£90 "charge notice" from Lidl's parking. Wow.

zYx · 19 May 2014 at 16:31

Hello all,

so my GF got a pretty letter from "Atena ANPR Ltd" who looks after LIDLs car parks with two pictures of - allegedly - her car.

The "charge notice" is £90, but if paid within 14 days it's £45.

I spoke to LIDLs and they said to appeal and explain that we shop there and that the "charge notice" should be cancelled.

Any advices on this will be welcome?

Obviously she's not going to pay anything.

murah · 19 May 2014 at 16:32

zYx said:
I spoke to LIDLs and they said to appeal and explain that we shop there and that the "charge notice" should be cancelled.

problem solved

meandu229 · 19 May 2014 at 16:35

Haha these companies are horrendous and try and scare money out of people who think that companies have the right to fine people. Good link to get you started
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4816822
But as you say dont pay

Col_M · 19 May 2014 at 16:40

They usually send the letter if you spend over the allowed amount of time. If you can provide evidence that you were in the store at that time like a receipt etc. then they'll drop it.

I had to provide an invoice from the mobile tyre place who replaced my flat tyre when I was stuck in a motorway services for longer than the 2 hours allowed. They replied within a couple days of submitting the appeal and dropped the charge. It's a little bit of hassle but simple enough to do.

Before anyone comments

my car has no space for a spare and though it has run flat tyres no local tyre places were open to drive to in the middle of the night.

snitcher · 19 May 2014 at 16:45

let me guess? london?

zYx · 19 May 2014 at 16:46

snitcher said:
let me guess? london?

If it was London, it would have been £190

It was Tonbridge.

Scania · 19 May 2014 at 17:06

Ignore, (unless you can be arsed to actually contact them) I've lost count of the times I've had similar notices (numerous from Wickes, Catford) as I had to drive my hgv through their car park to deliver to the store!

I've had follow up letters even after Wickes have said they have cancelled the charge.

Ironically, I'm sat in a LIDL car park typing this on my phone....

Hamish · 19 May 2014 at 17:09

Unless it says "Penalty Charge Notice" then it's nothing but an Invoice and if you ignore it they will not bother to chase it up 99% of the time, and even if they do then there is little chance of anything happening.

arch · 19 May 2014 at 17:14

Had this two week ago, phoned the store, they advised me to contact the company and say I was shopping there, so I did. They asked for proof of shopping there, I uploaded my receipt, ticket cancelled. Pretty painless actually

dirtychinchilla · 19 May 2014 at 17:22

It's LIDL, not bloody LIDLs. Like it's Tesco!!

zYx · 19 May 2014 at 17:28

arch said:
Had this two week ago, phoned the store, they advised me to contact the company and say I was shopping there, so I did. They asked for proof of shopping there, I uploaded my receipt, ticket cancelled. Pretty painless actually

I don't keep receipts, not for long anyway. However, the "offence" took place on 15.5.14, invoice was issued on 17.5.14 and received on 19.5.14. I have 14 days for the appeal from the issue date, so ultimately 12 days, or 11 now...

dirtychinchilla said:
It's LIDL, not bloody LIDLs. Like it's Tesco!!

English is my second language so I just followed the flow. I know it's LIDL and TESCO, etc, I know

(I actually wrote LIDL's and not LIDLs

)

dirtychinchilla · 19 May 2014 at 17:32

My apologies! It's annoying that anyone does it tbh

stopper · 19 May 2014 at 17:45

Hamish said:
Unless it says "Penalty Charge Notice" then it's nothing but an Invoice

A "penalty charge notice" is also an invoice, it isn't a fine because you haven't been arrested, charged, sentenced and forced to pay compensation.
The only difference is private companies don't have the power of bailiffs to follow through with their PCN like the council.

Never appeal, an appeal is an admission of guilt but you're asking them to go easy on you.
If I was the OP I would write them a letter saying I loaned the car to some one on that day, can't remember who it was, and could they send any details they have on who was driving. Since they can't provide any evidence, they have to let it go.

[TR]SweetSpotOz · 19 May 2014 at 17:57

mattyfez · 19 May 2014 at 18:21

stopper said:
A "penalty charge notice" is also an invoice, it isn't a fine because you haven't been arrested, charged, sentenced and forced to pay compensation.
The only difference is private companies don't have the power of bailiffs to follow through with their PCN like the council.

Never appeal, an appeal is an admission of guilt but you're asking them to go easy on you.
If I was the OP I would write them a letter saying I loaned the car to some one on that day, can't remember who it was, and could they send any details they have on who was driving. Since they can't provide any evidence, they have to let it go.

Completely incorrect. And terrible advice to boot. Private companies cannot issue penalty charges, it's unlawful.
I think you mixing it up with parking charge notices, yes its purposely confusing, that's how private companies make thier money.

Plenty of info here:

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/forumdisplay.php?88-Parking-Traffic-Offences

stoofa · 19 May 2014 at 18:27

Ignoring is certainly not the recommended route for all private parking firms any more - that advice as a "blanket response" was safe up until around 18 months ago.
Then private firms did start taking people to court and far more worryingly actually winning.
If you want actual advice from people who do know what they are talking about, pop along to www.pepipoo.com and ask there - advice would be to scan in both sides of the notice with your post (as the people there will ask you for it). You'll actually get advice there which is tried and tested (and yes, may well be simply ignore).

Or just stick to the blanket "ignore/destroy/send them an envelope of **** back through the post" usually trotted out here - but I personally wouldn't recommend that option.

McBain · 19 May 2014 at 18:34

I had similar from Parking Eye recently, ignore, they went away.

mattyfez · 19 May 2014 at 18:40

McBain said:
I had similar from Parking Eye recently, ignore, they went away.

If you read through some of the threads in the link i posted a few posts up, you will see that parking eye frequently file court claims and win a lot due to no-shows or incorrect defences by the defendants.. Maybe you got lucky, but as mentioned the rules have changed in the last year or so, so it is imperative people research the subject properly.

Also parking companies are known to troll parking threads on relevant help sites looking for admissions of guilt.. So don't post specifics, or if you do be very careful what you post.

Maccapacca · 19 May 2014 at 19:36

Either ignore it or pay the £45

£45 is well worth not chasing rubbish like this if you want to follow through with an appeal.

mattyfez · 19 May 2014 at 20:18

maccapacca said:
Either ignore it or pay the £45

£45 is well worth not chasing rubbish like this if you want to follow through with an appeal.

Whilst you might be right in terms of time wasted, researching and appealing correctly vs. just paying £45 being an efficient way of dealing with it, it just reinforces the whole speculative invoicing business model/culture.

£90 "charge notice" from Lidl's parking. Wow.

Tea Drinker