I don't really need help fighting this, but it's Parking Charge related so I don't think it belongs in the Flame Pit. It raised some interesting but mostly theoretical questions and I'm curious what more experienced people think.
A recent SAR (separate can of worms) to Luton Airport suggests APCOA tried issuing me a PCN for a visit to the express drop off about 6 weeks ago. This is not a surprise. The visit happened, the driver spent some time reading the terms and conditions and I believe they decided to leave without accepting the terms (separate can of worms 2).
No letter arrived. This is probably because:
a. The visit happened the same day I purchased the vehicle. I'm not sure if my details had time to make it through the system.
b. Turns out the seller sent incorrect details (correct name, completely different address, couple towns over, their fault) to DVLA. I am in the process of clearing that up.
I don't want a CCJ popping up in a few years so I plan to let APCOA know I was the keeper of the vehicle at the time. I wonder what would happen if hypothetically this was relevant land and the PCN was otherwise POFA 2012 compliant. If they reissued the NTK, could I still rely on them going beyond the 14-day limit to get out of keeper liability even when they had no reasonable way to find out who the actual keeper of the vehicle was in time? There are routes for when this happens with hire cars, but I don't see anything for cases when the vehicle is owned outright and it's just paperwork confusion.
You can't appeal it if the Notice to Keeper (NtK) is not in your name. Why did you send a SAR to APCOA? Were you aware that they had possible sent you a PCN but you know you'd never receive it because of the V5C not yet being updated?
I wouldn't worry about any CCJ in the future. APCOA do not litigate. Eventually, they would move on to lower-hanging fruit on the gullible tree to extort money from. They know that unless they know the drivers identity, they cannot get any money from the keeper. The only way they would know the drivers identity would be if the Keeper blabbed it to them in the first place, inadvertently or otherwise.
In this scenario, they would not be getting any response to their correspondence. No point in wasting too much effort beyond scare tactics. It costs them to file a claim and they have a much bigger pool of gullible victims to profit from.
The SAR was made to Luton Airport, not APCOA itself. According to ICO and their own Privacy Policy they should then be coordinating a response from APCOA and any other companies. I suspected they tried issuing a PCN to the wrong address. Luton Airport got back to me with a partial response. They didn't provide photos or the PCN itself, but they said one was issued for my car.
I'm more curious than worried. I'm wondering about a hypothethical scenario with a company that would normally do keeper liability right. Seems a parking company could do everything right and still have no way of recovering any money. Life being fair to parking companies is not a huge concern for me. I just haven't seen a similar case and it got me wondering.
They didn't provide photos or the PCN itself
If the PCN was issued before you became the keeper as per DVLA, and the PCN was issued to someone else, then in theory they are correct not to provide the PCN to you, as it would not be your personal data.
As this is a hypothetical case rather than a live one, I'll move it to the Flame Pit. In the unlikely event you do receive anything from APCOA, I'll move it back.
By that logic should they even be telling me they issued the PCN at all?
I used the new keeper slip to prove my identity and the DPO was ok with that, so I think they were satisfied I was the actual keeper at the time.
I can't tell if the PCN has dealer's name, or my name + incorrect address, but either way at least the photographs should have been provided.
I think I will poke the bear a bit, so there's a chance I receive something, but it should be easy enough to fight off.
Agree x 2
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