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General Category => General No To Mob Discussion => Topic started by: Web Admin on 11 January, 2016, 01:17:57 PM

Title: UKPC Ltd - They're at it again! Parking company under new investigation
Post by: Web Admin on 11 January, 2016, 01:17:57 PM
They're at it again! Parking company which duped Lincolnshire drivers under new investigation

(http://www.lincolnshireecho.co.uk/images/localworld/ugc-images/276392/Article/images/28499188/11891629-large.jpg)
Simone Riley-Young was issued with a parking fine in July.

A car park operator which admitted that its staff had changed times on photographs to wrongly issue penalty tickets to Lincolnshire drivers is being investigated again.

UKPC was temporarily suspended from using DVLA data to trace drivers' addresses - which meant unpaid fines given during the ban could not be chased.

Back in September, the company admitted its employees had given drivers parked on the Tritton Road Retail Park in Lincoln tickets which had times 'doctored' to imply they had over-stayed the free parking period.

But now the the BBC has announced that it has filmed UKPC car park attendants claiming people issued tickets during that time would still be pursued.

And UKPC claimed staff had misunderstood an email and were now aware of the facts.

The company is being investigated by the British Parking Association (BPA) after the BBC's West Midlands Inside Out programme made it aware of its secretly filmed footage.

The BPA investigated UKPC in September 2015 over allegations employees had changed time stamps on photos in Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and Worcester.

BPA boss Patrick Troy said the "thorough" investigation had concluded an expulsion from the organisation "was not warranted".

But he told the BBC: "If there's a repeat of any kind of misbehaviour, that will almost certainly result in expulsion or further suspension."

UKPC was suspended from using the DVLA database to trace drivers' addresses from September 18 to November 4 last year.

And the new investigation has come after UKPC had to cancel a number of tickets after what it called an "isolated photograph tampering incident" by "a few rogue employees".

The company said it "condemned" the actions of staff who "took advantage of a software flaw" which had now been updated to stop it from happening again.

Simone Riley-Young, 27, was given a parking ticket after parking at Tritton Retail Park on July 18 after she arrived at 8.20am.

The parking ticket issued to her said she'd been there since 7.15am.

Now, a statement issued by the company said that some of the timestamps had been altered.

It said: "We regret to confirm that a limited number of pictures of vehicles, at a small number of car parks, have had their

timestamp altered by a few of our employees to make it appear as though the vehicles had over-stayed when this was not the case.

"We have taken this issue extremely seriously and decided that even though a number of the relevant parking charges are likely to have been legitimately issued, we will refund all potentially affected parking charges for over-stays issued by these employees, to ensure that there is no room for error.

"The repayments will be refunded automatically to drivers' bank accounts over the next few days.

"Disciplinary action is in progress in relation to the relevant employees and therefore our solicitors inform us that we are unable to comment further in that regard.

"We have never before had a problem of this nature, which runs contrary to the normally high standards of our business and the rigorous training of all our staff.

"We have taken steps to ensure that no further incidents of this nature can occur in the future."

Another resident hit with a fine at the same car park was 23-year-old Jade Beeby, a student at Lincoln University.

She said: "I arrived at the car park at 12.40pm to give myself an hour to get to my exam at Lincoln Uni at 1pm.

"My exam finished at 3pm and so I will have got back to my car at about 3.20pm which is two hours and 40 minutes.

"When I received photographic evidence from UKPC, it said I had parked my car at 9.35am but that isn't true - I was having a birthday breakfast in Nottingham until 10am.

"I battled with everybody to try to get the fine dropped but in the end I paid the £100 because it just got too much.

"I know that I was in the right but no one would believe me and it was just not worth all the hassle."

http://www.lincolnshireecho.co.uk/Parking-company-duped-Lincolnshire-drivers-new/story-28499188-detail/story.html (http://www.lincolnshireecho.co.uk/Parking-company-duped-Lincolnshire-drivers-new/story-28499188-detail/story.html)