Smart Parking Ltd "fine"

palawan_2 · 10 February 2017 at 11:48AM

Hi all,

I have received a "PCN" from Smart Parking Ltd.

Early one sunday we parked at the Astle Retail Park, West Bromwich. There were bags over some of the charge points stating parking was free on sunday, though other signs stated a charge applied. Despite these confusing signs, my wife purchased a ticket but entered the registration number for our second car, in error, which did not therefore match the car we drove.

I appealed to Smart Parking, received a rejection from them and last night registered an appeal on line to POPLA . I still have the ticket which I added/uploaded to my POPLA appeal.

Now, having done the appeal I do not think it is likely I will win. At the end of the day we entered the wrong registration number and none of the defined appeal options presented by POPLA covered this. I just have a feeling I won't win the POPLA appeal. I did not photograph the different signs on the day, and my only "evidence" is a ticket with the wrong registration number on, which i added to my appeal. I have therefore assumed that POPLA will not find in my favour.

My question is: how likely is it that they will take me to court, and also if they do take me to court and they win, how much more costs on top of the £100 will I have to pay?

Frankly, I am that angry about this I am prepared to be go to court and pay the fine pus extra, as long as it is not too excessive. I will try to inconvenience them as much as possible.

I also wrote to the MP and the stores about this to raise awareness.

Thanks for any advice.

Guys_Dad · 10 February 2017 at 12:03PM

I would ask the store to confirm that there were bags over some of the charge points stating parking was free on sunday and querying why you received a ticket and asking them to cancel.

Just that, nothing about wrong registration number etc. Pity you didn't have a photo which would have made it all go away.

beamerguy · 10 February 2017 at 12:10PM

palawan wrote: »

Hi all,

I have received a "PCN" from Smart Parking Ltd.

Early one sunday we parked at the Astle Retail Park, West Bromwich. There were bags over some of the charge points stating parking was free on sunday, though other signs stated a charge applied. Despite these confusing signs, my wife purchased a ticket but entered the registration number for our second car, in error, which did not therefore match the car we drove.

I appealed to Smart Parking, received a rejection from them and last night registered an appeal on line to POPLA . I still have the ticket which I added/uploaded to my POPLA appeal.

Now, having done the appeal I do not think it is likely I will win. At the end of the day we entered the wrong registration number and none of the defined appeal options presented by POPLA covered this. I just have a feeling I won't win the POPLA appeal. I did not photograph the different signs on the day, and my only "evidence" is a ticket with the wrong registration number on, which i added to my appeal. I have therefore assumed that POPLA will not find in my favour.

My question is: how likely is it that they will take me to court, and also if they do take me to court and they win, how much more costs on top of the £100 will I have to pay?

Frankly, I am that angry about this I am prepared to be go to court and pay the fine pus extra, as long as it is not too excessive. I will try to inconvenience them as much as possible.

I also wrote to the MP and the stores about this to raise awareness.

Thanks for any advice.

Hi, why are you assuming you will lose, if POPLA DISMISS IT, there is no obligation to pay.

If as you say the signs are poor, get pictures.
Smart will normally reject an appeal simply because they want your money.
If you were shopping and have receipts complain to the retailer and request the ticket is cancelled

Smart Parking were kicked out of Asda.

Read all about Smart here and pay attention to the heading
Smart Parking settle out of court for data protection contravention

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=smart+parking

The_Deep · 10 February 2017 at 12:51PM

Whether you win your PoPLA appeal or not is of little consequence. It is what a judge says that matters, and in a lot of these cases recently, judges have been finding for the motorist.

Coupon-mad · 10 February 2017 at 4:00PM

What a shame you appealed and did the POPLA appeal before you came here. Smart are so very easy to beat at POPLA if worded correctly (not talking about the VRN input). What a waste. You would have 100% won this if appealing as keeper, taking about 'no keeper liability' which would have taken maybe an hour's research, tops.

You can't amend a POPLA appeal, so that ship has sailed.

Now when you lose at POPLA, you will be worried you have to pay.

Will you take our advice and believe us when we show you that Smart issue hundreds of thousands of fake PCNs and never sue anyone - and if they change this in the coming years and drag your case to small claims (keep all paperwork for 6 years) that this is entirely defendable?

http://www.bmpa.eu/companydata/Smart_Parking.html

My question is: how likely is it that they will take me to court.

Zero chance, as you can see (unless they change their approach in future).

and also if they do take me to court and they win, how much more costs on top of the £100 will I have to pay?

...about £50 in court fees, maybe a few quid interest as well, if you lost. No biggie, and this is only Smart. Such a shame you didn't use this forum earlier.

