Been a while. My partner got 3pcn in a row.

Zbubuman

Here we go again. I have to admit that my adrenaline is pumping and I am actually excited. 

Just received 3 pcn notices to hirer from P Smart Parking. contraventions are 4,5,6 of July and notices were all issued on the 8th of October. 

Long story short, my partner hired a car whilst travelling up in Scotland. she was using the hotel parking which she paid for and has now just realised that she input her own vehicle reg in the terminal instead of the hire car ( effing Plonker). 

Anyways, I'll do my research and let you know how it goes. 

Zbubuman

Ok, just looking for some feedback and reassurance here.

Step 1 - plan A - complaint to the hotel
Step 2 - send out an Edna Basher at the last possible moment ( day 25 or 26) - since they did not include hire agreement, etc with the NTH, my understanding is that this would be an automatic win at POPLA ( my only concern is that this was in Scotland so POPLA might insist on driver details)

mebu60

Step 1 - what has the hotel done wrong / negligently that you will be complaining about? 

Umkomaas

If these parking events were all up in Scotland then there's nothing really that Smart can do about it. You just really need to ensure the lease/hire company has formally transferred liability to your partner and she has received 'Notice to Hirer' letters for each event. 

Then, she writes to Smart (separately for each NtH) confirming that she was the hirer of the vehicle (not driver!) and that she will be dealing with this. Then .... she ignores anything further from Smart!

James_Poisson

mebu60 said:

Step 1 - what has the hotel done wrong / negligently that you will be complaining about? 

Hired a free bunch of intransigent scammers to prey on their guests to extract money from them for a slight mistake maybe?

The hotel was not out of pocket, their pretend parking management company has installed a cheap catch em all ANPR system for the sole purpose of catching people out, nothing less than a money making scam, with threats.

Zbubuman

mebu60 said:

Step 1 - what has the hotel done wrong / negligently that you will be complaining about? 

Never said they did anything wrong. But plan A is always to complain to landowner. We stayed at your hotel, here is booking confirmation, as patrons we are entitled to use parking facilities which you advertise as free, so why are we suddenly receiving these letters, etc

mebu60

James_Poisson said:

mebu60 said:

Step 1 - what has the hotel done wrong / negligently that you will be complaining about? 

Hired a free bunch of intransigent scammers to prey on their guests to extract money from them for a slight mistake maybe?

The hotel was not out of pocket, their pretend parking management company has installed a cheap catch em all ANPR system for the sole purpose of catching people out, nothing less than a money making scam, with threats.

What if their primary reason was to deter non-residents and others not using the hotel from taking parking spaces that are for the use of guests? They have seemingly installed a simple and straightforward process which was clearly obvious for guests to register their vehicles.

We don't know the context of the car park, if it is large and in the middle of nowhere I'd be with you but if it's in a busy area where other folk are likely to use the spaces I'd be pretty peeved as a guest turning up to find nowhere to park. 

mebu60

Zbubuman said:

mebu60 said:

Step 1 - what has the hotel done wrong / negligently that you will be complaining about? 

Never said they did anything wrong. But plan A is always to complain to landowner. We stayed at your hotel, here is booking confirmation, as patrons we are entitled to use parking facilities which you advertise as free, so why are we suddenly receiving these letters, etc

Was just trying to understand the angle you'd be coming from. Might a mea culpa prove more beneficial, acknowledge the error and ask for forgiveness?

In your original post:
'she was using the hotel parking which she paid for'
In your latest post:
'we are entitled to use parking facilities which you advertise as free'

Zbubuman

mebu60 said:

Zbubuman said:

mebu60 said:

Step 1 - what has the hotel done wrong / negligently that you will be complaining about? 

Never said they did anything wrong. But plan A is always to complain to landowner. We stayed at your hotel, here is booking confirmation, as patrons we are entitled to use parking facilities which you advertise as free, so why are we suddenly receiving these letters, etc

Was just trying to understand the angle you'd be coming from. Might a mea culpa prove more beneficial, acknowledge the error and ask for forgiveness?

In your original post:
'she was using the hotel parking which she paid for'
In your latest post:
'we are entitled to use parking facilities which you advertise as free'

I mean we paid for the stay. Parking is free for guests

James_Poisson

mebu60 said:

Zbubuman said:

mebu60 said:

Step 1 - what has the hotel done wrong / negligently that you will be complaining about? 

Never said they did anything wrong. But plan A is always to complain to landowner. We stayed at your hotel, here is booking confirmation, as patrons we are entitled to use parking facilities which you advertise as free, so why are we suddenly receiving these letters, etc

Was just trying to understand the angle you'd be coming from. Might a mea culpa prove more beneficial, acknowledge the error and ask for forgiveness?

In your original post:
'she was using the hotel parking which she paid for'
In your latest post:
'we are entitled to use parking facilities which you advertise as free'

Who do you think the OP is going to grovel to the PPC?

You do realise that they are ecstatic when people make these mistakes as their one revenue stream is catching people out, it won't make any difference proven thousands of times before.

What does the joint COP state about major keying errors?

The hotel should get these invoices cancelled, and not hide behind a "not our problem" excuse where is customer service in this.

Expecting a guest to jump through hoops after paying their parking fees isn't looking after customers, parking operators design these systems to catch people and fail to point out what their ATAs COP recommends when mistakes are made, it dents their profits.

All a little immaterial though Umko has laid out the process if the hotel duck out.

mebu60

James_Poisson said:

mebu60 said:

Zbubuman said:

mebu60 said:

Step 1 - what has the hotel done wrong / negligently that you will be complaining about? 

Never said they did anything wrong. But plan A is always to complain to landowner. We stayed at your hotel, here is booking confirmation, as patrons we are entitled to use parking facilities which you advertise as free, so why are we suddenly receiving these letters, etc

Was just trying to understand the angle you'd be coming from. Might a mea culpa prove more beneficial, acknowledge the error and ask for forgiveness?

In your original post:
'she was using the hotel parking which she paid for'
In your latest post:
'we are entitled to use parking facilities which you advertise as free'

Who do you think the OP is going to grovel to the PPC?

.

The conversation was about writing to the hotel, not the PPC.

Being outcome focused with a desired outcome of getting the hotel to cancel the invoices a less adversarial approach to the hotel in the first instance may yield a better result. The hotel has not yet said it is not their problem, they may well prove to be quite helpful if approached in the right manner. 

Unfortunately due to the selfish behaviour of some people many premises have to implement systems to ensure their genuine customers are able to get a parking space, either by systems like this or charging extra for parking. 

I would not class entering your registration as 'jumping through hoops'. Nor would I think that approaching the hotel in a non-aggressive manner in the first place is 'grovelling'. Give them the opportunity to do the right thing. Then go in all guns blazing if they don't.