Smart parking appeal

CCH20

Hello everyone,

I have a dilemma. My partner who is the owner of our car received a PCN from Smart Parking (£100/ discount £60). On the day, I drove the car. I drove to a friend (to deliver something) who lives next to a Smart Parking managed car park. I entered the car park, met my friend on the car park, gave my delivery, had a quick chat and left again. This process took 12 minutes. The car park has 1 hour free parking if you put your details in a machine. I did not put my details in a machine as I did not intent to park, but literally just wanted to drop something. (At the time I did not know that I should have put my details in the machine.)

I appealed the PCN from Smart Parking online. I said that I drove the car at the time. I waited 14 days and did not hear back about my appeal. After 14 days, I emailed Smart Parking and got told that my appeal is under review and will take 35 days and that my discount period for the PCN is frozen until I hear about the outcome of the appeal.

I never heard anything about the appeal, but received a letter from Debt Recovery Plus saying I owe £170 for not responding to previous letters and not paying my PCN. I never heard back from my PCN appeal neither via email nor have I received any letters.

I have emailed Smart Parking again to ask about the status of my appeal but have not heard anything.

Is my only option now to pay the £170????

Any advice would be highly appreciated.

Many thanks for your help!!!

Coupon-mad

Contact the Trade Body, the BPA to complain that Smart never sent you a POPLA code.

If you have read the NEWBIES thread now, you will have learnt (too late) that by you appealing as driver, you have binned the 100% slam dunk WIN your partner had to have appealed this as keeper and won with a single email.  Gahhhh!  Don;t ask what I mean...read the NEWBIES thread and NEVER appeal as driver to a PPC (common forum acronyms are also fully explained in the sticky thread at the top of this forum - see my signature, a click or two back gets you there).

Fruitcake

No, paying a bunch of unregulated scammers is not your only option. Even if it went to court and you lost, it would cost no more than around £175 - £200. The scammers have added on a fake unrecoverable £70, so the amount allegedly due to the scammers is £100, plus allowable court costs if it goes that far.

Plan A is always a landowner complaint.

Do complain to the BPA. In addition, get pics of the site and signage in readiness for a fight against this scamvoice.

D_P_Dance

Read what Pete Wishart MP said recently in the House of Commons about Smart Parking. and complain to your own MP

"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.

CCH20

Thank you Coupon-mad for the quick reply. Yes you are right - I should have read the NEWBIES thread before filing my appeal. I am absolutely devastated and in shock.

What will I gain when contacting BPA? In the meantime I have sleepless nights about the potential of being taken to court as stated in the Debt Recovery Plus letter.

Thank you

D_P_Dance

1. What will I gain when contacting BPA? 

Who knows?

CCH20

Fruitcake said:

No, paying a bunch of unregulated scammers is not your only option. Even if it went to court and you lost, it would cost no more than around £175 - £200. The scammers have added on a fake unrecoverable £70, so the amount allegedly due to the scammers is £100, plus allowable court costs if it goes that far.

Plan A is always a landowner complaint.

Do complain to the BPA. In addition, get pics of the site and signage in readiness for a fight against this scamvoice.

Thank you, Fruitcake. I wish I had more confidence with this. However, in the end I feel I am in the wrong as I did enter the car park and should have put my details into that machine.

So even if I complain to BPA, what will they do?

D_P_Dance

You are NOT in the slightest in the wrong, this is a scam.  £170 for what you did, you could mug an OAP for that.

CCH20

Ok, thank you everyone. I will complain to BPA that Smart Parking never sent me a POPLA code.

nosferatu1001

Or that you never received it. 
If they emailed it their emails look so much like Spam that they hit junk mail
the PPCs know this and do nothing, because they profit from it.

CCH20

Hello all, I submitted by complaint to BPA and was wondering when I should expect an answer? Also, what should I do in the meantime? Pay the £170 and the claim some of it back (if that is possible at all)? I am having sleepless nights about having to go to court or that the money the Debt Company will want from me will increase even more.... Thank you all!