APCOA Luton Airport drop off fine

michaelfreedman

I have received a letter end of March but dated end of Feb from APCOA. I have no issue with the fine and decided to pay it online. But the APCOA website doesn’t direct me to the payment process, it only says that I can’t go to Appeal. I’m confused. So I called the Luton AIRPORT APCOA who’s informed me that they won’t take the payment. It’s now with Debt Recovery. I haven’t received any letter from Debt Recovery. The original fine was £25.00 if I paid within 14 days, but as I didn’t received their letter, it’s the full amount of £95.00. However, now that it’s going through Debt Recovery it could be £166.00. The Luton APCOA advised me to email the Complaints Luton drop off so they could stop the Debt Recovery, which I have just emailed. However, the Luton Complaints drop off team’s automated reply states that the’UK Customer Complaints Team’ is unable to process any parking Charge appeals’. My dilemma is: 1. APCOA prevents me from paying the fine.
3. It could take an additional 14 days before they reply which means increase of the fine.
2. I am very unsure that the Luton’s UK Customer Complaints team is going to stop the Debt Recovery process.
3. I have explained that their letter was late reaching us (town centre, not in the middle of the country)
4. Debt Recovery: no letter received, which means they could also be delayed by the postal services 
5. I could then get more heavily penalised.

I am not disputing the initial fine. I’m disputing the fact that I am being penalised for postal delays and their system doesn’t allow me to settle the fine.

What can I do? What can be done? 

ChirpyChicken

what you do is forget the amounts, forget paying and do nothing
Apcoa are harmless
Who cares its with a debt recovery firm, they are completely harmless

Coupon-mad

Why aren't you just reading other APCOA threads and cheerfully ignoring them?

Jeff_Howard

Luton Drop off car park, deigned to fail and make you overstay costing almost 4 times what is already overpriced for a 1 minute drop off which equates to £420.00 per hour.

Beware of Luton drop off parking. Yesterday (5.05am 3rd July 26) I dropped my son off with his small weekend bag in Luton's drop off zone, it took somewhere between 10 and 15 seconds to stop, let him out and move on. That is, I couldn't move on because the lane was completely congested. The traffic lights at the end of the lane were also congested and when the lights were green, only the brave could force their way out and sometimes no cars could move out as the lane you move into was blocked with cars coming from the right. In all my 15 second stop cost me £26.00, as it took me a total of 22 minutes to get out of the car park and I was charged an excess of £19.00 over the top of the £7.00 fee. I should add that dozens, if not hundreds of drivers will have suffered the same extra charge. So the question was, do I not pay and object with video evidence or just pay up and shut up?

Well I just don't need the hassle so this mug paid it. Maybe I should have read more threads.

Jeff

Coupon-mad

Don't pay. Do nothing, as long as this isn't a lease or company car.

Await the PCN from APCOA then kill it off with the standard wording seen in the Airport Drop Off Group Thread. No link.