Unfair PCN notice

sabellis

In August the car was issued with a PCN for a private land carpark. £4.00 was paid for the ticket which displayed VALID UNTIL 23:59 on that day and displayed on the dashboard. However the PCN was still issued stating there was a sign saying the monetary value of the ticket is used not the time shown on the ticket. My feeling on this, is that it is misleading the public in the hope to entrap them into paying over the top parking fines of £60 or £100.

Unfortunately as I thought this was a scam given the ticket stated it was valid, I did not contact the company in any way. A month later I received a letter stating the ticket had been handed over to another company (debt collection agency) I was not entitled to appeal and the price was now £100.

I then decided to send the letter for a late appeal, during which time I received another letter from the debt collection stating the fine was now £160. The late appeal has today been rejected.

Where does this leave me? Do I need to pay the fine. This does frustrate me as it just feels like one huge scam to catch out the public and they should have to update their parking machines to print tickets correctly to avoid confusion.

In addition to this, the letter from the debt collection agency simply states the fine should be paid immediately or it will be passed to the litigation department. I did also notice the letter was not dated which seemed a little odd as what is immediate given there is no date on a letter?

So to be clear, they are saying the ticket should have been £5.00 for the day even though the ticket shows a valid time. I think a £60 - now £160 fine is somewhat unfair for what was an innocent mistake of a £1 discrepancy.

Any help or advice on this would be much appreciated at this point. Part of me thinks just pay it and make it all go away, but the other part of me feels this kind of thing is wrong and needs to be challenged.

MS67

I don't know for definite, but if you have a ticket which states valid until ....... Then that is when it valid until.

KeithP

How long after arriving at the car park was it before the driver bought the £4.00 ticket?

sabellis

The ticket was bought immediately upon parking

sabellis

It is CPS Midlands, also the debt agency is TNC parking services.

KeithP

Was there perhaps a requirement for the driver to enter the vehicle's registration number in to the payment machine, and could it be that the driver didn't do that or spelled it wrongly?

sabellis

No, there is no requirement for registration number on this occasion. They are simply stating the ticket was not valid and the driver had over stayed the paid period. Siting text on the machine stating the "we look at the value of the ticket not the expiry time".

I'm not disputing the text is there, however the fact the text states this but the machine issues valid until 23:59 seems very disingenuous and designed to catch innocent people out as the natural thing is to put money on and when the time increments you push the button for the ticket. The driver on this occasion genuinely believed the ticket to be valid and paid £4 in good faith.

Coupon-mad

CPS (Midlands) Ltd are in the IPC. What do you mean by 'the late appeal has today been rejected'?

Please don't tell us you paid £15 for the farce of IAS?

Or do you mean that CPS has rejected the appeal? Is IAS given as an option?

NOT normally worth trying but a ticket that says it's valid, is valid.

sabellis

No, I have not paid IAS anything, I contacted CPS directly via their appeals email. They stated I should send a letter for a late appeal which I did. This was then rejected. IAS has not been given as an option.

MistyZ

This is just bonkers. I thought I was missing something that the more experienced regulars would get straight away, there's not much they haven't seen before.

The ticket was purchased shortly after parking, it stated valid until 23.59 and you left by 23.59 ... is that correct? I take it you still have the ticket?

How about a landowner complaint? If this is all exactly as you have stated, the landowner needs to be apprised of the situation so that they can cancel the PCN forthwith. And which car park is this? I want to ensure I never go there!

KeithP

I still think the OP is not telling us everything.