Help Needed, Zipcar PCN!!! £145 fine

stevenl123

Hi there,

In advance of anyone replying to this, thanks for any input anyone has on this. Here is my situation.

On Saturday Zipcar emailed me to inform me I had a PCN from my local council in relation to when I hired a car for 30 mins in early December. The PCN was in fact issued the next day, almost 16 hours after my reservation ended (unsure if this helps).

The PCN is for £130 + £15 admin fee for Zipcar. I picked up and dropped the car off in the same space. It turns out the bay was out of order for the day I hired and the following day (when ticket was issued). I used the app to book, unlock and end the reservation and at no point did it tell this to me. However, I have since learnt that my booking confirmation did have this information right at the bottom of the email, which I did not read due to booking it 15 mins prior to starting the trip. Photos do show the sign saying this but to be honest I did not notice this at all at the time, it was not clear really.

The PCN was issued on 8th December and I only found out now and thus missed the window for 50% discount. This was only due to ZIpcar not telling me which they are claiming is because they only round out as they received a Notice to Owner from the council.

I feel that this is highly unfair mainly as it was not made clear at the time of booking via the app (bottom of an email isn't clear in my view) and secondly due to the long delay resulting in the fine doubling.

I have sent one email asking about the 14 days bit and their response was this:

"In regards to the PCN being at the full rate, when a PCN is first issued and placed on the vehicle there is usually a 14 day window within which a reduced rate of 50% is payable.

If a ticket is found on the vehicle by a member, and we are made aware, we do all we can to alert the member responsible and give them the opportunity to either appeal or pay at the reduced rate.

Unfortunately as we were unaware of this PCN until the Notice To Owner was sent to us, by which time the window for the reduced rate had closed, we were not able to inform you until the full rate of £130 was due.

I understand that this is a frustrating situation, but we need you to remember that PCNs are not issued by Zipcar, but by the local authority. We try to accommodate our members as best we can, but we, as a company need to recover the costs of these fines from the members responsible."

Long story short, is there anything I can do to avoid paying this PCN? I feel it is unfair and normally would pay these sorts of things if I felt I had intentionally been at fault.

Thanks again.

Coupon-mad

Post on pepipoo as this is something you have no control over; it's Zipcar's NTO, not yours:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=30

The experts are there on that forum. Show them a copy of all letters & the PCN, if Zipcar attached it.

DO NOT POST WITHOUT PICS and don't use a Hotmail email or you can't post.

stevenl123

Thanks I will try on there.