Smart Parking Appeal

lucybrown162

Hello
I received a Notice to Keeper from Smart Parking in April. However, due to being stupidly busy at home with a full time job and home schooling, I missed the deadline to appeal to Smart and on that basis they rejected my appeal, indicating that the debt had already been passed to a debt collection agency.
The notice to keeper is invalid as I received no initial ticket on my windscreen and the NTK wasn't received within the requisite 15 days.
Should I still appeal to POPLA or refute this with the debt collection agency, or both?

D_P_Dance

Read what Pete Wishart MP said recently in the House of commons about Smart Parking.

"I am sick and tired of receiving emails from people complaining about the behaviour of parking companies, telling me that they will never again visit Perth city centre because of the negative experience they had when they had the misfortune to end up in a car park operated by one of these companies. I have received more complaints about one car park in the city of Perth than about any other issue. That car park is operated by the lone ranger of the parking cowboys: the hated and appalling Smart Parking—I see that many other Members are unfortunate enough to have Smart Parking operating in their constituencies. It has reached the stage where one member of my staff now spends a good part of each day just helping my constituents and visitors to my constituency to navigate the appeals process.
…
The BPA does not have the ability to regulate these companies and has shown no sign whatsoever that it is trying to get on top of some of the sharper practices. The BPA gives a veneer of legitimacy to some of the more outlandish rogue operators by including them in their membership, allowing them to continue to operate. The Bill will oblige operators such as Smart Parking to amend their practices.

Nine times out of ten these tickets are scams, so consider complaining to your MP., it can cause the scammer extra costs and work, and in some cases, cancellation.

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 enacted

Just as the clampers were finally closed down, so hopefully will many 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.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2019/8/contents/of these Private Parking Companies.

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

Umkomaas

lucybrown162 said:

Should I still appeal to POPLA or refute this with the debt collection agency, or both?

Neither. Your POPLA ship sailed after you failed to appeal to Smart Parking within 28 days. You never contact a debt collector. Please read the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, fourth post, which is the stage at which you now find yourself. 

This was so easily winnable had you appealed in time as Smart are unable to hold the keeper liable because of defects in their paperwork. 

Fruitcake

Did you tell the scammers that the NTK was non-PoFA compliant? If not, I suggest you tell the DPO of Not-so-Smart this, point out that they should contact only the driver who of course will not be named by you, and instruct them to erase the Keeper's data from their database as they have no reason to keep it. 
I doubt it will do any good but it would be useful to show a judge if necessary.

What happened when you complained to the Landowner?

Have you complained to your MP yet about this unregulated scam?