PCN with mistakes, at a hospital and in a hire car

horus123

Hi all this is a first post and I am a little confused how to proceed as I can see a few problems and have looked at the different advice. I am writing on behalf of my wife who is a nurse at a Hospital in Northern Ireland. She entered a staff car park early morning and had to carry and pull a trolly into work, this is the only car park close to her place of work and is meant for her building, she gets free parking. Because of parking problems else where in the hospital others are using this car park and walking to other parts of the hospital. The car park was full, for time reasons she parked fully on the grass and went to work. She was using a hire car from hertz on the day.

She has received a parking charge notice from parkmaven headed “Notice to hirer”. The first thing is it is addressed to Mr (surname) followed by her first name. I saw Mr and opened it by mistake. This pcn states this vehicle was observed in the car park at N/A  N/A. line 2 says contravention: not in a marked bay. It was on the grass but you have to go through the barrier to get to that point.

 In the newbie guide I found the links in relation to hire cars, is link 2 the correct one to use.

A second point, the second letter titled reminder and still showing the same name mistake. This letter states the car was parked in **** hospital car park, it does not specify which car park as the hospital has several but it does say in a car park. It mentions the signage at the entrance to and throughout the car park. No signs are displayed at the entrance to the car park other than the hospital signs saying additional staff parking on one side, the tariff rate for visitors on the barrier and on the other side it mentions staff and visitors. Set several meters before the entrance and facing the road so not visible to a driver is a sign from parkmaven, this sign appears to be for the entrance to a builders storage area on the right. The car park does have other signs you could see and read after you have parked

I would be grateful for suggestions as to how to proceed, my wife said she would pay it if it is easier, that’s down to the type of person she is.

Fruitcake

Do not pay.

Plan A is always a complain to the landowner from the keeper or in your case, the hirer.

The hirer should instruct the hire company in no uncertain terms that they must not pay the charge since neither they nor the hirer can be held liable in NI.

They (the hire company) have the option of ignoring the charge since they cannot be held liable, or passing the hirer's details to the parking company, which they appear to have done.

Do not under any circumstances reveal the driver's identity. No, I parked, I drove etcetera. The driver did this, the hirer got a parking charge from an unregulated parking company.

Both the hirer and the hire company should complain to the NI consumer council as well who will act in short order to get this cancelled.

The hirer should also send a brief appeal as hirer stating that in NI there is no law that can hold a hirer nor a vehicle keeper liable therefore they should cancel now and save themselves money. For the absence of doubt, the driver's identity will not be given.
The hirer could use one of the edna basher hire/lease vehicle letters from the NEWBIES if they wish, or even modify the template in blue text by adding the above comments.
Alternatively just send a simple FRO instruction as I mentioned above because the hirer can never be held liable in NI.


The hirer should also complain to their NI MP since this is an attempt to obtain money from someone who cannot be held liable.

Coupon-mad

LOL, you need to get your Consumer Council to help you kill this scam!

Here's advice re NI that I wrote 2 days ago:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80113725#Comment_80113725

I'm surprised more drivers in NI don't realise that you don't have 'keeper liability' law and your Consumer Council handle these PCN scams every week for people.

NO-ONE PAYS!

Spread the word with your wife's colleagues. They can ignore private PCNs in NI.  So can you, so can your driving family. You are untouchable.

The only difference is she is best advised to appeal as hirer ONCE in order to make sure they don't write to the lease/hire firm again.

Normally we'd say "ignore completely" (like we did in the linked thread where we stopped them paying!) but a hire car needs the scam hooking to her and away from a daft hire firm who might just pay it then charge you more on top as an admin fee.

I'd start with the Consumer Council.  I expect they have a 'Hirer version' of their special appeal that makes these firms back down.

horus123

Hi Thanks for the advice, I logged in to Parkmaven to do a short appeal, it only gave 2 buttons one was pay the other was enter the liable party details. I sent a separate notification saying that no appeal button was offered only the 2 I just mentioned. pointing out I would not be using either and quoting the paragraph mentioned by Fruitcake. Thanks again for the suggestions I will be talking to my MLA and the NI consumer council in the next 2 days