major keypad error

ruralranter

Hi,
I have seen a few posts here, but I was so incredulous when i got a notice for an 'admin charge' I ignored it.
So, short summary
1 paid for parking in a europarks pay and display carpark. the machine issued a ticket before i'd finished typing in my reg number. there was no option for me to check if it was correct.
2 I displayed the ticket in my car
3 surprised to receive a PCN  for £100. Please that I still had the ticket, I sent photographic evidence. The ticket only had the first 2 letters of my reg number on it.
4 very surprised to receive a letter charging me £20 for admin. Isn't admin what businesses do? Isn't that what the revenue from the parkin pays for? Letter said not to complain to the ombudsman, which I thought sounded dodgy, saying complaints had to be made to POPLA
5 Having not paid the fine, now received a letter from a debt recovery agency wanting £170. If not paid by (today) they will refer my case to legal.
I think this is ridiculous - I paid correctly for parking, its their machine that didn't work.I had thought to do a FOI to find out how many other keypad errors that machine issued that day, but that only apples to local authority not private firms.
It seems that on here, people say let them take you to court, costs would only be about £200 anyway, is that so?
Can anybody advise me please?
Yes I know that I have left it a bit late, sorry, just so affronted by this.

Gr1pr

All standard stuff, ridiculous or not , its currently an unregulated industry, the BPA CoP has a section on major and minor keying errors, with that £20 option listed, hence the time limited offer you mentioned 

Too late now, you are now stuck in no man's land, with plan A as the only current way out, so try it and keep trying it 

Meanwhile, you are awaiting an LoC in the post, possibly followed by a court claim pack from the CNBC in Northampton using MCOL, within the next 6 years following the incident date 

The costs are usually around £100 , plus the PCN charge, typically £100 , making approximately £200 in total 

Disregard and file the debt collectors letters, debt collectors are powerless 

LDast

Welcome to the club. What ECP are trying to do is charge you a penalty fee of £20 for what they say is a "gross keying error". Whether they want to dress it up as an "admin charge" or an "invitation to fund their scam" is irrelevant.

If you had appealed to POPLA, there is a 50:50 possibility they would have upheld your appeal as long it was based on any breaches of the BPA Code of Practice (CoP) or relevant law. Mitigation is not considered.

Never mind, that limited opportunity has passed. If you read the Newbies/FAQ thread, you would be aware of 4 plans of action. Have you started or tried Plan A yet? This involves the easiest way to get a PCN cancelled by finding out who the landowner or their management agent is. You complain to them about the PCN which is nothing but a speculative invoice from and unregulated private parking company and you object to being charged £100 (or whatever the PCN is for) for the privilege of being a patron/visitor etc. their business, shop or whatever. Ideally, your complaint should start as high up the management food chain. Going in to speak or telephoning a customer service rep is not likely to get you anywhere and a verbal promise to get it cancelled is not worth the paper it is written on.

You've exhausted Plan B which was the appeal to ECP and missed the chance to try the Plan C POPLA appeal. You arena in limbo, waiting for Plan D to be initiated by ECP or more likely their bottom-dwelling, intellectually malnourished firm of failed roboclaim legal practitioners. The first step in operation "Plan D" is for a Letter of Claim (LoC) to be issued. when you receive that, you need to refer to the second post in the Newbies/FAQ thread on how and what to respond.

The next phase of Plan D is for a county court claim to be filed. This is where you eventually win but we a bit of a way off from that stage yet. Whilst there is always a negligible risk of losing a claim, anyone following the advice and instructions in the Newbies/FAQ  and the Template Defence threads are the inevitable winners. Whatever amount the claim is for, even losing it would end up being less than the already inflated charge, as you have seen of £170 plus fixed costs of a claim in the small claims track of the county court.

In the meantime, you have to weather the storm of DRA letters which are toothless, no matter how scary they may seem with nasty words such as "bailiff" and "CCJ" bandied around. Ignore them or use them as kindling. They are powerless. Until you receive an LoC giving you 30 days to pay (cannot be less for a real LoC), just keep educating yourself on the process by re-reading the Newbies/FAQ thread.

1505grandad

Euro Car Parks Limited
Euro Parking Collection Plc Just checking  -  can you confirm which ppc it is  -  BPA AoS members above However there is also a similar name as IPC AoS member  -  Euro Parking Services Ltd

Coupon-mad

You haven't left it late! If you are only getting daft £170 threatograms, just ignore those.

It seems that on here, people say let them take you to court, costs would only be about £200 anyway, is that so?

Correct.  Believe us, you WANT a court claim because that's when you'll very likely win.

No risk, no huge costs, no CCJ even if you lost because you'd just pay. I can think of 3 posters who lost in 2024 and they just paid £185 in one case and £212 in the other two.

But that's a tiny percentage of outcomes. We win hundreds every year.  Somewhere around a 99% win rate has been maintained for eight years since the industry started ramping up court claims.

ruralranter

Thanks for the responses. I was stupid to ignore it, so i will have to wait for it to go to court now, but if it really isn't going to cost me more than £200 then its worth it.
The car parking company is Euro Car Parks Ltd, and they are a BPA member.
I have written to Manchester City Council to find out who I can complain to, as I believe that the parking payment machine was malfunctioning. I am hoping that other people may have also complained, as when I parked there my friend who lived locally told me that other people had had issues there, but as I'd paid for parking and hadn't overstayed, I didn't think it would be a problem.
Initially I thought that I would try to find out how many 'keypad errors' had been issued from that machine in the time around mine - but as it isn't local authority land I can't use Freedom of Information, is there another way of getting this information?
The car park company have referred my 'unpaid parking charge' to a debt recovery company
debt recovery plus ltd. 
it says reason for issue 'NO VALID PAY AND DISPLAY PERMIT WAS PURCHASED'  - but is was, and presumably they accepted that I had paid when they suggested that i instead pay an 'admin fee'.
Also I kind of ignored that because when it says 'don't complain to the ombudsman'  its a bit like a ransom note saying 'don't go to the police'. It just sounds wrong.

Umkomaas

ECP very, very rarely proceed all the way to a court hearing. I doubt you're going to be one of the few. But, stay on your toes.

LDast

ruralranter said:

I have written to Manchester City Council to find out who I can complain to, as I believe that the parking payment machine was malfunctioning.

What do MCC have to do with the unregulated private parking company? Do they own the land where the car park is located? If they do, and this ever progresses to Plan D, then there are other issues that could be used in a defence.

Regarding all the other "information" you are asking about, you will have to wait and see if they decide to take you to court. As mentioned, this is ideally what you want if they don't cancel it as you will be able to require them to provide all their evidence. Until then, you just ignore all DRA letters.

Gr1pr

Manchester City Council won't have any involvement so if they do reply they will tell the OP to contact the landowner and ECP 

Coupon-mad

And you can't get info on how many keying errors were caused by that machine.

Don't give DRP letters a single thought.  Enjoy your summer and ignore the monthly £170 threatograms.

ruralranter

Coupon-mad said:

And you can't get info on how many keying errors were caused by that machine.

Don't give DRP letters a single thought.  Enjoy your summer and ignore the monthly £170 threatograms.

hahaha, the image!