Relax - do look at Smart's evidence and rebut it - but yep, if you appealed about the mitigating circs you will lose the appeal. DO NOT PAY.

palawan_2 · 10 February 2017 at 6:30PM

Thank you for the advice.

I doubt POPLA will help as there were limited, well defined options to select when making the appeal, none of which described what happened.

I did not take photos of those charge points that had labels saying parking was free, and I can't now as I live a hundred miles away.

Coupon-Mad: you write, " What a waste. You would have 100% won this if appealing as keeper, taking about 'no keeper liability' which would have taken maybe an hour's research, tops."

That doesn't make any sense to me, and is patronising, but I thank you for your attempt to help anyway and if those court hearing figures are correct then yes, I can relax.

I will not pay. I will happily go to court and pay up to £300 these scum need to be stood up to.

Coupon-mad · 10 February 2017 at 7:00PM

I doubt POPLA will help as there were limited, well defined options to select when making the appeal, none of which described what happened.

No there weren't, you haven't researched this at all which is why it is such a waste and why this is so upsetting & frustrating for us to read how this was thrown away. We do POPLA appeals every week, I've written templates and they span eight pages of anything we want to argue, plus photos. We submit them under 'other'. No-one ticks the rest of the boxes. They win every time/or Smart give up 100% of the time. Very easy to do but it has to follow a format and not give away the driver & talk about the story of what happened.

if those court hearing figures are correct then yes, I can relax.

Indeed they are, the BMPA is a trustworthy charity collating evidence & info galore. They and we know what we are doing. We have never seen a Smart court claim and the BMPA check the court listings on a daily basis, for parking cases.

The bottom line is relax, and if you win at POPLA, good. If you lose, never mind, ignore Smart unless they use your case as their first ever claim. You are not the first person to shoot several toes off with a wrong appeal approach - several posters do.

But you would be the first if they sue, and it will be defendable (we do court defences too, for people with nastier parking firms than Smart).

palawan_2 · 11 February 2017 at 4:46PM

Coupon-Mad: I again thank you for your reply.

The reason I am not expecting POLPA to find in my favour is that from reading other posts POPLA don't seem to uphold the "entered an incorrect registration number", even if you kept the ticket. Which option do you therefore choose on POPLA? I have therefore, during my POPLA appeal, tried to stress the confusing signs but obviously I have no evidence of this as I did not take pictures at the time, and I'm not driving back to West Bromwrich.

I am currently trying to contact the retail estate to get any sort of evidence regarding those confusing signs we saw. I have wrote to the stores we visited but from what I have read on forums the stores just shrug, so I don't expect much joy there either. I emailed two - no reply. It's not like I have a gym membership to cancel or something. I only bought a coffee, and so I cant return goods. I just told them I won't be shopping there again, but any help they have is greatly appreciated.

So that is why my mind is already on the court. I am not paying unless told to do so by a court. I still have my ticket ( with the incorrect ref number). Surely I can argue that no loss was suffered by the land owner, that good faith was shown? That sort of thing? It's all I've got.

Honestly, I get so angry at these people. I don't even care if I lose and have to pay two or three hundred quid.

Redx · 11 February 2017 at 6:09PM

keep that ticket and all paperwork for 6 years

if it ever does go to court, then yes you would use various legal arguments , plus honesty , to try to convince a judge to cancel the invoice, plus you could claim costs

with not so SMART its unlikeyl to go to court, but never say never

you feel you are in the right , you paid , you have a ticket, its a genuine mistake, so let that buoy your resolve to fight these sc@mmers , if it ever comes to it

but in future follow the advice given here by regulars like CM ,

AND ESPECIALLY READ AND FOLLOW THAT STICKY THREAD TOO

Coupon-mad · 11 February 2017 at 11:28PM

palawan wrote: »

The reason I am not expecting POLPA to find in my favour is that from reading other posts POPLA don't seem to uphold the "entered an incorrect registration number", even if you kept the ticket. Which option do you therefore choose on POPLA? .

That's why we think this will lose too, because of the way it was appealed, which you can't unpick now.

We choose 'other' and never appeal as driver (and would not have even mentioned the excuse or mitigating circumstances about the VRN) as explained in the NEWBIES thread where post #1 has a template first appeal and post #3 has winning POPLA appeal template wording. We have 100% win rate v Smart.

It is too late this time for your case. But it's only Smart, so no worries.

palawan_2 · 11 March 2017 at 4:21PM

UPDATE FROM ME, the OP:

I received a message from POPLA saying that Smart Parking "do not want to contest the appeal". I'm not sure if that means that POPLA found in my favour or that Smart Parking backed down on their own, but the outcome is: no fine.

If you enter an incorrect registration number by mistake - Don't Pay.

Not that I was going to anyway.

These scum should go and find a job instead of trying to rip us off.

Smart Parking Ltd "fine"

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