ECP PCN Rugeley Broken Machine & Pay by Phone Failure

torvil

Received a PCN from ECP on ?/?/20 after our vehicle parked here for under the hour after the only machine on this car park was broken. Failing to pay the hourly charge of 60p resulted in the £100 charge reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days. This PCN was sent/received within 14 days
In short:
1. the only machine was out of order (photographic evidence of this)
2. pay by phone app downloaded at the time, photograph and registered our vehicle at the time. I assumed that the payment for parking was made as I made a £1 payment, more than the required amount. This is the difficult part, as the when I checked the app showed - No History however it would allow me to pay again. This is because this charge made available by my credit card company but was not applied for by Pay by Phone and hence the payment not taken. so.....
3. the number on the signage was called and an operative spoken to who stated "not to worry as the app suggested that the charge had been paid but could not confirm this or never offered to take further payment" 

I initially returned the online appeal to ECP confident they would see that I had tried everything to pay, and this appeal was genuine, but they replied with a very generic "unsuccessful appeal" result stating that our vehicle had been captured on the ANPR having been on the car park for less then 1 hour and no ticket had been purchased.
I appealed via POPLA and ECP submitted their still very generic counter evidence with additional data stating that apparently another vehicle had successfully paid for parking during the window I had. Several cars had parked on the car park at the time and their drivers noticing the machine was out of order, before walking away and leaving their car parked. 
Again POPLA rejected my appeal stating I now have to pay.

I have the drafts of both appeals which I can post if this helps.

I will apologise at this stage for not taking advice from this forum at the time. I was so confident that both ECP and POPLA would see my appeal as genuine, and the issue being down to the faulty machine and problems around the Pay by Phone app.

Can anyone help me please?

nosferatu1001

Have you read the newbies thread?
plan A is still an option. 

Le_Kirk

Exhausted all appeal avenues, sit back and wait for letter before/of claim and (possibly) N1 court claim papers.  Ignore (but file) the inevitable torrent of debt collector letters.  In the meantime, read some other ECP threads and see what others have done.

torvil

nosferatu1001 said:

Have you read the newbies thread?
plan A is still an option. 

I thought I had, I'll go back and read through it again.

torvil

torvil said:

nosferatu1001 said:

Have you read the newbies thread?
plan A is still an option. 

I thought I had, I'll go back and read through it again.

If plan A is identifying the driver, this has already been admitted. 

Le_Kirk

torvil said:

torvil said:

nosferatu1001 said:

Have you read the newbies thread?
plan A is still an option. 

I thought I had, I'll go back and read through it again.

If plan A is identifying the driver, this has already been admitted. 

Plan A (you will find this when you read the NEWBIE sticky) is to complain (not appeal) to the retailer/landowner etc.

Umkomaas

torvil said:

torvil said:

nosferatu1001 said:

Have you read the newbies thread?
plan A is still an option. 

I thought I had, I'll go back and read through it again.

If plan A is identifying the driver, this has already been admitted. 

Nope. Plan A is complaining to the landowner and ask them to intervene, especially in light of the events at the time. 

Other than that, it's wait to see what ECP's next move might be. They have been notoriously non-litigious ever since the PPC network started confetti litigation - last year, from 943,635 tickets issued, ECP had just 2 court appearances (and there's no guarantee that either had anything to do with parking). This year, things are tough for PPCs (estimated 80% reduction in turnover), so when a predator is hungry .......  They do have 6 years to progress to proceedings. 

torvil

Le_Kirk said:

Exhausted all appeal avenues, sit back and wait for letter before/of claim and (possibly) N1 court claim papers.  Ignore (but file) the inevitable torrent of debt collector letters.  In the meantime, read some other ECP threads and see what others have done.

Is it worth contacting trading standards and or my MP at this stage?

Umkomaas

torvil said:

Le_Kirk said:

Exhausted all appeal avenues, sit back and wait for letter before/of claim and (possibly) N1 court claim papers.  Ignore (but file) the inevitable torrent of debt collector letters.  In the meantime, read some other ECP threads and see what others have done.

Is it worth contacting trading standards and or my MP at this stage?

No doubt @D_P_Dance will be along shortly to offer advice! 

D_P_Dance

It is always worth bringing  faulty PnD machines to the attention of TS, likewise to your MP.

Coupon-mad

Plan A is NOT admitting to driving...come one, just get it cancelled like you could have all along, assuming this was a retail park.  If it wasn't, then the landowner may be harder to track down but try anyway.

ECP tend not to sue over single PCNs so ignore it if you can't get the stupid thing cancelled.