Recently (29/07/2024) I received a Parking Charge Notice (PCN) for the sum of £70.00 by a traffic management company for apparently overstaying by 3 hours at a car park which I believe was the Trafford Centre in the Greater Manchester area which is at least 100 miles away from me as I live in East Yorkshire and which I've only ever passed many years ago when once flying from Manchester Airport.
The PCN also included a picture of the offending vehicle taken by an ANPR camera which showed 'my' personal registration but on a completely different vehicle.
My vehicle is an older black BMW Sports convertible while the image of the offending vehicle was a white AUDI estate. My BMW had been SORNed for several years and stood on my driveway so it's never left my property.
The first question to ask is: Does anyone from the company issuing these PCNs ever check before sending them out? After all, my details were correctly filled into each box of the notice including the colour etc and yet the vehicle image couldn't have been different, surely someone should be checking these before sending them out?
Once I'd grasped what had happened I immediately contacted Humberside police to report a crime which was actually easier said than done but by late afternoon I'd managed to get them to put a marker put on my registration number and then proceeded to contact Greater Manchester Police to get them to do the same. I was also informed that I should also notify DVLA which was closed so left it until the following morning.
That in itself was another let down as I wasn't able to get the marker put on their records until it was done in writing with a signature.
The problem was that I had issues with my printer and as that day I was going for several days break to my caravan up in Co. Durham, the letter had to wait until I returned nearly a week later. It turned out that it was a corrupted printer driver that was the problem but surely the DVLA should be able to make a note on the registration without having to go through me sending them a signed letter given that I had two different police incident numbers in support of my request.
I know what these parking companies can be like so I wasted no time in sending them a strongly worded appeal that the vehicle shown was not my vehicle and that I would not enter into further correspondence over the matter and if they aggressively pursued or disputed my objections then I would simply place it in the hands of my motoring legal protection solicitors which I always take out with each policy.
To be fair my appeal worked and I had a response within less than 48 hours dropping the PCN but if they'd just looked at the image and compared the details of the genuine registration vehicle then it should have dawned on them that it was incorrect.
As for how someone got hold of my personalised vehicle number, I can only assume that it was noted by one of the many delivery drivers who visit my property and the cul de sac in which I live. Obviously someone has noted the number and sold it on to other criminals or used it to cover their own criminal behaviour. The number must have been noted by someone while they were in my location as it wasn't on the road for several years.
From now on I'm going to cover the number plate so that it can't be copied and used again. The problem is that I had been planning to put the vehicle back on the road at some point in the near future so I'll have to go through all of the processes again of getting the markers taken off which will take up yet more time and inconvenience and all because of some scrote who would rather cause other people issues than pay the road tax. I really do hope they catch them but I doubt I'll never find out if they do.
So just be aware that it can happen to anyone and don't waste time in getting in touch with the police and DVLA if it does as, parking fines and traffic violations are big business to authorities and parking management companies these days and nipping it in the bud so to speak is better than ignoring the notices even if you know it's got nothing to do with you and having to deal with the problems later when you could have several traffic tickets to deal with at once.
Do not ignore any such ticket, Collect as much evidence as you can in support or your claim that it wasn't you or your vehicle which was involved in the traffic violation.
It would also be interesting to see if any other forum members have had the same issues.
