Spurious Parking Fine

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Sun 8 Jul 2012 13:04
Spurious Parking Fine - olympic

I booked my car into a park & ride car park in order to catch a flight from Luton. On arrival at the car park I was directed by the attendant where to park, then I proceeded to the office to register and deliver my keys. My family and I then boarded the bus provided by the car park to tranport us to the airport. All fine! 2 weeks later, to my amazement I receive a Parking Enforcement Notice from APCOA asking for £40 increasing to £80 after 14 days. The alleged offence was "01 - Failing to park in a designated parking area at Luton Airport on 9th June 2012 at 7.26am" Remarkably the followng day I received another Parking Enforcement Notice (different reference number) This time the alleged offence state "02 - Dropping / Picking Up outside of a designated parking area" the time was exactly the same as alleged offence number 1. This all seems incredible, especially as no-one was "dropped off" and the only parking was where allocated by the staff prior to handing over the car keys. We have challenged this and have asked for proof of these offences and await their reply. Would love to know your opinion on this and where do we stand legally. We paid for our parking fully and did absolutely no wrongdoing, we recieved no parking ticket on the car, in fact we just arrived at the designated area, paid our money and collected our car after our holiday exactly as instructed.

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Sun 8 Jul 2012 14:18
Spurious Parking Fine - Armitage Shanks {p}

Parking Enforcement Notice is new terminology, to me. I suggest you do NOT deal with APCOA and refer the whole matter to whoever operates the car park instead. You paid them for the use of the facility and obeyed the instructions of their employee thus any Penalty incurred is down to them

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Sun 8 Jul 2012 15:44
Spurious Parking Fine - Dwight Van Driver
If the parking is not controlled by statutory authority i.e. Traffic regulation Order/Off Street Parking then it is a civil matter of contract between owners of land (and those operating on their behalf) and THE DRIVER of the vehicle.

They have to ID the driver and the Reg Owner has no obligation to ID that person (unlike statutory control).

It is often suggested that such tickets be binned immediately and no correspondence entered into.

I this case the poster had approached APCOA and may well have given them the necessary information to take the matter to Civil Court, if amount not paid.

Whilst it would seem avenues for appeal in these matters are not independant
I would hope sense is seen and tickets cancelled.....but who knows? I am doubtful.

dvd


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Sun 8 Jul 2012 17:09
Spurious Parking Fine - daveyjp
The only correspondence I would respond to is official Court papers, ignore everything else. They have sent you speculative invoices under the pretence of them having an official capacity to impose penalty charge notices.

These companies do sometimes send fake Court papers stamped DRAFT, these can also be ignored.

Alternatvely write to the Chief Exec of Luton Airport and tell him if he doesn't instruct the cowboys to stop chasing you for a debt you deny you will sue him for harrassment.
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Mon 16 Jul 2012 14:08
Spurious Parking Fine - concrete
The only correspondence I would respond to is official Court papers, ignore everything else. They have sent you speculative invoices under the pretence of them having an official capacity to impose penalty charge notices. These companies do sometimes send fake Court papers stamped DRAFT, these can also be ignored. Alternatvely write to the Chief Exec of Luton Airport and tell him if he doesn't instruct the cowboys to stop chasing you for a debt you deny you will sue him for harrassment.

I agree with daveyjp, unfortunately I think the poster has already contacted the parking outfit, and although not ideal I would write again stating you have no case to answer and inform them that no further correspondence will be entered into. Then ignore the letters they send. Official court papers will not come from them, but from the court itself. These you need to take seriously. From what you say you have an excellent case so stick with it. I am pretty sure it is illegal to send copies of court papers to anyone, when the court has not endorsed the papers. This used to be called the 'blue frightener', but has been stopped I think. If they try this then you can report them to the court, it is serious breach of procedure and they would be in trouble.

It may be worth writing to the CEO of the airport, but I doubt you could sue him for someone else harrassing you. Instead point out that you will think twice before using Luton airport again due to the potential problems involved with car parking. It is in his interests to have this matter and future procedures sorted out.

Good luck and let us all know the outcome. Cheers Concrete

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