I made an appeal to Euro Car Parks. My appeal was "denied" and they want a £20 admin fee instead?

Owly9

Hi, this is my first time dealing with this so apologies if I'm missing anything obvious. For background, I received a PCN for not allegedly not buying a pay and display ticket for a Euro Car Park. This was false, my passenger bought a display ticket using her card at the available machine and I displayed it in my window. I made an appeal through ECP's appeal route, showing them the £5 charge going out of her account at the stated time on her bank statement and informing them this was clearly displayed in my window.

I received a letter back through email today that stated the following:

Having carefully considered the evidence provided by you we have decided to reject your appeal for

the following reasons:

 The car park is operated either by Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) or Patrolled

by an ECP employee.

 Cameras capture an image of vehicles entering and leaving the car park and calculate their

length of stay on site if an ANPR operation or may be patrolled by an ECP employee.

 When purchasing a pay and display ticket/pay by phone session, you must enter the full and

correct vehicle registration mark (VRM) – clearly detailed on signage/machine inserts.

 I can confirm that no valid pay and display ticket/pay by phone session matching your VRM

was purchased at the time of the breach of terms and conditions

 The signage is clear, a valid pay and display ticket/pay by phone session must be purchased

for the full duration of your stay on the car park.

 Your appeal notes that you purchased a P&D ticket – however there has been a “major keying

error”.

 I can confirm the parking charge notice was issued correctly and the £20.00 administration

charge is now due as you have failed to enter your full and correct vehicle registration mark

(VRM) – failure to pay the administration fee within 14 days, the value of the PCN at the time

of the appeal being logged will be due.

 I can confirm that due to the British Parking Association Code of Practice an administration

charge of £20.00 is now due within 14 days of the date of this communication.

Once payment of the £20.00 administration fee has been received (payment within the correct time

frame is required), the PCN will be CLOSED and no further action will be required.

So to my understanding they want £20 out of me because their machine didn't log my details correctly? "Major keying error"? What steps do I take now? £20 isn't the be all and end all, but there's not a chance this predatory scum of an organisation is getting a penny out of me that I don't agree to, if I can help it.

Many thanks,

Owly

PS: I struggle to parse large blocks of text, I had a good look through the Newbie FAQ and didn't have success finding something specific to my case. If I'm missing something glaringly obvious then I apologise in advance. Help is massively appreciated!

Umkomaas

Did your friend type in (at all) your VRM details into the P&D machine, or did they (perhaps) type in the VRM for their own vehicle -often happens?  If either of above £20 is the standard charge to cover admin costs. A lot of work to successfully challenge. 

KeithP

Why not just show ECP the ticket that the machine spat out?

Or if you no longer have that ticket, then I would treat this as a tough lesson to keep all parking tickets for a month or more before discarding them.

Owly9

If that's the case I should probably cut my losses and accept it. At least it wasn't the full 100 they wanted from me.

fisherjim

What evidence do you have that it was their p&d machine error do you have the ticket?

They are not actually saying the fee wasn't paid they are saying that the vrn was not entered or not entered correctly proof of payment from a bank account does not tally a vrn.

Annoying as it is, and we think on here that anpr is not fit for purpose, that admin charge is about the best you will do IMO, it will be a lot of work as Umko says to try to get off this with a technicality and is most likely to end up costing a lot more in the long run.

Coupon-mad

Owly9 said:

If that's the case I should probably cut my losses and accept it. At least it wasn't the full 100 they wanted from me.

It is a shame but if it was a major keying error (was it?) then this is the best you will get at the moment.

Your other option is ignore it and sit tight, laughing at the debt demands.  ECP are unlikely to try a small claim.

Things are changing and the Government are regulating the parking sector. The new statutory Code of Practice (which I was on the Steering Group to create) will say all keying errors identified must in future see PCNs cancelled at no charge to the consumer.

The Govt wants to clean up the parking industry and they will be expected to use better technology and carry out human checks to eliminate unfair PCNs like this, where the burden should not fall on the motorist to risk £100 for a typo.

rdr

KeithP said:

Why not just show ECP the ticket that the machine spat out?

Or if you no longer have that ticket, then I would treat this as a tough lesson to keep all parking tickets for a month or more before discarding them.

I always scan mine into Evernote when I get in the car at the end of the parking.

KeithP

rdr said:

KeithP said:

Why not just show ECP the ticket that the machine spat out?

Or if you no longer have that ticket, then I would treat this as a tough lesson to keep all parking tickets for a month or more before discarding them.

I always scan mine into Evernote when I get in the car at the end of the parking.

If you think it would help, can you send a copy of your saved ticket to @Owly9?  

getscammersoutofourcountry

I got a similar situation, being a gym membership it gives  you an extra hour parking which total a 3h parking. I attended the gym but it looks like I didn't enter my reg in their system . The send me a ticket saying i over stay. I was In The car park for 2h .45m . I appeal,  I won the appeal as my entry in the gym shows I was there .  The remove the fine but say that I have to pay an admin fee of £20 for not entering my details in their machine  if I don't the  the fine will become valid again.   Iv spoken to citizens advice and they say to ignore the admin fee. I sent them an email to say I'm not gonna pay it . Just sent the email. 
The didn't do anything for an admin fee I sent the details to them. Please advise
Thanks 

Coupon-mad

Welcome!  However, you will not find advice on an ancient, archived 2022 thread.

Please see my signature (below) for how to navigate this forum & go and read current threads instead.  Then start your own if you have questions not answered by the NEWBIES thread.