11 Indigo PCNs

Whatapain

Hello everyone, great forum indeed.

The short: I have parked a courtesy car at a local station and paid using connect cashless parlking back in November. At the end of November the garage sent me 5 scanned PCNs from Indigo that the leasing company (their courtesy cars provider) had sent them. I appealed through Indigo website link and designated myself as the driver (only read Newbie FAQ afterwards). PCN uphold, reason : «!parking receipts show car’s make and not registration!». Not sure why. My personal account on Connect cashless website shows all details including registration, but it is possible that car’s make and registration may have been inverted as only make shows when I try to retrieve receipts. Connect cashless belongs to Indigo and surely content of my personal account should be linked to app even if make/registration were inverted somehow. Today same happened again with another email from leasing company to garage, with another 6 PCNs, I can’t even appeal to as their arbitrary date has gone past (dated december 7th all 6 of them and only got them today). ZZZ already sent 11 threatening letters even before the end of time windows “offered” after appeal rejected for initial ones I was able to appeal. Rather lost at this stage, not sure what to do next, suspect they will bother going all the way to SCC with 11 PCNs, all of them linked to the same issue on the payment app, which one can not do anytihing about as unaware until one gets a bunch of PCNs at the same time. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Many thanks!

Fruitcake

If these were PCNs from a railway station car park covered by railway byelaws, they will time out after 6 months when they become statute barred.

Appeal the new ones anyway. If the online system doesn't let you, then do it by post, first class from a PO counter and get a free proof of posting.

Separate appeals for each PCN, but they can all go in the same envelope.

Whatever the replies, you need to play snail mail ping pong by asking lots of inane questions to run the clock down.

The most important thing is to ensure the lease company and garage don't pay them on your behalf. You need to contact both to tell them in each case that you are dealing with them and they are not liable.

This advice only applies if byelaws apply. If this is the case then the PPC can't take you to magistrate's court, and can't pass your details to the landowner/train operator.

Debt collectors of course can be ignored.

Have you read the NEWBIES thread yet?

Coupon-mad

Connect cashless belongs to Indigo and surely content of my personal account should be linked to app

I agree.

Send a SAR to Connect Cashless. I looked for their Privacy page and found:

https://www.connectcashlessparking.com/privacyStatement

Which doesn't even tell you about your rights to obtain a Subject Access Request or give a contact email, as far as I can see. But they have a Contact Us page:

https://www.connectcashlessparking.com/contact

Head your query Subject Access Request, and list the 11 days where you want to see:

(a) what data is held about this courtesy vehicle for those days, and

(b) what data was shared with Indigo, who have claimed the payments have no VRN and only a car make.

(c) how that data failure can have occurred, if true that only the car's make, and not the VRN was recorded?

Show you are the 'data subject' by uploading or attaching proof that you had control/were the temporary keeper of that courtesy car during that period.

Ask for that proof from the lease firm, and ask also, whether they have contacted Indigo to give your name/address as the keeper/user at the time, and if they haven't, tell them they need to do so in order to properly transfer any liability and so that Indigo then have to send you your own Notices to Hirer, to appeal.

Whatapain

Many thanks indeed. I have read the newbie section and FAQ but I must admit
I am not sure how to run the clock down as they havr already got their ZZZ friends to send letters before their own arbitrary time scale has even ran out! So unsure what prevents them from accelerating the whole thing and ignore my questions. Further down the line POPLA is not an option as they give only the option of AS Parking, altough I am unsure if this should be done at all through them..?

Coupon-mad

Indigo now (this is new, not even in the NEWBIES thread yet) use ITAL instead of POPLA, but only if you get your own PCNs (Notice to Hirers) in you own name to appeal first, then get rejection letters for each.

Other threads tell you about ITAL.

Umkomaas

Whatapain wrote: »

Many thanks indeed. I have read the newbie section and FAQ but I must admit
I am not sure how to run the clock down as they havr already got their ZZZ friends to send letters before their own arbitrary time scale has even ran out! So unsure what prevents them from accelerating the whole thing and ignore my questions. Further down the line POPLA is not an option as they give only the option of AS Parking, altough I am unsure if this should be done at all through them..?

Just keep asking them inane (albeit marginally related) questions via 2nd class mail. Read other indigo threads for examples of what to ask - there was one thread in the past few days with some of the things to ask. Forum search!

Other than at the Cardiff Wales Teaching Hospital with dozens of induvidual cases, Indigo has been nowhere near a court over a parking charge, and especially one with the complications of Byelaws, No Keeper Liability, criminal prosecution via the Magistrates' Court, and the like. Too complicated and convoluted for them I suspect.

Whatapain

Many thanks for all the info and help, much appreciated. Just a few more points: Thiese were from a railway car park indeed and the so called PCN is adressed to the “Keeper” and does not ask to name the driver but being a garage’s courtesy car I decided to come forward and give my details as the driver at the time as it would have been unfair to the garage who has nothing to do with that.
The plan seems to be:

1. Appeal to the ones I have received too late to appeal on line, by post
2. Wait until 26th day for those I got appeal rejected and appeal to asparking (no option for POPLA).
3. Amazingly they recognised that I have paid but entered the make of the car as oppoaed to the registration: Even if it were my mistake as a user who typed in the wrong part in the wrong box at 7am in a cold dark morning, they clearly feel it is fair to apply a penalty 11 times. Amazing. Daylight robbery. All legal. What a bunch of great human beings and fantastic company.
4. If/when they reply to the ones I can’t appeal online (which I doubt as I received them so late it is even out of the 28th day window), I then appeal again to Asparking?

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.

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.

Fruitcake

Revealing the driver's identity where byelaws apply isn't fatal.
1) Yes
2) Yes (asparking = ITAL)
3) A minor human error. The scammers have other information on their payment system that links you to the car to the payment. In any case, their payment system is faulty if it allows a motorist to enter something other than a UK format VRN.
4) Yes if they let you appal to asparking/ITAL

In any case, you should ask a series of questions for each PCN by snail mail.

Have the scammers mentioned byelaws at all? If so, ask them specific questions about that.

Do byelaws apply?
Which byelaws?
Who can be held liable for a byelaws offence? (Don't prompt them but it has to come from one of the following. Driver, Keeper, Registered Keeper, Owner?)
Who can be taken to court. (Where PoFA applies, The Driver might commit an alleged breach but The Keeper can be taken to court, so you are trying to get them to tell you who is liable where PoFA doesn't apply but again, don't prompt them)
If your appeal fails, what happens next?
What court would any further action take place, County, Magistrates, Criminal?
Who can start court proceedings in a byelaw case?

This is all new to the regulars here as we have no experience of a PPC using asparking/ITAL appeal system, so we are asking you to be a guinea pig to help us get more info.

Continue to complain to your MP. You paid on eleven occasions, the scammers know you paid for the car in question. Your payment is linked to you which is linked to the car. Their system is faulty if it allows a motorist to enter something other than a UK format VRN.

Whatapain

I have asked for Popla but no reply. Strangely they are much more reactive to ask ZZZ to send me threatening letters even within their own delays rules.

The appeal rejection letter gives an ITAL verification but no POPLA.

Whatapain

The thing is you enter information on connect cashless website.
Then from the App itself on your mobile, you add a new car and enter Make/Reg/Colour. If you mix up boxed they let you enter colour instead of make, make instead of reg, etc.. no warning, it lets you pay, so easy to make a mistake.. but also easy foe them to pretend that I have paid but entered thr wrong details..