Luton Airport Apcoa PCN

Casey_Ryback

Hello dear Coupon-mad and fellow helpers!

I have fabricated a letter to these lot of small time crooks and wondering if you are ready to read it on this thread or prefer to receive it via email?

I am struggling with what to say to DVLA and how

Looking forward to your reply!

Coupon-mad

trudyw wrote: »

hi i have received a fine from aocoa 2 months ago for stopping at birming airport for 10 seconds in what is a yellow zone i emailed a dispute but heard nothing . Today i have had a summons to pay £150 or face court proceddings. is this legal thanks

You have not had a 'summons', this isn't a crime! You have had a civil claim because they ignored your appeal. You must acknowledge and defend it.

You need to start your own thread on the forum using the blue 'new thread' button above the threads on page 1 of the parking forum. See my signature as you are always one click away from the forum index.

Coupon-mad

Casey_Ryback wrote: »

Hello dear Coupon-mad and fellow helpers!

I have fabricated a letter to these lot of small time crooks and wondering if you are ready to read it on this thread or prefer to receive it via email?

I am struggling with what to say to DVLA and how

Looking forward to your reply!

Put it on this thread, it's OK to share it here as they'll see it soon!

Casey_Ryback

Here is my first fabrication; please feel free to advise what to change!

First two section is copy/paste then comes my soul :rotfl:

To whom it may concern - APCOA, Subject : Appeal
Hello,

Re fake PCN number xxxxxxxxxx

I am writing to you as I am the registered keeper of vehicle registration number xxxxxx and was sent a fake parking ticket from yourselves.

First of all the short stay/drop off road layout at Luton Airport is confusing and badly-signposted which I am sure you will already know from previous complaints and appeals. And yet under the BPA Code of Practice you have a duty as an AOS member to clearly signpost an area you wish to enforce. Those signs must be visible an readable when a driver is still in the car, but at Luton Airport you have failed in this regard so seriously that one wonders if it is deliberate. The driver of the vehicle looked carefully but did not see any clear signage about where to drop a passenger until the car was stationary for a few seconds, purely in order for the driver and passenger to look at the nearest sign.

If you wish to enforce a no-stopping zone in one place and provide a drop-off area in another, then this must be readable 24/7 at all daylight and weather condition crystal clearly ( U.S. style ) with multiple signs in order to avoid any possibility of confusion and forcing drivers to stop to read the signs. In fact the driver contends it was not clear at all and the car stopped for seconds just for the purpose of reading the sign. Your signage failure not only breaches your own industry code but is also unfair and a breach of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999.

The driver entered into no contract with APCOA and as the registered keeper I am not liable either. Unfortunately for you, due to your own disregard of the BPA Code of Practice you have failed to establish 'keeper liability' as defined in the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (POFA). You have failed to comply with paragraph 9.4 of Schedule 4 of the Act in that you failed to give the Notice to Keeper to me within the “relevant period”. The alleged infringement occurred on the xxxx 2013 and no ‘Notice to Driver’ was issued at the time. The Notice to Keeper is dated xxxx 2013 which is xxx days after the event and too late to ensure delivery within the statutory 14 days prescribed by PoFA.
Your company would have been well aware of these facts when it took the decision to send out the Notice to Keeper. You have misrepresented the legal position in the full knowledge that no such keeper liability existed.
In addition, Luton Airport land is covered by statutory byelaws and as such I believe it is not 'relevant land' as defined in Schedule 4 at all. Back to the drawing board with this site then, APCOA, because it appears to me that you can't rely on the POFA here. Would you prefer that POPLA confirms it?
You have mentioned in your notice letter that the driver is required to pay a parking charge and it hasn’t been fully paid . After careful study of your images I see no parking spot being used ( 01 Failing to park in a designated parking area ) and you have sent me two pictures where the vehicle in question is unidentifiable as a tree blacks the view out. All I see is head and rear lights in the morning dawn. Is that my vehicle at all? Unsure!
In your letter you are claiming 80£ to be paid and I am just wondering what pricing is that for a 10 second” information gathering” stopping, what is in no way can be considered as parking. You have failed to indicate in the letter the amount of parking charge but you already have given a verdict.
Also I do find your letter contradicting itself. Failing to park in a designated area means to me that the driver of the vehicle did not park then you issue a fake parking charge notice where no parking taken place. If no parking than no charge,hope you are with me on this? Issuing tickets for stopping wrongly is the job of the Police as they have confirmed.

In addition, if you pursue the matter against me as registered keeper when you have no lawful excuse and cannot rely on 'keeper liability' at all in this instance, you will be guilty of harassment which is another specific breach of the EA and of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

If APCOA refuse to cancel this 'ticket' then I invite you to reply to me at the above address stating your reasons and giving me a POPLA code.
In reference to your Notice to Keeper dated xxxxx , you are in breach of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 as your are out of time. So please cancel your invoice or forward a popla verification code to appeal independently within 35 days of this letter.
I will be more than happy to show POPLA the various breaches relating to this ticket and to call into question your lawful status and your attempt to blindly rely upon the POFA when Schedule 4 does not apply on Airport land. I will, of course, require a copy of your contract to be shown to POPLA - among other evidence - and the POPLA decision will be, as ever, at your expense.

