Railway Station Parking

claretparrot

Hi all,

First of all, thank you so much for the advice and material on this forum. Without it, I would be one of the (presumably) many who reluctantly pay the fine to make it all go away...

I am not after any advice right now (albeit would appreciate any and all!). However, I thought I would leave a post here and update as things progress, as there have been a couple of interesting quirks in my experience.

I am the registered keeper, but not the owner, of a vehicle that is parked regularly at Northampton Railway Station. The driver parks here 2-3 times per week for commuting and pays for parking using the autopay function on the 'Trust' app. On two occasions in January (within a week fortnight of one another), the autopay function failed unbeknownst to the driver. No app notification or any other sign of an issue until two Penalty Notices landed some weeks later. Autopayment has worked consistently before and since - all very odd.

Luckily, I did some research and found this forum. I submitted the standard appeal from the newbies section in response to both PNs. I also made a fairly strongly worded complaint to London Northwestern (the landowner). My approach in email exchanges with Saba has been to contest their interpretation of the byelaws and basically play dumb - asking them to reassign the case to the driver or the owner (whilst not naming either party).

We are roughly two months in on both PNs and my experience so far has been pretty standard, except for two things:

1. The response I received from London Northwestern genuinely shocked me in it's inaccuarate and (in my opinion) negligent advice. I have pasted an extract below
2. After some back and forth with Saba, I was invited to appeal the first PN again on grounds I had been debating with their agent over email. I did so with a two page letter which contained mostly points from this forum (owner vs keeper, PN turned up late, signs illegible in the dark etc.). I heard nothing for over a fortnight, and have still not received any response to my appeal, but the first £170 debt collection letter arrived from ZZPS today. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but to not even acknowledge the appeal (except auto repsonse including a promise the amount would not rise whilst I wait!) before passing onto debt collectors I found pretty low!

I will update with anything noteworthy as things progress and hopefully a happy outcome in a few months. If anyone has any golden nuggets of advice from similar cases, I'd be very grateful. For example, would it be worth a complaint to Transport Focus given the rail operator's response?



Here is the extract from London Northwestern's response to my complaint (bolding is my own):

I was sorry to hear that you had difficulty with purchasing your parking ticket at Northampton station.

 

As you are aware, this car park is owned by Saba Parking UK, and so all parking notices are issued by this company and all appeals should be sent directly to them for review. Unfortunately, we do not have any input in the issuing of Parking Notices. To appeal this decision, all information on how to do so will have been included in your initial notice letter.

 

You will need to contact Saba directly to resolve this matter. I have attached their details for your convenience: https://www.sabaparking.co.uk/pay-a-parking-ticket

 

Please note, we do advise customers to pay the fine given within the timeframe, even if you are appealing the notice. If your appeal is successful, this payment will be refunded. This advice is to avoid further charges being added to your notice.

Thanks all!

NB: correction in third paragraph, denoted by strikeout.

Coupon-mad

Yes make a complaint to Transport Focus. Their reply lying that SABA own the car park is clueless but this is even worse because you cannot do both (as you know):

"Please note, we do advise customers to pay the fine given within the timeframe, even if you are appealing the notice. If your appeal is successful, this payment will be refunded. This advice is to avoid further charges being added to your notice."

I heard nothing for over a fortnight, and have still not received any response to my appeal, but the first £170 debt collection letter arrived from ZZPS today. I know I shouldn't be surprised, but to not even acknowledge the appeal (except auto repsonse including a promise the amount would not rise whilst I wait!) before passing onto debt collectors I found pretty low!

I'd like to show this to the Government but need pictures. Please can you show three things:

- the two PNs (redacted of data & ref and any QR code)

- a copy of the auto-reply showing the date,

and

- the ZZPS letter please, showing the date.

claretparrot

Thanks for the the response, CM. I'll post those pictures tomorrow, when I'm back at home.

claretparrot

Hi @Coupon-mad,

My best stab below at pasting the images, in this order:

1. PN 1 (to which the appeal, auto reply and ZZPS letter relate)
2. PN 2 (unrelated to other documents for this purpose)
3. My redacted appeal email (with timestamp, to help demonstrate the auto-reply is legitimate)
4. Saba's auto-reply
5. ZZPS letter

ChirpyChicken

it will time out in June

claretparrot

July, I think, but yes. Thank you for confirming.

Per my first post this is more for interest than because I am overly worried

Coupon-mad

claretparrot said:

Hi @Coupon-mad,

My best stab below at pasting the images, in this order:

1. PN 1 (to which the appeal, auto reply and ZZPS letter relate)
2. PN 2 (unrelated to other documents for this purpose)
3. My redacted appeal email (with timestamp, to help demonstrate the auto-reply is legitimate)
4. Saba's auto-reply
5. ZZPS letter

So there we have it. Thanks for this evidence!

Yet more proof for the Government (which I will show them, don't you worry) that ZZPS (aka paymyparkingcharge) are routinely sending out £170 threatograms during the farce of the appeals stage that THEY are handling for SABA... and they acknowledged this month!

Threatening CRIMINAL PROSECUTION too.

Utter scammery.

claretparrot

Thanks, CM.

I have replied to London Northwestern today (buoyed by your comments) with a much more strongly worded follow-up. I will start the Transport Focus / Rail Ombudsman process when I have some time in the coming days.

Thanks again

ChirpyChicken

claretparrot said:

Thanks, CM.

I have replied to London Northwestern today (buoyed by your comments) with a much more strongly worded follow-up. I will start the Transport Focus / Rail Ombudsman process when I have some time in the coming days.

Thanks again

nice one good luck with that

LDast

Just report SABA to the police. This is not a real Penalty Notice. SABA is a private company with no legal authority to issue or enforce penalties under Railway Byelaws. Only a Train Operating Company or other 'authority' can issue a genuine Penalty Notice, and any money must be paid to the public purse—not to a private company.

This also cannot be a Parking Charge Notice (PCN), because a PCN is a civil matter based on a contract. It must be clearly presented as a civil contractual charge, not disguised as a criminal penalty. If a private company issues a notice that looks like a fine or uses legal-sounding language to suggest criminal consequences, that is deliberately misleading.

What laws are being broken?

Under Section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006, this is:

Fraud by false representation – when someone dishonestly makes a false statement to gain money or cause someone a loss.

SABA is pretending the notice is a real criminal penalty, when it isn’t, and demanding payment by threatening prosecution they cannot carry out. That is a false representation made for financial gain, and it should be reported to the police.

kryten3000

Hopefully you will also have found the threads where SABA attempt to morph these Penalty Notices into Parking Charge Notices that they will pass to Moorside Legal for collection.  I've assisted with several similar cases in Milton Keynes and Northampton (spoiler alert, it didn't go well for SABA), so do let me know if you end up with a claim form.