Zip Car Parking Fines

afk28361

Hi all,

I'm new to these forums and would like some advice regarding a number of PCN's which have accumulated and have been charged to my Zip Car Account.

Background

I registered with Zip Car on 23rd April 2019 and began using their service quite regularly, generally to travel from my mums house and back to my flat in Westminster. I would regularly park on my street in Westminster on a Sunday night and drop off the Zipcar here which was within their 'drop off zone'. My street is residents only from Monday to Friday 8am to 6.30pm, however i would only park here generally on a Sunday night when there were no restrictions on parking.

I first received notice of a Westminster PCN from Zip Car on June 18th, relating to a contravention which occurred on 29th April 2019, almost two months after the alleged contravention. The contravention occurred a day after I had dropped off the Zip Car within their 'drop off zone' (which it was legal for me to park at time of the drop off). I then received another three emails from Zip Car shortly after on the following dates:
a. Notified on June 20th --> PCN issued 3rd May
b. Notified on July 3rd --> PCN issued 1st May
c.Notified on July 4th --> PCN issued 30th April

All four of the PCN's relate to a single trip, when i dropped the car off on a Sunday Night, in my first week of membership with Zip Car. It seems as if because the car was left on the street for another week or so without another user picking it up it had accumulated a number of PCN's.

I then received another email of a further PCN on July 16th relating to a PCN issued on Tuesday 8th May after a trip i made with Zipcar on Sunday 6th May.

Thankfully i stopped using Zip Car after a couple of weeks, because God knows how many more of these PCN's I could have accumulated, between 23rd April and June 18th the date which i was first made aware of any PCN that had been charged to my account.

Long story short ZIpCar have been chasing me for about. GBP1,000 which is obviously a large sum of money, in relation to these PCN's and have now transferred this to a debt collector 'ACT Credit Management' who are acting as their agent.

I have received a 30 notice from the debt collectors asking me to either pay or dispute the debt or they may take me to court. I had received a number of previous letters threatening court action if i did not respond after 5 days.

Would be great to get any advice around whether or not i have a chance to dispute the debt or whether i will have to just pay.

Pretty sure the Zipcar's T'c & C's say i cannot park in residents bays in Westminster however as expected i never read the fine print and assumed where i parked was fine since this was showing within their 'drop-off zone' and it was legal to park there at the time. It seems they also have different arrangements with different councils around where users can park.


Thanks

Umkomaas

Wrong forum for council tickets.

As we major on private parking tickets here, PePiPoo will be your best bet for council tickets. Register there (but please note that a hotmail address won't work - try using a throwaway gmail account instead if you do have trouble registering) and post a new thread; here's your link:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?act=SF&s=&f=30

Have a read through some of the other threads there before you post your own to get the hang of what information they need from you in your opening post - but as a minimum you will need to post redacted photos/scans of all correspondence you've received from the council (both sides, if appropriate) as they need to see all the small print.

PePiPoo has an excellent success record in dealing with council tickets.

Soraya78

Hi.
I too have had the same issue with Zipcar. They notified me in October of a PCN issued in June! I have since had 2 more PCNs dating back to early September. It is not a local authority parking issue because Zipcar pay the fines (after the 14 day discount so it’s double) and pass on the debt to their customers plus a £15 admin fee. The right of appeal to the borough is therefore denied. They cannot even tell me if there are more PCNs in their backlogged system. The rules are so unclear and vary borough to borough. They dispute the lack of clarity but that makes no sense because they are taking 4-5 months to process these after being issued the Notice to Owner because of a backlog which means lots and lots of people are also confused by the different rules. Had I been notified in a reasonable time period then I would not have continued to make the same mistake in respect of shared bays. Their processing is extremely flawed. Trustpilot has lots of similar stories. They need a better process for processing violations more quickly and an agreement with the boroughs in respect of notification and the 14day discount. There is ZERO customer service or any sort of reasonable care in respect of their customers.

Umkomaas

Is this a council parking ticket (if so, carefully read the post prior to your own). If it's a private parking charge, which parking company?

Or is this just a rant?