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

Ibroo

I think this is ready to send off. ?


Dear Sirs,

This is a rectification notice issued pursuant to my data subject right in the GDPR.

The registered keeper of vehicle Registration Number ****** has informed me that you or your payment agents have managed to lose my personal data. I was an occupant of the car on the material date relating to PCNxxxxxxxx and whilst the driver will not be identified, I was the person with a contactless card so I made a payment using your machine, for the above vehicle's stay, yet your ticket machine seems to have lost my highly sensitive contactless card details.

I demand that your DPO rectifies the data processing error and identifies what you have done with my card payment which was confirmed as successful by the machine.


As a paying customer, I had followed strict instructions directed by your ticket machine to purchase a ticket by using an approved method of contactless card payment.

Your machine failed to produce a ticket despite confirming transaction of payment. It is by pure luck that I had the presence of mind to take photographs of my genuine efforts to purchase a ticket. I have time stamped photo evidence of the machine confirming call in progress whilst my personal and highly sensitive payment data was being collected and transaction finished indicating my payment had been taken.

I find it enormously concerning that my contactless details were taken by your machine for the sole purpose of payment yet nothing has been taken from my bank account. You appear to have lost my card details, the very same details your machine collected and verified.

It seems to me that ELITE MANAGEMENT (MIDLANDS) LTD is potentially in breach of all points below:

The Consumer Protection, from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008

6.—(1) A commercial practice is a misleading omission if, in its factual context, taking account of the matters in paragraph (2)—

(a)the commercial practice omits material information,

(b)the commercial practice hides material information,

(c)the commercial practice provides material information in a manner which is unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely, or

(d)the commercial practice fails to identify its commercial intent, unless this is already apparent from the context,

and as a result it causes or is likely to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision he would not have taken otherwise.

The whereabouts of my card data is undoubtedly a serious matter for the ICO to consider, therefore; Failure by ELITE MANAGEMENT (MIDLANDS) LTD to assume responsibility to put right the error will be reported to the ICO without delay.


I demand that you immediately notify your debt recovery associates to end or place on hold their underhanded and relentless endeavour to harass the registered keeper into paying the unjustified and over inflated fine, whilst you investigate into your failure of securely processing my vital contactless card data. I expect to be reassured with evidence that my card details were not 'lost' into a data black hole and were not put at risk by data collection failure.

I require a reply from your Data Protection Officer within 30 days, and I wish to exercise my right to cease/put 'on hold' any planned legal action because you are now legally barred from processing the registered keepers data, and so ZZPS, QDR Solicitors or any other agents acting on your behalf.

Ibroo

Elite have a massage that says: Please contact us if you wish to assert your rights ensuring you provide proof of your identity with any request. Under the data protection law we must verify your identity before carrying out your request or supplying any information and provide you with an explanation if we do not agree with your request. Once your identity has been confirmed we will respond to your request within one calender month.

Coupon-mad

Yes the person obviously has to prove who they are to send a notice under the GDPR.

So that ID could be:

- the photos they took of the machine on the day, showing the metadata (time/date of the photo)

- a scan of the FRONT ONLY of their payment card (never the back) with the card number partly redacted so it's not a complete copy but shows their name/the fact it's a VISA or whatever that ends with certain digits

- something confirming who they are - a redacted passport scan maybe (but not a driving licence which could be misconstrued as an admission of being the driver).

Your draft letter looks good except I cannot understand why you are quoting the Consumer Protection, from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008? Surely the relevant law is the GDPR rules about accurate and secure processing of data?

Ibroo

Noted thanks, I've added that because in the event elite try to deny faulty machine I believe the message of payment zpproval to be misleading. Should I take that out?

Coupon-mad

No, sounds reasonable!

dk786

Hi, had the same happen to my earlier this month, not had the PCN come through the post yet so wondering how you got on with your appeal. In my case I got a bit suspicious when no money had left my account after 2 days so I tried to contact them (CPM) and ended up sending them an email as a general inquiry from their website - been a week with no response so expecting the PCN any day now. Thanks

The_Deep

Driver is very upset and feels they are getting unfairly penalised despite making genuine attempts to purchase a ticket.

A judge is likely to agree with you so do not let your wife shy awaty from going to court. Meanwhile complain to your MP as it is the will of Parliament that these scammers be put out of business.

Hopefully that will take place in the near future. The Bill has passed through the HOC without hitch, and goes to the Lords soon. In the meantime involve your MP, the poor dears are buckling under the weight of complaints about these scammers.

This is an entirely unregulated industry which is scamming the public with inflated claims for minor breaches of alleged contracts for alleged parking offences, aided and abetted by a handful of low-rent solicitors. Is has been suggested by an MP that some of these companies may have connections to organised crime.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, (especially Smart}, and others have already been named and shamed in the House of Commons as have Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each week), hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned. They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P. for unprofessional conduct

The problem has become so widespread that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers.

Sir Greg Knight's Private Members Bill to curb the excesses, and perhaps close down, some of these companies passed its Third Reading in late November, and, with a fair wind, will become Law next year.

All three readings are available to watch on the internet, (some 6-7 hours), and published in Hansard. MPs have an extremely low opinion of the industry. Many are complaining that they are becoming overwhelmed by complaints from members of the public. Add to their burden, complain in the most robust terms about the scammers.

Coupon-mad

dk786 wrote: »

Hi, had the same happen to my earlier this month, not had the PCN come through the post yet so wondering how you got on with your appeal. In my case I got a bit suspicious when no money had left my account after 2 days

so I tried to contact them (CPM) and ended up sending them an email as a general inquiry from their website - been a week with no response so expecting the PCN any day now. Thanks

Please get wise...no PHONING ex-clampers.

You need to read the NEWBIES thread first, top of the forum (see my signature and then when you get a PCN you will know how to appeal, not blabbing about who was driving.

dk786

Have read the newbie thread and recognise my error contacting CPM; too naive of me to expect any rational response from them. The PCN has as feared materialised now so presumably it is not worth pursuing the keeper vs driver angle? copy of email sent below and any advice appreciated. The email was sent a few days after the incident and well before the PCN, not sure that means anything.

I parked in xxx Hospital car park on the 28th of Dec around 1455. The parking ticket machines I went to that day were only accepting contactless cards as means of payment so I paid with my mastercard (ending with xxxx). I got a message on the screen saying the card had been accepted but no receipt was issued. I have since checked my card balance and no payment has gone out for that day and I am concerned that it may have been lost or the machine not working properly and I do not wish to incur a penalty charge because of that.

I also note that I tried and was unable to pay by cash on 2 separate machines that day as they were either not working or not accepting cash so there does seem to have been an issue with the maintenance of the machines that day.

I am therefore contacting you to validate whether the card payment has indeed been accepted and is just taking a little while to get processed or to make alternative arrangements to pay the parking charge if there was a fault with processing the payment.

My car registration number is xxxxyyy and I was parked for approx. 1 hour.

KeithP

dk786, if you are looking for help and support then the best place to start is the NEWBIES FAQ sticky thread.

If, after having read that, you still have unanswered questions then please start your own thread.

Trying to answer questions from more than one person about more than one issue in the same thread can only lead to confusion.

Thank you for your understanding.