Picture of the week. Armtrac - Terms and conditions apply

This sign in an Armtrac car park explains it is for permit holders only and directs the reader to find the terms and conditions.

Here are the terms.

What an interesting wheeze. "You agree to your vehicle being issued with a parking charge notice."

It appears all vehicles are liable to a charge of £100, permit or not. No doubt the residents will be asking Armtrac to change the terms.

The Prankster wonders how they will get in touch. As previously reported, PO Box 154 does not appear to exist, and TR20 9WD does not appear to be a valid postcode.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

DVLA grow a pair. Stop providing keeper data to Proserve

The DVLA have informed The Prankster that they have stopped providing keeper data to Proserve from 1st December 2014.

The Prankster is aware that the judicial review has not completed*, so The Prankster congratulates the DVLA for growing a pair after all these years of fence sitting.

Perhaps the new DVLA appointment had a hand in the change of direction, which previously consisted of extended periods of doing nothing.

Enheartened, The Prankster will now enquire when the DVLA will do something about the shambles that is the Independent Parking Committee appeal process, which can easily be demonstrated to be not independent.


Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

*The judicial review will take place on 17th December within the Royal Courts of Justice, London

Armtrac postal problems

The Prankster previously blogged about Armtrac appeal rejections arriving late.

The Prankster has been in touch with POPLA and the British Parking Association regarding post arriving from Armtac with only one or 2 days remaining to appeal to POPLA. In addition the BPA is meeting with POPLA tomorrow and will be discussing this issue.

The BPA have also been in touch with Armtrac for an explanation.

The current situation is therefore this:

By default the BPA will be asking POPLA to give 7 days grace period for Armtrac appeals. To get this 7 days grace, the motorist should quote this reference between The Prankster and Steve Clark of the BPA:

BPA - 06439 - ArmtracAs a starting point, I will grant a 7-day ‘grace period’ for those motorists potentially affected by Armtrac that  you are aware of to get their appeals to POPLA if they wish – they should refer to this e-mail when they write to POPLA please.

Alternatively the motorist can contact Armtrac directly to get a new POPLA code which will be valid for 28 days.This post on MSE describes where a motorist has already done this.

 Armtrac's explanation for the problem is this.

Armtrac have confirmed they have been experiencing problems with the postal service in the area. Some letters are delivered within a couple of days and some are being delivered within a couple of weeks. If the operator is contacted regarding a late rejection letter being received, the charge is reduced back to £60 and a new verification code is sent out.

Armtrac believe it to be an intermittent thing and believe in the interest of being fair, new codes will be issued if any motorist receives their letter out of time. 

The Prankster is currently in touch with the fraud department of the Royal Mail to see if this explanation is plausible. For instance, if a letter is dated 1st November, would it really hang around in the Royal Mail until 25 November before being postmarked. Perhaps there is a serious problem with the Royal Mail in Cornwall. Or perhaps the explanation lies elsewhere.

The Prankster therefore asks motorists who have had problems to get in touch with him at prankster@parking-prankster.com and to send copies of the Armtrac letter together with the envelope it came in. The Royal Mail can then investigate the postmark, find the post office handling these letters and see if there is any dodgy goings on with their employees.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

MBC Parking admits breach of Company regulations. Why did the DVLA or BPA not pick this up?

MBC Parking Solutions Ltd has admitted being in breach of company regulations.

The PO Box address does not appear to exist, and there is no signage at this address. This does not therefore meet 'brass plate' requirements and is not a correct address for service.

The Royal Mail state this PO box has not been paid for and TR20 9WD is apparently not a valid postcode.

The Prankster has been led to suspect the correct address is Pengersick Lane, Praa Sands, Chenhal, Penzance, with the postcode either TR20 9SN or TR20 9SH.

Companies house has been informed and MBC have acknowledged the addresses are either out of date of fictional and will be updating the registry.

One of the reasons that addresses must be correct is for consumer protection. It is not known yet whether companies house is taking further action.

The Prankster wonders why the DVLA and BPA audits have not picked this up. If this kind of thing is not checked during the audit, then perhaps it should be. What else do these audits miss, and are they just a rubber-stamping exercise rather than any true attempt to make sure parking companies are compliant with the regulations.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

Armtrac Security Services use dodgy tactics to time motorists out of POPLA appeals

Two posters on MSE have received appeal rejections from Armtrac Security Services with POPLA codes which have almost expired.

