Car Parking, APCOA (in this case, Oriental Road, Woking) - a cautionary tale

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Thread split to look at the Coffee Shop's time format - see http://www.passenger.chat/28442

[grahame]

Moving on ... but this thread remains.  I have paid, under protest, the £85 demanded by APCOA^▸ (Car parking company used at GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) - controlled stations in the area) to APCOA, and I asked for them (APCOA) to confirm that the payment had been received. I still do not believe that a penalty charge was correctly applied, however I have sadly given in to what I believe is their bullying me. I am still sufficiently pissed off about it to shout my protest in public and share their final response in public

Thank you for your response. As previously advised RingGo is a separate payment provider chosen by South Western Railways to take payments on their behalf. APCOA Parking UK^▸ (United Kingdom) do not take payments on behalf of SWR^» (South Western Railway - about). APCOA Parking UK are a private company who are in no way associated with RingGo. For clarity, APCOA Parking UK manage and enforce this location but do not take payments.

Your complaint is regarding the payment system provided by RingGo, due to this, your complaint regarding the system would need to be made to RingGo directly. APCOA are unable to assist with the complaint regarding RingGo payment systems.

After checking the system, I can confirm the notice has been paid and is now settled on our system and no further action is required from yourself regarding this notice now.

I am still scratching my head as to how "APCOA are in no way associated with RingGo" when they are chasing me for payment (done through their URL) for a failure of what they (APCOA) tell me is the potential problem in the RingGo system.  Their Emma (APCOA Complaints Handler) says "for clarity".  Sorry, Emma, it's far from clear.

[Oxonhutch]

Graham, this is the kind of subject the 'Blackbelt Barrister' on YouTube likes to cover. I would drop him a line outlining your case.

[grahame]

Graham, this is the kind of subject the 'Blackbelt Barrister' on YouTube likes to cover. I would drop him a line outlining your case.

Thank you.  And I am happy to help correspond / fill people in.

[Red Squirrel]

Bit slow to come to this thread, but I share your pain.

I can think of two or three occasions where I have been fined in circumstances where it was very clear that I had no intention of trying to avoid paying what was due. Perhaps the most annoying of these was when I failed to redeclare a statutory offroad notification for a motorcycle which had been in pieces in my shed for 10 years. There was no question that the bike had been on or anywhere near a public road, but I missed the reminder letter (which came a few months after the birth of our twins, and was presumably somehow lost in the chaos) and was fined £40 which at the time I really couldn't afford. I'm still furious about it 18 years on...