Letter from ZZPS without PCN issued

J1994

Hi Guys,

So unfortunately I probably didn't get here quick enough before my initial action. I received a letter from ZZPS seeking to "resolve" a PCN that hadn't been issued (though I had been expecting it because of the issues on the day). The letter was addressed to the registered keeper but passed to me as the driver and looking for £170.

In haste I sent the following email to ZZPS:

"Dear Sirs,

Yesterday I was passed a letter by my father dated the 21/11/2018, reference ********. I was the driver of the vehicle on that day, and not my father, hence my contact with you.

This is the first letter we have received in reference to this matter. We did not receive any communication from Premier Park Ltd prior to your letter with a parking charge notice and so could not have possibly responded to that. I believe your letter is without grounds as it is predicated on the fact that we have received a PCN and that this has not been resolved. Evidence of this is that you state "Your unpaid PCN has been..." and "...we are here to help you resolve this PCN.", however neither I nor the registered keeper have received a Parking Charge Notice, and so it would be impossible for us to be able to make payment or appeal said PCN without being in receipt of it.

On the day in question, numerous attempts were made to pay the charge for the minimum parking charge possible. I have a record of eight messages attempting to pay as well as several phone calls to the numbers provided on the parking signs at the site. At no point was I able to successfully make payment or to talk to somebody from the company collecting payment, however, each of these messages cost me £0.13 more than a standard sms. Following all of these attempts I determined that I had made more than a fair and reasonable attempt to pay the charge and this would be grounds for my appeal should I receive any parking charge notice, though this never arrived.

According to my records, on the 30/08/2018 I arrived at the The Kings Head car park, LE13 1NW, at 09.39 and left at 09.56. My final attempts to make payment were at 09.45. I spent 6 minutes trying to pay for my parking which lasted a total of 17 minutes. Obviously this would have been only 11 minutes had payment been straightforward through RingGo, Premier park Ltd payment collection company.

As a gesture of goodwill, I am happy to offer to pay £17 to cover my parking. This equates to £1 per minute parked in the car park, which is significantly above the usual rate of charge for the facility. I believe this to be more than fair, especially given the circumstances, that more than a third of my time spent in the car park was attempting to pay; no parking charge notice was received from Premier Park Ltd so no opportunity to appeal was granted before being passed on to yourselves; and the time spent in the car park was extremely limited and did not in any way hinder the companies business given that the majority of spaces were empty.

If you and your client are unwilling to accept this offer then I am happy to proceed to a court hearing. I also wish to make you aware I will be writing to the British Parking Association to make a formal complaint against your client for not issuing a parking charge notice to either myself or the registered keeper of the vehicle before inviting yourselves to act on their behalf, with an extortionate figure attached.

I look forward to your response.

Regards

I made the assumption that this would be sufficient to throw out the matter. Apparently not as I received this today from ZZPS:

Good morning,

Thank you for your email.

Please be advised, as our involvement in the matter is on a strict debt recovery basis, we are unable to assist in any appeals or disputes.

Our client maintains that this Parking Charge Notice has been issued correctly and referred to us to pursue payment.

If you are unable to make payment for parking then it is the responsibility of the motorist to seek alternative parking, 10 minutes grace is given for motorists to make payment or leave the site.

Your correspondence has been noted, however, in the absence of payment, this matter will continue to progress accordingly.

Kind regards,
Leo Feather


Apparently Leo doesn't see the irony in stating they are strictly working as debt recovery and then subsequently providing a statement of defence for Premier Park Ltd about their terms and conditions in terms of Grace periods.

Not certain whether I should just ignore all further correspondence or continue to engage with ZZPS. I have contacted BPA through their website but as yet have got no further. What is the best course of action following my own stupidity to act before checking its wisdom?

Thanks

beamerguy

J1994 wrote: »

Apparently Leo doesn't see the irony in stating they are strictly working as debt recovery and then subsequently providing a statement of defence for Premier Park Ltd about their terms and conditions in terms of Grace periods.

Not certain whether I should just ignore all further correspondence or continue to engage with ZZPS. I have contacted BPA through their website but as yet have got no further. What is the best course of action following my own stupidity to act before checking its wisdom?

Thanks

Who is the parking company

Leo is working for a timewasting company with no power

IGNORE ZZPS and READ THIS
Debt Collectors (DRP & ZZPS & Zenith)
What they don't want you to know
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/74439905#Comment_74439905

You don't owe £170, ZZPS has added a fake charge of probably £70 .... DO NOT CONTACT ZZPS EVER AGAIN

The_Deep

It is the will of Parliament that these scammers be put out of business. Hopefully that will take place in the near future. In the meantime involve your MP, the poor dears are buckling under the weight of complaints about these scammers. Read this one which I wrote earlier

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.

J1994

beamerguy wrote: »

Who is the parking company

Leo is working for a timewasting company with no power

You don't owe £170, ZZPS has added a fake charge of probably £70 .... DO NOT CONTACT ZZPS EVER AGAIN

Parking company is Premier Park Ltd.

Have had no correspondence from them directly, however they are stated as the client of ZZPS on the letter received

beamerguy

J1994 wrote: »

Parking company is Premier Park Ltd.

