Parking Charge Notice appeal not accepted nearly 9 months later

Upsy_Staffordshire

Hi everyone, any help would be most gratefully received.

Received a Parking Charge Notice from Vehicle Control Services Ltd in April 2016. The fine was for not parking correctly within the markings of the bay or space.

The car was parked in between 2 other cars. When the PCN was found, the 2 other cars were no longer there. The car wasn't parked correctly in the space but the bay lines were barely visible, which was why no-one seemed to notice.

We sent an email to Vehicle Control Services Ltd with an appeal letter (and also a signed witness statement signed by 2 passengers who fully corroborated that the bay lines were barely visible).

They didn't send the CCTV footage of the car park we requested and we didn't hear anything back, so we presumed they had dropped it.

However, we have just received a letter saying they are unable to accept the appeal and that we need to pay the parking charge at the discounted rate of £60, otherwise it will be reverted to the full amount (£100), or appeal to the IAS. No further appeals will be accepted at their office, any such appeal must be made to the IAS. Further costs may be incurred should it be necessary to recover any outstanding charge using debt recovery and/or court action.


We were really shocked to receive a letter saying they hadn't accepted the appeal 7 months after the date they told us we should have a response by. Can they do that or is there a timescale they should have adhered to?

I've seen that they should send a Notice to Keeper, but because it was a hire car so this doesn't seem to be applicable, it's making it a little harder to figure out what our rights are.

Any help would be much appreciated.

The_Deep

Of course they have not accepted your appeal, they are not John Lewis.

They are serial litigators, but not very good at it, Read a few of The Parking Prankster's recent blogs.

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/

Ignore unless they issue court papers then come back to us.

fisherjim

An appeal to the IAS will be futile, you are dealing with serial scammers here at every step of the way.

I don't know why you imagine they will have CCTV footage to share with you, and you seem to think these are reasonable people that will treat your appeal seriously and consider your circumstances.

They are actually just greedy Muppets that are only interested in trying to squeeze cash out of you.

This is who you are dealing with:

http://www.bmpa.eu/companydata/Vehicle_Control_Services.html

You are really in ignore mode now but will get silly debt collectors threats next which can be ignored, but any court papers should be taken seriously and defended with help from the experts on here.

Upsy_Staffordshire

Thank you for your replies. I had read up on IAS and decided not to appeal to them.

We were debating whether or not to appeal to POPLA, although I read that you need a code to be able to do this.

My first thought was to ignore it, although I find the prospect of receiving a letter saying it will go to court a little scary to be honest.

Umkomaas

You can't appeal to POPLA - it is not available to IPC operators, their version is the IAS.

You will probably receive debt collector letters next (no big deal, they can only send you letters, nothing else). VCS may sue in the county court, but they issue thousands of parking charges each year, and many, many people ignore them, but they cannot take every one to court.

My advice - sit back and see where this takes you. There's plenty of help here should you get court papers.

Have you complained to the landowner? They have the ability to get this cancelled.

The_Deep

You cannot appeal to PoPLA, the PPC do not subscribe to it.

I think that, if they did take you to court, the judge would be on your side, Have you read PP's blogs about them? .

Upsy_Staffordshire

Thank you so much for your helpful replies.

I've been reading lots about Vehicle Control Services and I've also found a blog post on PP about Albert Street car park in Birmingham where he got the fine, saying that it's Excel Parking Services that manage the car park and that they're getting VCS to send the fines so that appeals can't be taken to POPLA.

It all seems like a big scam!

Redx

they cannot use or issue cctv footage so thats a no-no

there is no popla because they are IPC members , not BPA members , (for adjudications)

there is no "FINE" , its a speculative invoice from a private company

VCS and EXCEL are sister companies owned by the same people and regularly mix the two up, which is their error

you are in IGNORE MODE for 6 years pending an LBC or an MCOL

Upsy_Staffordshire

We received a Letter of Claim from BW Legal for PCN issued in 2016. I presumed it was another letter to be ignored, but have been reading through all of the information on here and am wondering if we needed to send a response?

We've had another letter from them Notice of Pending County Court Claim which said we needed to reply to the previous letter by today.

Do we have to send a reply today? Or do we stay in ignore mode and wait to see if they try to take us to court?

Thanks so much for any help

Redx

if the new LBC complies with the new oct 2017 PaP protocols and is a genuine LBC then you should reply using a letter of rebuttal similar to the daniel san letter shown in the NEWBIES sticky thread, post #2

just adapt it and send it

if in doubt, assume the latest LBC is genuine and rebut it anyway

do not ignore an MCOL from Northampton CCBC , this would be a court claim as threatened in the BW LEGAL correspondence

Upsy_Staffordshire

I don't know if it complies with the new protocols - I've been trying to search how to find that out to know which letter I should send - the Daniel san one or the one by Loadsofchildren - it's just all very confusing.

They sent the Letter of Claim months ago and then another one in November. I didn't know if it was the same as a Letter Before Claim, but apparently that's what they meant.