Smart parking

Bringsty22

Coupon-mad said:

This sort of conduct will be tackled under the new Parking Code of Practice being set up by the Government but it's not in place yet.

In the meantime no-one should be paying a private parking firm or their debt collectors.

Its people paying extortionate 3-figure sums (not knowing that they'd win in court and in most cases it's easier than a POPLA appeal and involves no CCJ risk & no hearing) that has allowed the industry to become a monster.

Agree with that and I will know better next time.

Bringsty22

fisherjim said:

Bringsty22 said:

Hello, I'm one of those people who got intimidated by the Debt Recovery Plus letter that threatened to ramp up the charges if I didn't pay - so I paid £160. Having come to my senses and looked for advice, I now realise how many people have suffered the same fate and fallen for this completely fraudulent process. The practices of Smart Parking and Debt Recovery Plus are surely illegal and, what's even worse, they are supported in their fraud by Parking On Private Land Appeals (POPLA) which is supposed to protect consumers against unfair practices.

So the fraud process goes like this:

• You get a ticket (Parking Charge Notice - PCN) and you appeal it online
• You get an email acknowledement saying that you will hear the outcome within 28 days and, if rejected, you can still pay at the reduced amount (£54) within an extended period
• Well beyond the 28 days, you get a letter from Debt Recovery Plus for £160 with threats about legal action and escallating charges
• You complain to Smart Parking and they tell you that they sent you the outcome of appeal by email although cannot provide evidence of that. They also send you a copy of the outcome of appeal which has a verification code to enable you to appeal through POPLA
• You try to appeal through POPLA although the verification code doesn't work as it is only valid for 28 days and of course your letter from Debt Recovery Plus is deliberately not sent until that code expires

These organisations should be prosecuted and ordered to pay compensation to everyone who has been affected. With so many people having been defrauded in this way, the weight of evidence to prove criminality must be immense.

This is fruad on a very large scale and no one seems interested in tackling it.

These scammers work in an unregulated industry, but fraud and criminality are strong words to band about, as CM has stated the problem is they work on the fringes of the law, though against common decency and with general support of their trade associations which government agencies originally trusted to be fair and impartial, big mistake.

The way to kick these demands in to touch at the is through the small claims court if the Muppets want to go down that route where an impartial judge can decide.

If this is happening to so many people, then there is a clear intent to defraud as the parking operators are not applying the procedures they themselves have stated in their correspondance and which are part of their code of conduct.

nopcns

But their "code of conduct" is written by them anyway. It is all a very nice incestuous cartel that operates on the principle that there are enough gullible people out there who will just pay into their scams to make it extremely worthwhile for the effort.

The number of victims who show up on this forum and actually learn about the scam and how to fight it is a drop in the ocean when you consider that these ex-clamper scammers issue around 35,000 (private parking) PCNs a day! 

fisherjim

UKPC did commit fraud a number of years ago by tampering with photo timestamps they were found out, it was all over the press, UKPC were suspended for a couple of weeks from obtaining details by the DVLA, slapped on the wrist by the BPA, the BPA boss at the time (now sacked) is by the way now on the sex offender's register but that's another story.

Of course UKPC claimed it was rogue attendants, but the whole scam was as clear as daylight to anyone else that took an interest UKPC of course "missed it"!

They then carried on issuing PCN's while banned, that was blamed on their attendants misreading an email, but they came back and are bigger than ever.

The whole industry stinks to the core!

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.com/2018/04/ukpc-banned-by-dvla.html

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-parking-control-dvla-suspension-misuse-of-data-a8325941.html

Coupon-mad

Coupon-mad said:

You both need to COMPLAIN (... not appeal this time) to Smart (using their complaints email, of course) then complain about them to the BPA. Easy to kill off.

@plasticpunk

and 

pedrovansank 


What happened?  Smart cancelled the PCNs when the BPA breathed down their neck?

Coupon-mad

Coupon-mad said:

You need to COMPLAIN (... not appeal this time) to Smart (using their complaints email, of course) then complain about them to the BPA. Easy to kill off.

@plasticpunk

and 

pedrovansank 

and

@Bringsty22

Another way to fight back:

Short notice but please do this survey now (and then a short & friendly video call next week) to tell the Government's consultancy outsourced firm your experience of 'appealing' and being told 'we sent you a rejection letter' (but you didn't get it...no proof they ever emailed it, and given we've seen 20 or so cases like yours we think they never sent the POPLA Code at all.

Please earn yourself £60 and help regulate the parking industry.  This is an official thing and MSE Towers has agreed I can share it...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6528490/official-dluhc-paid-research-have-you-ever-appealed-a-parking-charge-notice#latest

URGENT

Please earn £60 and help us push the regulation of the parking industry and new appeals service over the line.

There should be appeal (ADR) available at ALL stages to keep cases out of court.

And proof of actual date of posting or emailing rejection letters.

Coupon-mad

Bringsty22 said:

If this is happening to so many people, then there is a clear intent to defraud as the parking operators are not applying the procedures they themselves have stated in their correspondance and which are part of their code of conduct.

Same as all these:

Something of a pattern, eh?  

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6524609/smart-parking-major-keying-errors-appeal-no-response-debt-recovery-plus

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80511826/#Comment_80511826

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80719312/#Comment_80719312

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6514685/smart-parking-pcn-not-received-escalated-to-debt-recovery-within-a-month

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6513559/smart-parking-notice-and-debt-recovery-plus

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6506021/smart-parking-and-debt-recovery-plus

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80514282/#Comment_80514282

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6489447/smart-parking-ltd/p1

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6489424/smart-parking-didnt-responded-for-appeal

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6525173/smart-parking-penalty-error-and-now-debt-collector-letter

Wibbscoulson

Coupon-mad said:

This sort of conduct will be tackled under the new Parking Code of Practice being set up by the Government but it's not in place yet.

In the meantime no-one should be paying a private parking firm or their debt collectors.

Its people paying extortionate 3-figure sums (not knowing that they'd win in court and in most cases it's easier than a POPLA appeal and involves no CCJ risk & no hearing) that has allowed the industry to become a monster.

hey there, I'm in the process of trying to read through all these posts about smart parking and the PCN I have been sent. I recently moved to Cornwall and parked in a car park for a work meeting that was a smart park one but didn't have any cash on me so thought I would just use the app and book it whilst walking into my meeting but the app is useless and hasn't been updated for years. long story short it didn't work and an hour later I drove out expecting a ticket that I would argue due to the useless systems they had in place for payment. the parking date was the 24/04/24 and now suddenly I've received a letter dated 04/07/24 that has been forwarded on from my previous address saying I owe £170 and it must be paid now. I've not received anything else prior to this.

what can I do about this? I read that I shouldn't admit to being the driver and that no one should pay these extortion schemes but is there a simple way to skip to what I should do within the forum as I am trying to resolve this around full time nursing work and family life. I'm sure you have answered this 10 billion times and I do apologise for it, it just seems there is so much to do with these rip off merchants on this forum.

many thanks

Wibbs 

Le_Kirk

Wibbscoulson said:

what can I do about this? I read that I shouldn't admit to being the driver and that no one should pay these extortion schemes but is there a simple way to skip to what I should do within the forum as I am trying to resolve this around full time nursing work and family life. I'm sure you have answered this 10 billion times and I do apologise for it, it just seems there is so much to do with these rip off merchants on this forum.

You should start your own thread as it becomes confusing trying to deal with more than one poster on the same thread.