Euro Car Parks/Malfunctioning Machine/Major keying error.

[Falconi27]

My daughter received a PCN issued by Euro Car Parks (ECP) in October. She appealed and they sent a rejection letter dated 18/11. They say that it was a major keying error by her and as such, a £20 admin fee will settle the case. ( PCN £100 ). Can she still appeal to POPLA i.e. is she within the relevant time period and more importantly, will POPLA look at her appeal if she has refused the offer of the £20 fee? ( their website suggests that they won't accept appeals in such cases).

The facts are that she was in a car park in Cheltenham, paid for 3 hours, put the ticket on her car but didn't check the ticket details. It seems that the machine only recorded 1 digit. She says the machine must have been faulty. Confirmation of payment to ECP is proved by her credit card statement so they must have an unreconcilable payment for that time on that day. Did they really check thoroughly, can they be expected to? How do we show the machine was faulty?

If she continues with the process can you confirm whether it is acceptable for ECP to add costs other than the summons fee to any claim that they make.

Any thoughts please?

[des8]

So go back to EURO and pay. Not worth fighting for £20
The latest operators Code of Practice.(https://www.britishparking.co.uk/wri...ofPractice.pdf)

"ANNEX F.3 Appeals where the charge should be reduced to £20 for a period of 14 days:
a) where the driver has paid the tariff but made a major keying error when registering their vehicle for example, letters ....... missing;;

The reason for this is that the parking company has incurred costs, in the old days(!) it would have been the £60, escalating to £100.

PoPLA would most likely side with the parking company as the mistake would be consider as mitigation only.

I would pay and thank the Lord for the new code which came into force 1st October

[Falconi27]

Thanks for the quick reply. Those were more or less my thoughts too until I started to look further. My daughter isn't stupid and it's more likely that there was a fault with the machine. Of course, ECP won't admit to that and they won't account for any unreconciled payments during that time. It shouldn't be too onerous for them and for the admin fee I would expect something to be shown as to what they actually have done. Of course the answer is nothing as they are just in a numbers game. It's only £20 + £3.95 already paid and collected but how many more of those do these parasites collect. Anyway, I thank you again for your info.