Pay by phone parking location error & appealing council PCN

[Mandat]

I'm preparing a formal appeal against a council PCN I received last month.

I parked in a council car park and used the pay by phone service. Although I entered the correct location code, the payment was allocated to a different location, thus resulting in a PCN being issued.

Following the initial (informal) representation, the council rejected this, and said that I made an error and input the wrong location code. I know that this is not the case, and I have proof, in the form of audio recordings of the pay by phone transaction, which show that the correct location code was entered by me. The error in this instance is therefore with the pay by phone backend system.

The reason for this post, is that I am trying to find any other cases & appeals of pay by phone PCN's being challenged in similar circumstances.

I have already searched Pepipoo & London Tribunals (formerly PATAS) but wasn't able to find anything relevant via their rather limited search engines.

I'm sure that somebody here knows of some other databases or searches that I can look into, and any help would be much appreciated. Ideally, I'm after any successful / unsuccessful appeals to London Tribunals or similar, as I suspect that the council will reject the formal appeal to them.

Thanks.

[Fore Left]

Might be worth asking on Pepipoo

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?s=da62f4390272...

[KungFuPanda]

Take it to formal tribunal with the same evidence.

[Davie_GLA]

Do you have the actual copies of the calls in your possession or are you using the fact that you may be able to get them as defence?

Do you have any location services in your phone such as Google location history that can help? This will of course only prove that your phone was in a specified location and not your car. Using that logic what's to say they cannot state that even with the recordings you were in another location?

Playing devils advocate really but are the location codes easy to mix up? You didn't stage whether the one incorrectly is close to the one you were actually in.

[Mandat]

Davie_GLA said:

Do you have the actual copies of the calls in your possession or are you using the fact that you may be able to get them as defence?

I have the actual call recordings, as my phone is set up to record all incoming and outgoing calls.

Davie_GLA said:

Do you have any location services in your phone such as Google location history that can help? This will of course only prove that your phone was in a specified location and not your car. Using that logic what's to say they cannot state that even with the recordings you were in another location?

I don't think that is relevant. The call recording shows that I was making a call to purchase parking at the location where I was parked, and where the PCN was issued. There is no dispute over where the car was located.

The whole point of the call recordings is that they prove that the error was not down to me in typing in the wrong location code.

If it was not an error on my part, then the system was at fault, therefore the PCN is not justified.

Davie_GLA said:

Playing devils advocate really but are the location codes easy to mix up? You didn't stage whether the one incorrectly is close to the one you were actually in.

The location codes are not easy to mix up. e.g. 46825 vs 46000.

In any case, I was sure that I did not type the wrong location code at the time of parking, and the call recordings prove me correct.

Edited by Mandat on Saturday 31st August 20:12

[kowalski655]

What do the council say about the recording? What is the reason for rejecting it?

[xjay1337]

Don't council fines you can appeal in person at the council offices and someone (a normal human) approves or rejects?

Certainly sounds like there was an error in their system.

[bad company]

I’d post something like this on the Facebook page for the area the car park’s in. You may find more people have been caught similarly.

[Countdown]

bad company said:

I’d post something like this on the Facebook page for the area the car park’s in. You may find more people have been caught similarly.

That was my thinking as well. Wouldn’t everyone who parked in the same place as the OP have ended up with a PCN?

[W124Bob]

The other thing that puzzles me is that will already have had money for the parking but just not in the correct location, was the fee taken and are the 2 carparks under the same authority?

[Mandat]

kowalski655 said:

What do the council say about the recording? What is the reason for rejecting it?

The council don't know about the recordings yet, as I haven't submitted the formal representation.

My initial informal representation was based on the fact that the parking session was paid for, but I did not know about the payment being applied to the incorrect location code until the council rejected the informal representation.

[Mandat]

bad company said:

I’d post something like this on the Facebook page for the area the car park’s in. You may find more people have been caught similarly.

Good idea. I'll have a look around FB in the locality.

[pingu393]

When I've used them, they read the location back to you and your registration. Was the read-back correct?

[Mandat]

Countdown said:

bad company said:

I’d post something like this on the Facebook page for the area the car park’s in. You may find more people have been caught similarly.

That was my thinking as well. Wouldn’t everyone who parked in the same place as the OP have ended up with a PCN?

The car park is a regular pay & display, which also has the option to pay by phone.

Not everyone might use pay by phone, and the error I encountered might have been a one off during my transaction.

If others have also received an unjustified PCN in this location, hopefully there should be some chatter in the local area.

[Mandat]

pingu393 said:

When I've used them, they read the location back to you and your registration. Was the read-back correct?

Yes, the correct location code was read back to me, and this is what is recorded on the call recording, thus proving that I did not input an incorrect location code.

[pingu393]

Mandat said:

pingu393 said:

When I've used them, they read the location back to you and your registration. Was the read-back correct?

Yes, the correct location code was read back to me, and this is what is recorded on the call recording, thus proving that I did not input an incorrect location code.

Their mistake. If they don't withdraw with the evidence that you have, I would be chasing them for costs.

[bad company]

pingu393 said:

Their mistake. If they don't withdraw with the evidence that you have, I would be chasing them for costs.

Really! How would you do that?

[pingu393]

bad company said:

pingu393 said:

Their mistake. If they don't withdraw with the evidence that you have, I would be chasing them for costs.

Really! How would you do that?

Don't know, that's what my free half hour with a solicitor would tell me.

[Hashtaggggg]

I did this in Whitby

Pouring rain and difficult to read

Emailed and within a couple of hours the appeal was accepted

[Davie_GLA]

Not to derail the thread, but there are occasions where I could do with calls being recorded, obviously declaring this. Would you mind telling me how you’ve got this set up? PM if better.

Final devils advocate thought though. Without the source of these recordings being the council and them not knowing anything about them what’s to stop them chucking it out of court on suspicion of you colluding with a mate? Are the call the call recordings audibly time stamped?

Good luck!