I suggest it's cheaper and fairer for APCOA to address these issues and now spend some quality time cancelling this so-called 'parking' ticket, putting right your signage!
Please note; I do not take it kindly being threathened with some debt collectors and legal actions!
In the mean time please kindly inform and attach necessary copies to confirm on what ground did you obtain my personal data from DVLA as your serious failure has caused me to submit a formal complaint to the DVLA.
I do expect not to receive a ‘generic’ template response and which fails to address the specific issues that I have raised with you.
No further correspondence will be entered into.

Yours sincerely

Coupon-mad

Looks good to me. Do not email it though because someone has posted above that APCOA ignored the email (so maybe their ticket does not say you can email an appeal). I would post it and keep a copy along with a free PO cert of posting (not recorded delivery to scammers on a Friday, waste of money as no-one will sign).

Tallone_2

Click on my latest post. Just had a letter from APCOA for exactly the same thing which they have now cancelled.

Casey_Ryback

Hello again

I am about to start the complaint email.
Could you please advise about the wording and actually what am I complaining against? What law did Apcoa break?

Thanks Casey :beer:

Coupon-mad

I would suggest this to the DVLA and the BPA (email addies already given in a link above):



I wish to complain on the following counts about the attached APCOA notice and their signage:

- APCOA have sent a late postal 'fake PCN' to the registered keeper. The alleged infringement occurred on the xxxx 2013 and no ‘Notice to Driver’ was issued at the time. The fake PCN is dated xxxx 2013 which is xxx days after the event and too late to ensure delivery within the statutory 14 days prescribed by PoFA 2012.

- If you reply to tell me that APCOA are not relying upon POFA 2012 then how exactly is a motorist supposed to know the difference and make an informed decision when private parking companies, the BPA Ltd and the DVLA seem to be in collusion over this wholly misleading two-tier system?

- What was the point of POFA 2012 if the BPA Ltd and the DVLA collude to allow PPCs to sidestep it to avoid the parts in Schedule 4 that do not suit them? Can I avoid the parts that do not suit me? I wish to lodge an official complaint about the DVLA supplying my data to APCOA under these spurious circumstances.

- Luton Airport land is covered by statutory bylaws and as such, I understand it is not 'relevant land' as defined in Schedule 4 at all. Why is a PPC allowed to issue misleading Notices which mimic those which relate to POFA, on land which is likely to be outwith POFA? Why is the DVLA issuing data for parking charges on such land when there is no reasonable cause? Bylaws already apply and registered keeper liability doesn't - so why does the BPA Ltd and the DVLA collude to continue to allow PPCs to obtain registered keeper data relating to private ticketing on such sites?

- The signage is in breach of the BPA Code of Practice because it fails to make clear to moving traffic that this is (apparently) supposed to be a 'no-stopping zone'. The amount of DVLA requests for this place (which the BPA Ltd will be aware of too) shows it to be a cash-cow for APCOA which the BPA Ltd and the DVLA continue to support.

- When is the BPA Ltd going to take sanctions against PPCs like APCOA and VCS which it seems to me, routinely 'milk' Airport visitors by issuing fake PCNs where the signage is wholly inadequate to communicate any restriction prominently enough? Lack of clear signage is sanctionable under the terms of the BPA CoP. The signage here is completely unfit for purpose.




That would do for starters unless anyone want s to add anything or suggest two separate emails.

bazster

I'm not sure that APCOA notices have ever mentioned POFA. The key question is whether the OP's notice contains these words, or similar:

FAILURE TO DO SO [provide the driver's details] WILL MEAN THAT LIABILITY FOR THIS CHARGE WILL REVERT TO THE REGISTERED KEEPER.

If there is nothing in the notice threatening the keeper with liability (as opposed to merely inviting the keeper to pay) then we are in the pre-POFA world, and the pre-POFA advice surely applies: ignore, ignore and ignore some more. Yes it's satisfying to whup them at POPLA but I'd have thought this is more than offset by the risk of inadvertently dobbing in the driver.

Far safer I'd have thought not to engage with them at all. Assuming, that is, that the threat of keeper liability really is entirely absent from the notice.

If APCOA has now accepted that POFA 2012 doesn't apply at Luton Airport this only further highlights the misleading nature of the notices they have been issuing for the past year, which I believe may amount to a breach of the Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. Not only should Luton Airport and APCOA find themselves in court over this, but the result ought to be a refund to everyone who has paid up after receiving one of these misleading notices.

Someone who has received one of these notices really needs to take it up (vigorously) with Trading Standards - and with DVLA and the ICO.

nigelbb

bazster wrote: »

If there is nothing in the notice threatening the keeper with liability (as opposed to merely inviting the keeper to pay) then we are in the pre-POFA world, and the pre-POFA advice surely applies: ignore, ignore and ignore some more. Yes it's satisfying to whup them at POPLA but I'd have thought this is more than offset by the risk of inadvertently dobbing in the driver.

I cannot agree. Ignoring this is totally the wrong advice. The difference between pre-POFA days is that now POPLA is available for a secondary appeal & is 100% guaranteed of success if the appeal is done correctly. Ignoring lays the motorist open to a court case any time in the next six years. It's far better to get it over & done with now for the sake of a couple of letters.

Appealing as the keeper does not need to reveal the identity of the driver. PPCs can pick & choose whether they pursue the keeper citing POFA but they must always offer a secondary appeal to POPLA.