Have had no correspondence from them directly, however they are stated as the client of ZZPS on the letter received

Premier Park simply instructed ZZPS to harass you
ZZPS are nothing to worry about, all they can do is pass this back to Premier Park. This is how all scammers work

You need to SAR Premier park as the keeper for all info they hold on you. They have 30 days to respond. Failure by them will result in a complaint to the ICO

J1994

beamerguy wrote: »

Premier Park simply instructed ZZPS to harass you
ZZPS are nothing to worry about, all they can do is pass this back to Premier Park. This is how all scammers work

You need to SAR Premier park as the keeper for all info they hold on you. They have 30 days to respond. Failure by them will result in a complaint to the ICO

Really appreciate your help. Yeah I assumed that, my guess is ZZPS are almost soliciting for this work so they can earn easy commission.

Will look into submitting an SAR however given the ICO's public stance of only fining as a final step for anybody in breach of GDPR and taking a preference to work with them to aid them into compliance wonder about the effectiveness of any complaint to ICO? Will it help my case?

Have been reading through the BPA's code of practice and can find six or seven points that the company are in breach of is there any value in pursuing this with them and the BPA?

beamerguy

J1994 wrote: »

Really appreciate your help. Yeah I assumed that, my guess is ZZPS are almost soliciting for this work so they can earn easy commission.

Will look into submitting an SAR however given the ICO's public stance of only fining as a final step for anybody in breach of GDPR and taking a preference to work with them to aid them into compliance wonder about the effectiveness of any complaint to ICO? Will it help my case?

Have been reading through the BPA's code of practice and can find six or seven points that the company are in breach of is there any value in pursuing this with them and the BPA?

The SAR should be done quickly

You will not know of any breach until you get full info from Premier
Take no notice of anything said in a ZZPS letter, they are out of the picture for you now

J1994

Submitted a SAR to Premier park and received the following response:

"Dear ******,

RE: Subject Access Request: ***** // PCN No:*******

We write in response to your recent Subject Access Request (SAR).

Please be advised that, in order to protect individual’s anonymity and personal data, our systems are designed to be primarily searchable by Parking Charge Notice reference number or Vehicle Registration Mark, rather than by name or address.

As such, it may not be possible to search for all data we hold on you without the following information:

• Parking Charge Notice reference number
• Vehicle Registration Mark

To maintain confidentiality and ensure that we do not disclose any personal data, except to the individual to whom it is applicable, the law allows us to take reasonable steps to establish and confirm your identity before we can provide any information. Please provide us with proof of your identity, in the form of a scanned copy of one of the following:

• Driving License
• Passport
• Council Tax or Utility Bill (not more than 3 months old) showing your name and address

If your SAR relates to either a Parking Charge Notice or Vehicle Registration Mark we also require proof that you are entitled to details for the data in connection with the vehicle in question. This must be provided in the form of a scanned copy of one of the following:

• The ownership details from the V5 Logbook
• Written authorisation from the Registered Keeper named on the V5 Logbook where this is not
listed as yourself

Please be advised that we will complete your SAR within 30 days of the above information being provided. Should you be dissatisfied for any reason you are reminded that you have the right to raise a complaint with the ICO, details for which can be found in our Privacy Policy.



Yours Sincerely

DPO Team Assistant"

They were provided with the vehicle registration and the PCN number (from the letter received from ZZPS) and the ZZPS reference, in the original SAR. So I assume this may be an automated response.

Should I provide them with all the data they have requested? It seems somewhat excessive, I can understand verifying identity, but then also getting a copy of the V5 when they have already the details of the registered keeper from DVLA seems unnecessary and potentially dangerous given that you can now transfer vehicles online using the reference from the V5

Fruitcake

Supply only the name and address of the keeper, VRN, PCN number, and copy of the V5.

The ICO have said that asking for photo ID is unreasonable as they have nothing to compare it with.
The ICO have also said that the clock does not stop and they must reply within 30 days of the original request as long as you send the repeat request with the proof of ID as above within a reasonable period of time. (My words in italics.)

If they refuse after that, complain to the ICO. They can give advice over the 'phone if you need to confirm what I have said, but you need to put all complaints to them in writing.
In fact, you should complain anyway that the scammers are asking for photo ID and are stating they are extending the time for them to reply.

The ICO say the PPC's cannot extend the deadline if all they are asking is further proof of ID.

Can we extend the time for a response?
You can extend the time to respond by a further two months if the request is complex or you have received a number of requests from the individual. You must let the individual know within one month of receiving their request and explain why the extension is necessary.

However, it is the ICO's view that it is unlikely to be reasonable to extend the time limit if:

it is manifestly unfounded or excessive;
an exemption applies; or
you are requesting proof of identity before considering the request."

beamerguy

As Fruitcake says above. You do not provide any more personal informatiom. The parking industry cannot be trusted

J1994

Fruitcake wrote: »

Supply only the name and address of the keeper, VRN, PCN number, and copy of the V5."[/B][/COLOR]

Is it best to provide some form of redacted copy of the V5 so it just contains vehicle reg and name and address of keeper?