Penalty Notice - Error With Start Time On Parking App

xgaryxx

Hi there. New member, first time post. I’d be really grateful for any help and advice.

For the past 4 weeks the driver I'm enquiring on behalf of has parked at the local rail station every Friday after work at around 4:30pm, to get a train into the city to visit a family member who’s been in the hospital. The driver has always paid for parking online via ‘ConnectCashlessParking.com’, but because of limited phone reception at the station then would always made the online payment once they were actually at the hospital. They've done this same thing at a variety of different station car parks at various times, and never had a problem.

I then got a 'penalty notice by post' through the mail from ‘PCN Admin Centre’ ('a trading name of ZZPS Limited) the other day however, with the offence of ‘Failing to obtain a valid ticket or voucher’ at the rail station car park back in early October. The driver looked back through their account history on the parking app, and it confirmed they had made the standard £2.70 payment through the app. Looking more closely however, the correct fee for parking before 5pm is actually £3.65. When you select the parking options through the app however, it’s very unclear – the drive has always selected the ‘all day’ parking option to pay the full fee, but then checking through on the app tonight it turns out that whatever category of parking you select, it actually just defaults back to the current time. Due to this, it’s started the parking from ~8pm or whenever it was the driver was on the app at the hospital, and charged them the lower fee.

The driver can accept that it’s a mistake they've made and needs to assume responsibility, but they’ve done this same thing at this station for the past 4 weeks now – they're worried that this penalty notice will be followed by another 3 in the post over the next couple of weeks. The driver obviously wasn’t trying to dodge anything, they've paid their fees each time – it’s not even a whole £1 that is saved with the different timings, so it wasn’t any kind of con they were trying to pull.

Should the driver just pay the charge (£100), and appeal the others if/when they come through? Or should they appeal this initial one as well? They would accept paying a single penalty charge, but it seems unfair that they will potentially now be liable for £400 worth of fines, for a total saving of £3.80… Due to the fact it’s taken 4 weeks for the notice to arrive (it’s dated 24th October, with the offence on 11th October, but the letter only actually arrived this week), the driver hasn’t even had the opportunity to ‘learn their lesson’, as they had no idea of the infraction so have made the same mistake 4 weeks in a row now.

Any advice would be very gratefully received. I've not dealt with a parking ticket in many years, so I really know very little about the whole process and legalities.

Many thanks in advance.

Redx

If the driver has not been disclosed , keep it that way

Appeal each postal NTK PCN as keeper , no blabbing about who was driving or ownership , ignore Zzps

Address any ping pong exchanges with Indigo or whoever runs the parking , do it slowly past the 6 months deadline , so one appeal to Indigo then string it out for 6 months

Fessing up is honourable but not advised , the road to hell is paved with good intentions

It's a complicated topic , so read twenty or more Indigo threads , plus the newbies thread , so you understand railway issues and bylaws etc

The key features are appeal once to the PPC involved , then string it out last the 6 month deadline , for each one

The_Deep

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Nine times out of ten these tickets are scams, so consider complaining to your MP, it can cause the scammer extra costs and work.

Parliament is well aware of the MO of these private parking companies, many of whom are former clampers, and on 15th March 2019 a Bill was enacted to curb the excesses of these shysters. Codes of Practice are being drawn up, an independent appeals service will be set up, and access to the DVLA's date base more rigorously policed, persistent offenders denied access to the DVLA database and unable to operate.

Hopefully life will become impossible for the worst of these scammers, but until this is done you should still complain to your MP, citing the new legislation.

[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/8/contents/enacted[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]

Just as the clampers were finally closed down, so hopefully will many of these Private Parking Companies.[/FONT]

nosferatu1001

Edit your post
The drivers identity MUST NOT BE REVEALED
THis is critical. No arguments.
THE DRIVER parked at 4.30pm...
etc

Coupon-mad

We usually say to ignore ZZPS and SABA or have fund replying till it times out (6 months).

To know why and to save us SHEDLOADS of time please just search the forum for SABA.