Should I pay up?

Hellohello

Re: a ticket issued by CP Plus at a non-London Southwest Trains car park. An appeal was made to CP Plus (as per the only option on the ticket) by email but was worded not to identify the driver. The grounds were that credit card payment was not accepted by the machines on that particular day. This may have been stated on the display of one but definitely not all machines. Payment by phone was also an option but unfortunately wasn’t a possibility with a battery out of charge. The appeal was unsuccessful and pointed out that payment through the ticket office was also an option and in any case payment is the driver’s responsibility. However, in haste, trying to get to work on time, having wasted much time trying each ticket machine twice, this was missed. The instruction was to pursue the matter with Southwest trains or pay up. The ticket includes the paragraph:

‘All vehicles are parked subject to the Railway Byelaws and any breach may result in prosecution. Section 219 of the Transport Act 2000-Railway byelaws, section 14 under which CP Plus has the lawful authority to issue this Penaly for £80 for the following reason: …’.

The original parking charge was £3 and the discounted fine is £50 rising to £80 + £40 after 14 days. Any advice welcome for a non-repeat offender. A court case/poor credit rating would be most inconvenient so is it best to pay up?

Dee140157

We never advise to "pay up" or at least not at this stage.

It's a shame you appealed before you received the notice to keeper as you have now not received an NTK. However good that you haven't identified yourself a driver.

Now off to POPLA . Read the newbie thread focussing on post 3 of newbie thread.

Time scales are useful here for us as we want if possible for you to send the POPLA appeal 57 days after original event. There is a reason for this but will explain once we know dates.

So when did you get PCN, when did you appeal and when did you get rejection?

We have a 100% success rate at POPLA appealsw so you won't be paying anything.

Redx

I very much doubt that it uses the F WORD on the speculative invoice

Coupon-mad

Hellohello wrote: »

Re: a ticket issued by CP Plus at a non-London Southwest Trains car park. An appeal was made to CP Plus (as per the only option on the ticket) by email but was worded not to identify the driver. The grounds were that credit card payment was not accepted by the machines on that particular day.

This may have been stated on the display of one but definitely not all machines. Payment by phone was also an option but unfortunately wasn’t a possibility with a battery out of charge. The appeal was unsuccessful and pointed out that payment through the ticket office was also an option and in any case payment is the driver’s responsibility. However, in haste, trying to get to work on time, having wasted much time trying each ticket machine twice, this was missed. The instruction was to pursue the matter with Southwest trains or pay up. The ticket includes the paragraph:

‘All vehicles are parked subject to the Railway Byelaws and any breach may result in prosecution. Section 219 of the Transport Act 2000-Railway byelaws, section 14 under which CP Plus has the lawful authority to issue this Penaly for £80 for the following reason: …’.

The original parking charge was £3 and the discounted fine is £50 rising to £80 + £40 after 14 days. Any advice welcome for a non-repeat offender. A court case/poor credit rating would be most inconvenient so is it best to pay up?

NONONONONO!!!

Everyone wins at POPLA here. You will too, especially as you were careful not to say who was driving, good. Forget that feeling that you've done something wrong - and there will be NO effect on credit rating.

Go & adapt the CP Plus example of a POPLA appeal from the newbies thread, adding in stuff about 'no keeper liability' in a train station car park due to byelaws (nicked from any 'train station or Airport' example).

Show us your draft.

Hellohello

Thanks guys - I'll do some homework and get back to you.