Apcoa parking fine

dannyjebb

Hi

(Apologies I posted this in the main motoring forum, didn't realise there was a forum just for this)

Today I received PCN from Apcoa for parking on the 30th November. Luckily I keep all my parking tickets for 2 months just for this very reason!

The PCN shows my car coming in and out of the car park....Surely if they are saying you did not display a valid ticket they have to show a photo of your car NOT displaying a ticket?

I imagine lots of people don't keep their tickets once they have left the car park! I park alot for work so keep the tickets mainly for this reasons but decided to keep ALL tickets just incase this ever happens! I would be interested to know if I didn't keep this ticket and get this PCN with no proof of me parking without a ticket, could they still enforce it?

Regards

Half_way

Lets get this straight, you parked, and paid for a ticket, and left the space within the time paid for?


Did the ticket machine ask for a vehicle registration plate number?


This is how it most likely works:
Enter car park, ANPR camera attempts to read your number plate
Buy a ticket, and input your vehicles registration number
When you leve the car park, the number you entered when you bought the ticket is cross checked against the ANPR camera, if it matches then all is OK, if it doesn't match the system generates a parking charge notice.


How things can go wrong:
The font used in number plates makes no distinction between the letter O and the number 0, likewise between the letter l and the number 1

The ANPR camera system can misread your number plate
the keyboard on the Pay machine may not be that clear/prone to typos, it may want you number plate entering with a space, or all as one

dannyjebb

Ah I wasn't aware they cross referenced the ANPR against the machine....

SO we arrived at 12:15 paid for 6 hours of parking. Expiry time 6:15pm. Going into the car park there is a photo of my car and then a smaller photo underneath showing my numberplate but this is umpossible to see. you can just about make out the last 3 letters. There is then a photo of my car leaving at 3:15pm this photo has a smaller photo underneath clearly showing my full number plate.

So it sounds like the first ANPR camera has not picked up my reg number correctly? I have checked the ticket and I have input the correct reg number.

Again though, if I had not kept hold of the ticket...but I had bought one and this happened, would you still be able to appeal and get it cancelled? The reg number on the car coming into the car park is clearly visible but on the image they have provided to show the reg number it is not legible.

thanks

Fruitcake

Start by editing your post to remove information about who parks. Only ever refer to The Driver and The Keeper, who are two different people.

What was the alleged offence?
Was there a windscreen ticket on the day of the alleged event?
What type of car park was this (railway ration, retail park, hospital etcetera?)

Have you read the sticky thread for NEWBIES yet and found the one size fits all appeal template there?

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. 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. 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.