POPLA codes are meant to be valid for 28 days. Both posters codes were only valid for one day,

To work this scan, Armtrac generate the POPLA code and accompanying letter, but then do not post the letter for several weeks, finally posting it second class.

Here are the timescales.

Letter generated: 1st November
Envelope postmarked: 25 November
Letter received: 27 November
POPLA code expires: 28 November

Letter generated: 5th November
Envelope postmarked: 28 November
Letter received: 1 December
POPLA code expires: 2 December

In a similar pepipoo post, the letter was dated 18th October, but only received on 4th November.

In another MSE post, the letter was dated 1st November and received on 28th November. There was no postmark visible on the envelope.

This is clearly either an ongoing scam, or a failure to run a parking business properly.


What if this happens to you?

The Prankster recommends you complain to the BPA, who are well aware of this practice. Keep the envelope and the letter, and send copies to aos@britishparking.co.uk

Check the expiry of your POPLA code here
http://www.parkingcowboys.co.uk/popla-code-checker/

Immediately contact POPLA 0845 207 7700 (Open 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday) and request an extension of the time to appeal, Email them to confirm the phone call enquiries@popla.org.uk. If they don't agree, immediately file a one line appeal disputing the amount of charge, signage and right to charge. State this is a holding appeal and will be updated later. File copies of the letter and envelope as evidence. Update the appeal as soon as you have researched it properly

The Prankster has raised this issue with the POPLA scrutiny board. If you have further examples you wish to file as evidence, please email a copy of the rejection letter and envelope showing posting date to prankster@parking-prankster.com

The Prankster previously blogged that Mick Cooke of Armtrac threatened to break the fingers of a person he disagreed with.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

ParkingTicketAppeals changes companies

The web site http://www.parkingticketappeals.org.uk/ has apparently changed hands.

Yesterday, the company on the about page was Parking Ticket Appeals Limited, company number 08981061, incorporated 7/4/2014. The secretary is Ricky Gater and sole director Kiera Prince.

Today, the company on the about page is Parking Ticket Appeals Service Limited, company number 08994668, incorporated 14/4/2014. This company appears to have one shareholder, Ricky Gater, and one director Ricky Gater.

The Prankster contacted the new company to enquire about current customers of the old company, and the new company liability to pay the parking charge under the guarantee if their appeals fail. Ricky Gater told the Sunday Times that that company was processing 400 appeals a week, and as appeals can take 2-3 months, there may be up to 5000 active customers.

Although not replying directly to The Prankster's questions, a spokeperson for the company stated;

"It should not be lost on yourself that liability as previously explains lies with the company and liability cannot be transferred to another company"

The Prankster does not consider this an appropriate duty of care to previous customers, and has therefore removed all links and recommendations from his website to the company.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster

Dodgy parking company suspended - GB Parking Solutions

GB Parking Solutions were chucked out of the British Parking Association on 18th November. This was because they exceeded 12 sanction points in a 12 month period.

Additionally, according to a poster on pepipoo, they are "in the process of being struck off by Companies House due to overdue accounts. The first "Gazette" entry was made on 11th November; (normally it takes 3 months from this date to complete the process)."

Apparently, according to another poster,  this has been the fate of all the companies run by this director, Mr Shamshar Singh.

https://companycheck.co.uk/director/917215588

Shamshar Singh holds 2 appointments at 2 active companies, has resigned from 0 companies and held 3 appointments at 3 dissolved companies. Shamshar began their first appointment at the age of 21. Their longest current appointment spans 2 years and 0 months at GB PARKING SOLUTIONS LTD.

According to the DVLA they have been banned from keeper access from 11 August 2014.

Their web site does not appear to be in 'English'.

http://gbparkingsolutions.com/Accidration.html

It appears they will no longer be providing 'excellence in you parking operation'.

The Daily Mail recently ran an article regarding the DVLA providing data to dodgy companies. The Prankster wonders what kind of checks are actually put in place to prevent companies like this getting data in the first place?

The Prankster recommends anyone who gets a windscreen ticket from GB Parking Solutions waits for a Notice to Keeper to arrive. For the keeper to be liable, this must arrive between days 28 and 56. However, as they have no access to the DVLA database, this is unlikely to arrive.

If the windscreen ticket refers to POPLA then the Prankster recommends referring this to the BPA and to trading standards.

Only BPA members can use POPLA, so this is a false claim.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster