisions of the adjudicator are binding on the operator.

Many thanks for bringing this matter to my attention and I look forward to receiving the additional information requested at your convenience.


Yours sincerely
AOS Investigations Team

They then requested copies of all documentation between myslef and ANPR which I sent. Reply came today


BPA – 0**** – Q*****

We have contacted the operator in regards to your complaint and the operator confirmed they experienced a system error which did not hold the parking charge notice. Instead further letters were sent out.

The operator has corrected this mistake and the parking charge notice has been reduced back down to the correct rate. You should not receive any further letters until a POPLA decision is made.

As the operator has corrected the error and assured us this will not happen again, we have closed the case.

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

Kind regards,
AOS Investigations Team

my reply

Thankyou for your reply.

What have you done re the breach of section 16.5 with this operator and the breach of confidentiality and the ambiguous signeage?

So basically they have made a simple human error by not inputting something on their computer in response to us appealing and so a letter that should never have been sent out was sent out. However we make a simple human error by not inputting a clock alongside a blue badge in the car, and even though no time restrictions were breached, we stayed well inside the 3 hour time limit, we are penalised and demanded to pay £100, no excuses accepted!! Others have been fined for not displaying the ticket the correct way up and other ridiculous excuses and yet ANPR are allowed to say sorry, correct the error months later and so no penalties incurred by them!!!

We dont have that option, other than inventing a time machine and going back to that date and ensuring that the clock was displayed we cannot rectify ours so why should they be able to get away with this. We can only ensure the same human error is not made again in the future but are still being penalised for this past mistake. They are not.

They print on the back of their letters that excuses such as it blew off the dashboard, or I did have a permit but was in my handbag will not be accepted as a defence, and yet they get to say, whoops, sorry, messed up, please dont harm us financially and its accepted and all goes away.

Seems very weighted in their direction to me, do you actually penalise any companies for breaching any of your rules? I would be interested to know how many who have made this error have ACTUALLY received the points you threaten. You really need to grow some teeth on this issue where the public is concerned otherwise what is the point of your organisation?


So basically, parking operators are human and must be excused their mistakes, users of carparks are not and must be penalised at every turn. Pathetic :mad:

Coupon-mad

The thing is about the BPA, they are on the dark side, not the motorists' side. They are not a regulator at all, they are there to represent the PPCs. They can issue 'sanctions' - but very rarely do they bother.