ANPR camera found to be pointing wrong direction after fine paid

benawhile

I paid a parking charge notice issued in 2018 in Wish Street Euro Car Park, in Rye, Sussex, while I was on holiday there, in good faith. This was for parking in the car park without purchasing/displaying a ticket. The set up is that theoretically you have to drive straight through the car park in a one way system, and immediately after exiting you park in one of three allotted spaces allocated to the fish and chip shop.

During a recent return visit to Rye I found out from the adjacent fish and chip shop (where I had been parked) that several tickets were issued in this period in error due to the exit camera being displaced and capturing images of vehicles parked in the fish and chip shop spaces adjacent to but not in the car park. I understand Euro Car Parks issued some refunds to local people at the time but did not notify me of the error. I therefore wish to claim a refund of the £60 charge now.

I have notified them by email but don't expect much action. Can anyone advise what to do in such a situation? I still have the original Notice to Keeper.

Grizebeck

Why did you even pay

Half_way

Is this where you parked:

 https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.9499944,0.7284796,3a,18.3y,297.75h,84.82t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1seJ7aMnewcytYgitiAlO_Fg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

There is no  good faith in paying an un regulated private parking company

Do you know who owns the car park where the PPC operate?

I would contact the fish and chip shop and tell them whats happened and that you have been wrongfully charged and feel scammed

pustit

Do you really believe this only happened on the day you happened to be there ? and if it was such an oddity why did they not bother to contact you to cancel ? You would have thought they would be devastated to have this extremely rare error come to light. But no, they left it!

benawhile

Half way

No, that looks like the supermarket car park. It was the one behind this building, "Kettle of Fish". What you can see is one of the 3 free spaces for the fish and chip shop just past the exit.

Grizebeck

Is this a rhetorical question? I paid because I'm only human. Maybe I was stupid to pay. But I didn't think I had a case as I knew I was there. How would it occur to me that the camera was faulty? I'm neither a lawyer nor experienced in paying/avoiding parking fines. And I'm not local.

benawhile

Pustit, I don't understand your answer at all. Who are "they"? The Fish and Chip shop or Euro Car Parks? No, I don't believe this only happened on the day I happened to be there. As I said, the chip shop owner told me yesterday that several people had been refunded in this period, but I wouldn't have known that as I'm not local.

Half way, I also stated that Euro Car Parks run the site. If I need to know who owns the land I will make necessary enquiries.

I'm sorry if my post is still not clear.

Coupon-mad

benawhile said:

Half way

No, that looks like the supermarket car park. It was the one behind this building, "Kettle of Fish". What you can see is one of the 3 free spaces for the fish and chip shop just past the exit.

Grizebeck

Is this a rhetorical question? I paid because I'm only human. Maybe I was stupid to pay. But I didn't think I had a case as I knew I was there. How would it occur to me that the camera was faulty? I'm neither a lawyer nor experienced in paying/avoiding parking fines. And I'm not local.

We are surprised you paid it, that's all.

Private scam PCNs are not parking fines.  No-one is advised to ever just pay one. 

benawhile

Half way, Had a secpnd look, I beg your pardon, you were correct, that is the same car park

Half_way

We are surprised you paid it, that's all.

Private scam PCNs are not parking fines.  No-one is advised to ever just pay one. 

I paid one -  that is a private parking ticket once, under the impression that if i didnt pay the "fine" would go up and at the time i thought i had done the right thing.

 Second time around i did a little more research as the "fine" was for something petty  and stumbled across this place as well as others ( such as pepipoo) Lurked a bit, picked up some info became annoyed at myself for paying what i thought was a fine and saw off the second Parking charge notice after understanding the difference between a fine, penalty and parking charge notice.

 Hopefully contributions here and the occasional trip to pepipoo as well as helping a few people off site in the pub and at work  have cost the PPC world more than they took from me when i thought it was a fine, and before i had educated myself on the shocking world that is PPC land- and its still a huge learning curve

Anyways, the reason for asking who owns the car park - the chip shop may know, is that that is a good point of contact, as principal they will be jointly liable for the actions of their agents - the parking company

If the vehicle was on site then they should not have obtained and processed your data for starters(GDPR/data protection breach - no good reason/inaccurate data etc) , and you can go from there

benawhile

Update

ECP have answered my appeal after the promised delay of one month. It wasn't a proper answer in that they ignored my main point, that their camera is alleged to have been pointing at a free parking space, so I have emailed them (only one communication via website is allowed) to ask about that specific point.

In the meantime I have established by 4 x £3 searches that the whole parking space including the signposted free section is owned by ECP. So their signage was inconsistent with their recording system at the time, could this be a breach of BPA standards? My present plan is to raise with BPA after a response to the second email to ECP.

Umkomaas

ECP have answered my appeal after the promised delay of one month. 

Did they supply a POPLA code?  If so, the NEWBIES FAQ Announcement, third post, is your next port of call. 

It wasn't a proper answer in that they ignored my main point, that their camera is alleged to have been pointing at a free parking space, so I have emailed them (only one communication via website is allowed) to ask about that specific point. 

Not sure what you're expecting from that?

In the meantime I have established by 4 x £3 searches that the whole parking space including the signposted free section is owned by ECP. So their signage was inconsistent with their recording system at the time, could this be a breach of BPA standards? My present plan is to raise with BPA after a response to the second email to ECP.

I don't think there's any prospect of anything helpful coming from that. But, at POPLA, ECP have been 'failing' on the basis of the £100 parking charge has been inconspicuous, insufficiently to be noticed by motorists. 

If you read the last half a dozen pages of the POPLA Decisions sticky, you'll get the gist of how to appeal on that point.