A new type of penalty charge notice (PCN) appears to have emerged and is being sent to members of the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP).
Issued by a company called Forecourt Eye, the PCNs are being used to recover amounts owed when a company vehicle drives away without paying for fuel.
Paul Hollick, chair at the industry body, said several members of the industry body had reported receiving PCNs of this type in recent months.
‘Traditionally, accidental drive aways of this kind have been dealt with using something called a ‘no means to pay’ (NMTP) notice, which normally takes the form of a letter from the fuel station operator stating you need to pay within seven days. It is essentially an invoice and fleets have been happily paying them for years without any issues.
‘However, we have started seeing these PCNs in the last three to six months, which use the same kind of approach as private parking operators. It is an unwelcome development and we are looking into the legality of whether this tactic can even be applied to fuel.’
Lee Jackson, a member of the AFP’s megafleet committee and group fleet manager at NG Bailey, said: ‘It appears that fuel stations are increasingly using Forecourt Eye to outsource the recovery of these debt payments, which is perhaps an understandable move. Dealing with drive aways is no doubt a pain for them.
‘However, this is bad for fleets. A PCN differs from a NMTP because it is a fine with statutory force, plus there is an administration fee of £20 added. At a time when many fleet managers are dealing with huge amounts of PCNs, it is an unwelcome additional administrative burden.’
AFP member Patricia Latham, fleet operations manager at Openreach, said that she had received several PCNs where the Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) has misread the registration or vehicle fraud is occurring with a false plate.
‘In these instances, the PCN will be withdrawn if you can provide Forecourt Eye with a police crime number, but this is quite a lot of work and the process is far from easy to operate.’
Emma Evans, also an AFP member and fleet lead at Galliford Try, said she had seen similar problems: ‘The system they use is not failsafe and we have had vehicles misidentified.’
The issue was being monitored by the AFP, Paul said, and the organisation would like to hear from others who are experiencing issues with Forecourt Eye.
‘We are keen to build up a picture of what is happening here and how it affects our members and other vehicle operators so that we can support them accordingly,’ he concluded.