Liverpool Airport - Parking Charge Notice

Coupon-mad

Glad you haven't given up as once the winning POPLA appeal is submitted it's all downhill to your win! Online POPLA appeal is best due to postal delays in December, but you may have to change browser for it to work (Firefox maybe).

And so pleased that you are taking time to complain as well, it does have an effect overall - make sure you clearly say the complaint is about VCS (not CVS, never heard of them, an anagram of VCS!).

Half_way

not CVS, never heard of them, an anagram of VCS

not CVS, never heard of them, an anagram of VCS[/quote]

Or Community Service Volunteers (CVS) an entirely different organisation to VCS

Redx

given the importance of the issues here I feel its important that any and all spelling issues are rectified before the documents go out , so it may be pedantic but V.C.S. is the acronym to be used and not any similar letters or spellings like CVS, even if the person making the document is dyslexic, please use the correct spellings so that it does not detract from the content of any appeal or document

both were used in post #21 and I am sure it was a slip of the "pen" but its always important to get the names right and spelling correct

I am sure that the respondents HAVE heard of organisations using CSV or CVS but in this case its irrelevant as the only acronym that actually matters is VCS and nothing else

that is the point coupon-mad was making in post #22

EddieMetal

This forum is full of so many acronyms that my brain is fried

Coupon-mad

They are explained in the Newbies thread...:)

EddieMetal

I'm just about ready to submit my appeal. Do I post it on here for comments or will somebody look at it in a private message? I'm only concerned about VCS trolls seeing it and gaining an advantage in the appeals process. Also would anyone like to look at my letter of complaint before I submit it? I'm perfectly willing to post both appeal and complaint here if advised.

Stroma

They get to see it in any case, so post it up so we can review it and suggest alterations if needed

Coupon-mad

EddieMetal wrote: »

I'm just about ready to submit my appeal. Do I post it on here for comments or will somebody look at it in a private message? I'm only concerned about VCS trolls seeing it and gaining an advantage in the appeals process. Also would anyone like to look at my letter of complaint before I submit it? I'm perfectly willing to post both appeal and complaint here if advised.

Should be fine anyway, if the POPLA appeal is based on the one linked in the Newbies thread under 'How to win at POPLA' (I'm sure there's a recent 'VCS at an Airport' version). VCS can't gain an advantage on a pretty-much-template POPLA appeal they always lose against!

Do show it and the complaint letter too.

EddieMetal

OK. Here's my letter of complaint first. This expands on the circumstances that would be presented to POLA hence my anxiety about publishing it here. Please let me know if I should take it down.


With regards my appeal to POPLA, I'm tweaking it again today. The circumstances of my incident are different from the ones in the VCS Airport so mine has slightly different content. I've also added some ideas of my own but am fully willing to edit them out if advised to do so. I just want to have a go.




Dear Sir/Madam,
FORMAL COMPLAINT
Please don’t ignore this complaint in any way and if you feel unable to respond to it please pass it on to the relevant person or body at the airport. I have found it impossible to identify who to complain to so I am using the generic customer care route in the hope that my complaint will reach somebody with the power to do something about it. My complaint involves my being served with a Parking Charge Notice by the company who police your access roads, Vehicle Control Services Ltd. I am the registered keeper of the vehicle concerned. I have attached copies of the initial notice I received and their response to my appeal to them.

I want the parking charge notice issued to me to be cancelled and the relevant person at Liverpool Airport to either support my complaint or to deny it and, if denied, to give clear reasons why they are doing this. I hope for this response because you value my custom. I use airlines at least four times a year and have been using Liverpool John Lennon Airport for many years. I have chosen it above the competition on a numerous occasions in the past simply because I consider it my local airport and I like to support local businesses. My wife and children all use Liverpool Airport for similar reasons and I have many friends in Europe who use Liverpool Airport to visit me.



I can understand Liverpool Airport wanting to manage its access roads and car parks. The early days before the creation of the Pick Up / Drop Off area were chaotic, but the way the roads and car parks are now managed is so obviously an attempt to entrap motorists into lining the pockets of a company who do little more than harass and bully the airport’s customers into parting with their hard-earned money. I assume Vehicle Control Services pay Liverpool Airport a fee for this privilege, which, if so, makes the whole affair a scandal. Motorists are Liverpool Airport’s customers too. Is the airport management so blind that they cannot see this simple truth? To treat its customers in such a way will so obviously only lead to alienating them and to losing their business.

The whole way Liverpool Airport’s roads are managed and the way Vehicle Control Services Ltd behaves attempts to make Liverpool Airport’s customers feel like criminals when, in fact, the opposite is the case. This is a company of cowboy operators who harass and bully Liverpool Airport’s customers into paying punitive charges for doing nothing illegal. Why a respected operation like Liverpool Airport would align itself with such repugnant behaviour is beyond me. It’s like shooting itself in the foot from the point of view of customer care. Since I became involved in this issue I have become aware of the Daily Mail article as a result of Labour MP Nick Smith complaints about VCS’s behaviour. Please find the attached copy for your information. Why has nothing been done?



