Apcoa Parking Ticket

Coupon-mad

You simply appeal as the hirer.  Use Umkomaas' words and DO NOT SAY WHO WAS DRIVING.

APCOA will cancel next week.  Always works.

bm78

Umkomaas said:

bm78 said:

Sorry for the confusion. I was the driver of the car. After the hire company contacted me, Apcoa sent me the parking charge notice. 

How is the parking charge headed - Notice to Hirer, or Notice to Keeper?  You never admit to driving in private parking charge cases, especially at the initial stage. Don't overthink this, please follow our advice. 

Umkomaas said:

bm78 said:

Sorry for the confusion. I was the driver of the car. After the hire company contacted me, Apcoa sent me the parking charge notice. 

How is the parking charge headed - Notice to Hirer, or Notice to Keeper?  You never admit to driving in private parking charge cases, especially at the initial stage. Don't overthink this, please follow our advice. 

It says 'notice is hereby given to the registered keeper of vehicle registration mark...xxxxxxx...for the alleged contravention of use of private car park without a valid payment/permit at Hanborough Station on 19th May at 10:12'

I am not the registered keeper but obviously the hire company passed on my details. They have provided photos of the cars entrance and exit.

Coupon-mad

The advice hasn't changed. Stop saying who was driving if you want the easy win.

Umkomaas

bm78 said:

Umkomaas said:

bm78 said:

Sorry for the confusion. I was the driver of the car. After the hire company contacted me, Apcoa sent me the parking charge notice. 

How is the parking charge headed - Notice to Hirer, or Notice to Keeper?  You never admit to driving in private parking charge cases, especially at the initial stage. Don't overthink this, please follow our advice. 

Umkomaas said:

bm78 said:

Sorry for the confusion. I was the driver of the car. After the hire company contacted me, Apcoa sent me the parking charge notice. 

How is the parking charge headed - Notice to Hirer, or Notice to Keeper?  You never admit to driving in private parking charge cases, especially at the initial stage. Don't overthink this, please follow our advice. 

It says 'notice is hereby given to the registered keeper of vehicle registration mark...xxxxxxx...for the alleged contravention of use of private car park without a valid payment/permit at Hanborough Station on 19th May at 10:12'

I am not the registered keeper but obviously the hire company passed on my details. They have provided photos of the cars entrance and exit.

If it says 'Notice to Keeper' but is addressed to you, change the two occasions in my draft appeal showing 'hirer' to now read 'registered keeper'. Then fire it off soonest via the method required by APCOA, as detailed in their letter.  Soonest sent, soonest went!

bm78

I wanted advice on appealing for the genuine reasons I gave but have kindly been offered advice to get out of the fine in another way. I'd just like to understand it as I'll be the one paying for it if it goes wrong! Thanks for all the advice. 

B789

Jeez... stop overthinking this. If you follow the advice given here you will not have to pay a penny. If you are stupid enough to go against the advice and feel the urge to identify yourself as the driver, go ahead and become a part of the scam and fund the scammers.

APCOA are benign and do not litigate. They are non PoFA compliant and can only pursue the "driver". They have no idea who the driver is unless you blab and tell them. They are asking you as the registered keeper (RK) to identify the driver. you are under no legal obligation to do so. The "driver" and the "RK"/"hirer" are separate entities in law.

So, decide whether do the simple thing and appeal as the RK without blabbing who the driver is and don't pay a penny or... blab about who the driver is and face the prospect of paying the speculative invoice from APCOA (there is no"fine" so stop using that word) and feel good about yourself for having funded the scam and becoming a part of it. You will also be marked by them asa "mug" for further targeting.

Coupon-mad

bm78 said:

I wanted advice on appealing for the genuine reasons I gave but have kindly been offered advice to get out of the fine in another way. I'd just like to understand it as I'll be the one paying for it if it goes wrong! Thanks for all the advice. 

No-one here pays APCOA! You won't ever pay them.  And it isn't a 'fine'.

It is impossible to lose at POPLA unless you do a 'genuine reasons' appeal telling them who was driving...

We've been doing this for well over a decade.  We know what we are doing.  Trust us!

simply_ed

Hi there - sorry for bumping an old thread but it’s particularly relevant in terms of location and outcome.

As the registered keeper I recently received a windscreen parking charge notice from APCOA at Hanborough Railway Station for parking in an unmarked bay. A valid ticket had been purchased.

Using the website for payment / challenge shown on the ticket I lodged an appeal through the “Other” option with the following wording:

“Dear APCOA,

As your Parking Charge Notice does not comply with the requirements of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 (Schedule 4), you are, in law, unable to hold the registered keeper of the vehicle liable for the parking charge; I therefore suggest you contact the driver. As there is no legal requirement placed on the registered keeper to identify the driver, I will not be doing so.

Yours faithfully”

8 days later I received the following in an email:

“Thank you for your letter received on [DATE REDACTED] regarding the above Parking Charge Notice. Having considered the circumstances, we have cancelled the Parking Charge Notice on this occasion.

We would like to take this opportunity to explain that if you receive further Parking Charge Notices' under similar circumstances, we will be unable to cancel them.

Please retain this letter as proof of cancellation, should you need it in the future. 

Yours sincerely

Appeals Department
APCOA Parking (UK) Ltd

A fantastic result thanks to the experts in this forum. I just wanted to also show it’s possible to get a ticket cancelled from a windscreen ticket rather than waiting for a postal notice to keeper. All in, it was 9 days from issue to cancellation. 

Hope this post is of some use.

Coupon-mad

 Very good!  Easy when you know how... 

Umkomaas

We would like to take this opportunity to explain that if you receive further Parking Charge Notices' under similar circumstances, we will be unable to cancel them.

Wanna bet APCOA?  Try making any further attempt to pin this on the keeper when he knows you have no ability to do so without PoFA compliance. Try any number of times and the MSE forum will make sure you cancel. 

Well done @simply_ed.