APCOA parking fine/ POPLA appeal for EV charging - advice please

Romeo_Mars

Hello everyone,

A friend recommended this forum to me after I shared my dilemma, and unfortunately, I now realise I may have taken the wrong course of action after reading through several posts. It seems I’ve come across the advice that I needed a bit too late.

That said, I’d really appreciate any guidance or help anyone might be willing to offer.

Starting off with, my EV car is a lease from my company.

I use the EV chargers at Welwyn Garden City railway station which is managed by APCOA to charge my EV and have done so for the past year without any issues  

Lately (from mid October 2024) I started receiving random Parking Charge Notices (11 PCNs to date) for select dates for the months of August, September and October 2024 from APCOA stating that I had not paid for the time spent in the car park. 

The PCN was issued saying the fine is £85, but if paid within 14 days will be reduced to £50.

I submitted appeals for each of the PCNs through the APCOA website, providing proof of the plugging and unplugging times as well as receipts showing payment for charging my car.

About a week later from submission, I receive their decision which rejected my appeal stating that I did not pay for “parking” and their PCN still stands. 

The APCOA app clearly offers two separate payment options: one for parking and another specifically labeled “EV charging only. And I selected the latter as I was only there to charge my car. 

I was given the option to appeal to POPLA, which I have now done for each of the PCNs. In my appeal, I contested the evidence provided by APCOA and argued that the PCNs were issued in error. I pointed out that nowhere in their signage, terms and conditions, or app does it mention a requirement to pay for additional parking while charging. I have requested that the PCNs be cancelled on this basis and I’m currently waiting for the outcome.

This situation has been quite stressful, as the potential cost is significant, and I feel strongly about not paying these fines on principle.

To add to this on Thursday, I received a debt collector email from APCOA via my lease company for a PCN which I never received and I’m unsure as to how to proceed with this one as I do not have a letter and have never received any notification of this parking charge. 

Any helpful comments and advice will be greatly appreciated. 

Thanking you for help in advance. 

Le_Kirk

Have you received NTKs or NTHs? Did the lease company just forward the NTK in their name to you? They should have used the tear-off slip at the bottom of the NTK to transfer liability to you as hirer NOT driver.. 

Romeo_Mars

The lease company forwarded an email of the PCN titled- notification only. In the email it said “in line with the contract they had provided my name and postal address to APCOA who will write to me directly”. And I received letters from APCOA in the post for each PCN. 

Le_Kirk

You do know to ignore debt collectors rubbish don't you?

Coupon-mad

Luckily for you, APCOA can be ignored and nothing will happen.

Next time, if you get a PCN, you can see (now) and have hopefully learned that you had 100% winning point for all PCNs at first: you only had to appeal as hirer as per the NEWBIES thread company/hire car example.

You could not have lost!

NEVER EVER appeal before checking here because the law and appeals will change in a year.  We will always keep up.

Romeo_Mars

Hi All

I have an update.

I received a further 3 PCN from APCOA , and this time round I used the template provided from the newbies chat.

One PCN has been cancelled, but for the other two, I received this reply

Thank you for your letter regarding the above mentioned Parking Charge Notice which was received on 22 November 2024.

We have updated our records to reflect your comments, however, once you have submitted an appeal and it has been rejected, we are unable to process another appeal.

As our internal appeals process is now complete, please refer to your notice of rejection for the options now available to you.

Please note that any further correspondence will be noted on our records but may not be responded to


I have not received the notice of rejection mentioned in the letter, so I am not entirely sure what to do next.

Any advice, suggestions are welcomed

Thanks 

fisherjim

Why do you keep getting PCN's, surely you now realise that these idiots expect payment for parking?

However I have the useless APCOA app too and can find no reference to having to pay additionally for parking time.

Though on their equally poor website there is a confusing reference to this:

So do you not pay for parking when charging, but you do when fully charged?

Coupon-mad

Romeo_Mars said:

Hi All

I have an update.

I received a further 3 PCN from APCOA , and this time round I used the template provided from the newbies chat.

One PCN has been cancelled, but for the other two, I received this reply

Thank you for your letter regarding the above mentioned Parking Charge Notice which was received on 22 November 2024.

We have updated our records to reflect your comments, however, once you have submitted an appeal and it has been rejected, we are unable to process another appeal.

As our internal appeals process is now complete, please refer to your notice of rejection for the options now available to you.

Please note that any further correspondence will be noted on our records but may not be responded to


I have not received the notice of rejection mentioned in the letter, so I am not entirely sure what to do next.

Any advice, suggestions are welcomed

Thanks 

Surely you didn't send a letter snail mail?  They've taken it to relate to the older PCN you already appealed.

Go online and appeal the recent three as keeper.

Romeo_Mars

fisherjim said:

Why do you keep getting PCN's, surely you now realise that these idiots expect payment for parking?

However I have the useless APCOA app too and can find no reference to having to pay additionally for parking time.

Though on their equally poor website there is a confusing reference to this:

So do you not pay for parking when charging, but you do when fully charged?

I use the charger daily to charge my car because there isn't one near my block of flats. However, since I started receiving PCNs, I've stopped using it. So these are PCNs for past usage.

Romeo_Mars

Coupon-mad said:

Romeo_Mars said:

Hi All

I have an update.

I received a further 3 PCN from APCOA , and this time round I used the template provided from the newbies chat.

One PCN has been cancelled, but for the other two, I received this reply

Thank you for your letter regarding the above mentioned Parking Charge Notice which was received on 22 November 2024.

We have updated our records to reflect your comments, however, once you have submitted an appeal and it has been rejected, we are unable to process another appeal.

As our internal appeals process is now complete, please refer to your notice of rejection for the options now available to you.

Please note that any further correspondence will be noted on our records but may not be responded to


I have not received the notice of rejection mentioned in the letter, so I am not entirely sure what to do next.

Any advice, suggestions are welcomed

Thanks 

Surely you didn't send a letter snail mail?  They've taken it to relate to the older PCN you already appealed.

Go online and appeal the recent three as keeper.

I appealed the three online as hirer/lessee using the same template for each of them. But for some reason one was cancelled but the other two rejected.

Coupon-mad

So put in a complaint online now about not receiving a POPLA Code for the 2 PCNs.