***Private parking fine*** Should driver pay QDR solicitors or wait till it goes to court?

Ibroo

I'll try my best to keep this as simple but informative as possible. The driver parked at their local gym car park and made two attempts to pay via the contactless card option using Google pay. The machine did not produce a ticket however showed both times on the display "transaction complete" followed by a clunking noise but no ticket. Driver has assumed machine has taken his money and therefore entitled to stay which is what they did. Fast forward a few days later and a parking fine was issued by zzps demanding payment of a discounted £60. Driver had sent zzps photo evidence confirming transaction complete following contactless payment. zzps responded with a request the driver provide address details in order to process the appeal. Driver did not reply for a few weeks as they failed to notice the email. At this point the driver rang zzps to chase up but zzps responded by telling driver the deadline to appeal has passed and you now have to wait for qdr solicitors to get in touch where driver can discuss their appeal. Driver was not made aware of the ombudsman at any point nor did zzps, on their reply to the drivers initial appeal, advise that driver must provide address info within a specified window.
Qdr have now sent a letter requesting £182 or they will advise their client to proceed with getting a ccj through the courts.
Driver is very upset and feels they are getting unfairly penalised despite making genuine attempts to purchase a ticket. Driver has checked their bank statements and has found no money was taken out on the day of parking but they had no way of ensuring via their own means payment went ahead, they relied upon the machine to function properly.
What should the driver do? Pay up? Or should they fight this all the way to court? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

System

Driver had sent zzps photo evidence confirming transaction complete following contactless payment.

Driver has checked their bank statements and has found no money was taken out on the day of parking

So the fault was with the payment system.

Which parking company?

Ignore QDR as it is ZZPS using QDR paperwork.

twhitehousescat

I have an idea , hang on

Ibroo

ELITE MANAGEMENT (MIDLANDS) LTD GS Car Park

beamerguy

Ibroo wrote: »

Qdr have now sent a letter requesting £182 or they will advise their client to proceed with getting a ccj through the courts.
Driver is very upset and feels they are getting unfairly penalised despite making genuine attempts to purchase a ticket. Driver has checked their bank statements and has found no money was taken out on the day of parking but they had no way of ensuring via their own means payment went ahead, they relied upon the machine to function properly.
What should the driver do? Pay up? Or should they fight this all the way to court? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

QDR are talking their usual rubbish about a CCJ

Only a court can do this not some upstart who is part
of the shamed Wright Hassall solicitors

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5849106/the-ccj-myth-and-threats-and-lies-told-by-debt-collectors-and-ppcs-exposed&highlight=ccj+the+myth

Ibroo

I take the best thing to do for now is sit tight and wait for further action. Just need to know if I should be sending a letter or appeal to anywhere.

Quentin

You are now in the debt collectors stage. See #4 in the newbies FAQ thread for advice on this stage

Whilst awaiting any lbcca keep on at the gym to get this cancelled

Ibroo

Thanks Quentin i will read up #4 on the thread. the gym no longer use the services of that car park due to a number of issues between members and the car park owners. Should I approach elite management (Midlands) instead?

Quentin

No.

They are the PPC!

Pointless complaining to them

Ibroo

So I've read what I think is #4 on the newbies page. Is the driver to send a template to qdr asking for photo evidence signage etc at this stage or have I missed something before this?
Driver wants to let qdr know they have photo evidence to confirm genuine efforts to make payment. This might stop them from pursuing it maybe? I'm confused a bit not the brightest so I might need help from the guys on this forum to spell out what I should do at this stage even if it's to sit tight till the next letter.

Coupon-mad

I've read what I think is #4 on the newbies page. Is the driver to send a template to qdr asking for photo evidence signage etc at this stage or have I missed something before this?

The fourth post in the NEWBIES thread's main message is to ignore debt collector stage, and that includes pseudo 'QDR solicitors' letters that actually emanate from ZZPS debt collectors. So, not responding to QDR, it's pointless.

But you could write to ELITE MANAGEMENT (MIDLANDS) LTD with a rectification notice, pointing out that they have processed data inaccurately (in fact they appear to have 'lost' the contactless card data they collected and verified, which is of enormous concern).

The payment handling data system clearly failed, in view of what you said here:

The driver parked at their local gym car park and made two attempts to pay via the contactless card option using Google pay. The machine did not produce a ticket however showed both times on the display "transaction complete" followed by a clunking noise but no ticket. Driver has assumed machine has taken his money and therefore entitled to stay which is what they did.

Fast forward a few days later and a parking fine was issued by zzps demanding payment of a discounted £60. Driver had sent zzps photo evidence confirming transaction complete following contactless payment.

Since ELITE's machine displayed an unequivocal message that told the driver the transaction was complete, and the driver took a photo of that due to the clunking noise the machine made, the driver was entitled to understand that message to mean that...the contactless card transaction was complete!

If that was not true then the machine should not have displayed that message. Luckily, the driver has passed the registered keeper, the proof. As such, the issue of a PCN must have been generated due to a failure in the contactless payment data processing on ELITE's part, and this is not the fault of a consumer.

You just need to write the above in your own words (without saying who was driving, unless that's already been blabbed earlier?) in a RECTIFICATION NOTICE letter addressed to the parking firm's DPO, demanding that they cease/restrict all processing of your data whilst they investigate the failure of the secure processing of your vital contactless card data, and reassure you that the driver's card details were not 'lost' into a data black hole and were not put at risk by the data failure.

Here is an example of the sort of Rectification Notice that I suggest people should send to parking firms (you will need to change this quite a bit but you can copy the ranting style and the start/end paragraphs, putting your own version like the above, in the middle:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=74774091&postcount=4

Then, if the DPO fails to restrict data use while they investigate, or if they reject the rectification notice saying that the data was processed accurately(!) then send your proof to the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) online:

This second stage to this fightback tactic, will be set out online in a formal complaint about the PPC's failure to explain and rectify inaccurate data - they had the contactless card details so what have they done with it and you are concerned their machine is insecure and their data handling processes are insufficient to be handling personal data from debit cards, and they issued no receipt.

So it is pure luck the driver had the presence of mind to prove what the machine had done, and the photo shows the card data had been accepted, so where did it go, how was it stored, how was it 'lost', none of which has been answered by the parking firm and you have no confidence in their data processes regarding payments by card, nor in their understanding of the GDPR Articles 16, 18 and 19.

Add to the ICO when complaining at the second stage, that you are concerned about a possible scam, as the parking operator seems to be harvesting people's contactless card data from this faulty machine, and losing it (who knows what they did with it?) and you are not satisfied with the DPO's reply from the company.

Show us your draft Rectification Notice, written like the example but with details making sense for your case, and NOT saying who was driving (unlike in the linked case where the person had already blabbed about that).


P.S. I've given you the words to use...so please no reply like some people do after being told what to say, telling us they don't know how to write it...