On the 8th November 2025 I drove the Registered Keeper’s (my wife) car to Brookwood Train Station. I made payment via the Ringo App, but mistakenly selected the licence plate for my car, not the registered keepers. I did not realise this mistake at the time.
A couple of weeks later the Registered Keeper received a PCN from APCOA. The Registered Keeper asked me to check I had paid that day, I found the paid booking on Ringo, but then noticed it was for my own vehicle.
We decided to appeal, given we had paid a parking charge that day, albeit not registering the correct vehicle. Our thought process here was they had ANPR, they would be able to see that my vehicle had not entered that day, etc.
As the PCN stated the registered keeper OR driver of the vehicle could appeal, my wife asked me to handle it, given it was paid under my Ringo account.
I lodged the appeal via the APCOA website on the 21st November 2025 and received an automated acknowledgment by email.
A couple of weeks later we received a letter from APCOA (dated 3rd December 2025), stating our appeal could not be progressed, as we needed to provide either written consent from the registered keeper or confirmation that I was the driver at the time of the alleged contravention. The APCOA website would not allow the appeal to be updated in any way as the letter suggested. So I raised a ticket with their support team (which they sent an automated acknowledgement for) on the 12th December 2025. In this I confirmed I was as previously stated the driver of the vehicle at the time.
I did not receive any response, so sent another support request, given the letter of the 3rd stated we had 14 days to respond on the 17th December, which again received an automated response acknowledging our request.
We finally received a response from APCOA via email on the 30th December 2025 (in relation to the message sent on 12th December), stating:
"Thank you for your email.
This evidence has been uploaded to the case for review. Please await a separate response from our appeals department.
Please note that this Penalty Notice was issued under Railway Byelaws. Therefore, the registered keeper of the vehicle is liable for the charge. In line with current GDPR regulations, APCOA are only able to discuss a Penalty Notice with the named person on the notice, or a third party if authorisation is provided.
If authorisation is not provided, our appeals department may be unable to discuss the case with yourself."
We received another letter shortly after from Apcoa dated 24th December 2025, stating we needed to complete a Transfer of Liability Online form.
This functionality did not work (I did screenshot this at the time), after completing the form, it simply stated “Sorry there has already been a previous appeal for this Parking Charge”.
I raised another support request on the 6th January 2026 with them clearly re-stating our appeal, and also attaching a signed letter from the registered keeper stating I was the driver at the time of the parking contravention, also providing the ringo receipt again.
This received an automated response on the 6th January 2026, followed by an email from an APCOA employee stating:
"Good afternoon,
Thankyou for your email.
The correspondence has now been added."
We then heard nothing until 3 weeks ago, 4TH May, when we received a letter from ZZPS (dated 27th April 2026) stating we now need to pay £85 for the Penalty Notice plus their debt resolution fees of £70.
As we had never had a response from APCOA to our appeal, I attempted to review the appeal on APCOAs website. This proved to be impossible as APCOA have changed their appeals references, and will now no longer accept our PCN reference of the form SWRXXXXXXX (SWR followed by 7 digits) to be entered into their site.
I raised another query with their support team asking for the outcome of our appeal, and expressing concern that this had been passed to ZZPS without us being provided the outcome of our appeal. They acknowledged receipt of this message on the <insert date>. I chased this again on the 15th May, to which no acknowledgement was sent back. We have received no response from APCOA to date.
We have since received an additional letter from ZZPS (dated 11th May 2026) stating that if we don’t respond within 14 days it will be passed to GCTT enforcement agents. When I googled both these company names, this forum showed up.
I did also try to use the whatsapp link on the back of the ZZPS letters for "if you need help" and that just auto responds with this service is currently not available, please try again later.
I would just like to know where we stand with this, given we did make a payment on the day, albeit as we acknowledge for the wrong vehicle. Our issue, asides from the APCOA appeal process making us send the same information multiple times, is that they’ve never given us a response to our appeal, just passed it on.