On 8th October this year my Italian friend flew from Pisa to Liverpool with Ryanair. The flight number was FR9627. It left Pisa at 21.50 and arrived at Liverpool around half an hour late. The initial information the driver of my car received was that the flight was on time. When the driver arrived at Liverpool Airport my Italian friend was not there so the driver waited on Speke Hall Avenue for news. Can I make it absolutely clear that the driver had no idea this is now against any regulations or rules applied to the access roads. Ironically, in view of what I have learnt since, Vehicle Control Services Ltd didn’t spot the driver although something like 30 minutes passed by.



The whole system at Liverpool John Lennon Airport feels like it is planned to entrap the motorist, particularly those waiting for planes that are late. You are only allowed to wait in the pick-up point for five minutes and the signs referring to no circulation being allowed are suitably vague so as to cause confusion. In addition, arriving passengers can't warn you of what's going on because their mobile phones are, of course, turned off. This is a completely unsatisfactory situation. Surely Liverpool Airport can think of a more civilised way of managing it than employing unpleasant tactics of bullying, harassing and extorting cash from motorists?



My Italian friend then texted the driver to say he was leaving the airport terminal. Apparently a number of flights arrived around the same time and a further delay had been caused by queues at baggage reclaim and passport control. The driver then met my Italian friend just beyond the roundabout at the top of Speke Hall Avenue. My Italian friend put his luggage in the car and they drove off. The whole operation took seconds. At no time was any obstruction caused to anybody and nobody was aware that any regulation, for want of a better word, had been broken until I received a Parking Charge Notice.



To be issued with a ‘Parking Charge Notice’ when the driver did not park anywhere at any time is somewhat ridiculous as is Vehicle Control Services Ltd’s demand for a payment of £60. How they arrive at such an amount for stopping on a road for a few seconds and causing nobody any difficulty at all is beyond me. They even threaten a charge of £100 if the £60 isn’t paid within 14 days. Just for a moment consider how this appeared to my Italian friend. We were all appalled but he was especially baffled at how airline and airport incompetence could lead to a potential charge of £100.



I have a number of comments about Vehicle Control Services Ltd’s response to my appeal. Firstly, there are not 'numerous warning signs in place along the private access roads' as they state. There are only two on Speke Hall Avenue. I have taken a video of the drive up the entire length of Speke Hall Avenue that shows this clearly. The two signs are also adjacent to each other so there is only one chance to take them in. They are impossible to read from a car driving at 30 or 40 miles per hour. They are also not in the style of a standard road sign so there is nothing to draw your attention to them. They could be an advert to one of the local hotels, for example. There are numerous other signs along the road and it is impossible to take them all in. The incident also took place at night which makes the signs doubly impossible to read. They are not lit up in any way. Even the red road markings referred to are neither standard nor easy to read at night. Whoever thought Liverpool Airport could have a completely different system of road signs and markings from the rest of the world was simply wrong and also a little eccentric.



The comment 'the driver stopped on the junction where they could have caused an obstruction' is disingenuous and misleading. The driver pulled off the roundabout onto an exit for the long stay car park and the car was not on the road. He did this so that no obstruction was caused to anyone wishing to pass by. He left his car running with its lights on so that he would have been able to move it in a second should anybody have needed to exit the car park. In addition, this exit has two barriers and the car was in front of only one of them. By this time it was past midnight and no car either entered or left the long stay car park. This is all perfectly obvious from the photographs on Vehicle Control Services Ltd’s Parking Charge Notice.



I will not be returning to Liverpool Airport again unless my Parking Charge Notice is cancelled. I am in the process of organising a trip to Berlin for early next year and I will not be using Liverpool Airport. My next trips after that will be to Belgium, Germany twice in Spring and early summer, and to the former Yugoslavia later in the year. I am not planning to even consider using Liverpool Airport for any of these trips. I might be just one customer from whom you make a little money but I don’t believe I am alone in thinking and feeling the way I do. You will have a steady stream of customers leaving you. This is obvious from the controversy caused by the behaviour of companies like Vehicle Control Services Ltd all over the country. I am not making an empty threat. I will not tolerate being treated in this way. Liverpool Airport needs to change the culture of the way it treats the customers who use its access roads and car parks and it needs to act quickly and assertively.

Yours faithfully,

Coupon-mad

Head it up 'FORMAL COMPLAINT' but go through it and make it shorter and change all the emotive stuff as it's not needed to talk about 'criminal records'! Make sure there is no information about who was driving. Start by saying you are the registered keeper and attach a copy of the letters you have received, to show them the level of intimidation suffered by registered keepers just because a driver has stopped somewhere which is NOT correctly and clearly signed as a 'clearway' at all.

...and copy in the MP mentioned in this newspaper article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2436708/MP-attacks-predatory-airport-parking-patrols-fine-drivers-100-dropping-passengers-stop-just-seconds.html

You could also attach a copy of the article and ask in your complaint why nothing is being done.

And you could copy in the newspaper journalist to your complaint.