Euro Car Parks PCNs are not PoFA Compliant

bill93326

I received a parking charge notice from Euro Car Parks which had several errors in it and I believe it is likely all Euro Car Parks PCNs probably contain these errors. Hopefully this is useful to other people. 

The PCN I received was issued on 29-Jan-25. It said payment must be made "within 28 days of date issued: by 26/02/2025". However later it says payment must be made within "28 days beginning with the day after that on which the notice is given (which is presumed to be the second working day after the Date issued)". This date would be 01-Mar. The date posted and the date issued are both the same date which I think is a clear breach of PoFA. The fact that both dates are presented on the same document is clearly confusing and appears to be in breach of the Protection of Freedoms Act (PoFA).

The parking charge also says "You must include a £2.50 handling charge for cheque processing". Under the Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) Regulations 2012, businesses cannot impose additional fees for payments made by common methods, including cheques. I think ECP are acting outside the law by demanding an extra fee for paying by cheque.

I believe Euro Car Parks has acted outside the bounds of the law in their issuance of the PCN and given the errors are in templated parts of the PCN I imagine all their PCNs are incorrect. 

I appealed the PCN and it was cancelled without a reason given though I feel it is clear why. A colleague of mine also appealed a PCN separately for a keying error in the same car park. ECP rejected the appeal without offering the £20 keying error rate so I have instructed him to appeal to POPLA who will cancel the PCN and ECP will need to pay the £30 POPLA fee. 

I complained to the BPA however did not hear back from them. I have now complained to the DVLA and would strongly suggest anyone else who has a PCN from ECP with similar errors do so too. If several people complained it is possible they could lose their access to DVLA data... 

Fruitcake

Well done. Please sign the petition below and get your friends and family to do the same.

Bring the Parking Code of Practice into law, as per the 2019 Act of Parliament. - Petitions

Please also get everyone who ever receives a PCN to complain to the landowner and their MP. All complaints should be from the keeper.

Just to note, if ECP withdraw from the PoPLA appeal, they don't have to pay. Poor, poor PoPLA.

bill93326

@Fruitcake

IMO complaining to landowners & MPs are effective to get one-off PCNs cancelled.

Landowners will generally benefit financially from PCN share and MPs really have no appetite for dealing with PCNs. Normally it is MP's staff who deal with PCNs and the MP is not even aware of them.

However what PPCs fear the most is losing access to DVLA data. If enough valid complaints are made to the DVLA about instances where PPCs didn't have reasonable cause to request keeper data or misuse the data they receive then they will lose all access to DVLA data for a period of time. This can be crippling for those companies and they then have to explain to every landowner they have why no PCNs are being issued for months on end. 

Gr1pr

As Ldast recently posted about in their discussion thread

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6597911/dvla-complaints-about-ppcs-abysmally-low-why/p1