The President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection Tomasz Chróstny has imposed a fine of more than PLN 820,000 on APCOA Parking Polska and requested explanations from ATPark and Europark. The authority:
APCOA Parking Polska operates car parks at hospitals, office buildings, hotels and shopping centres across the country. The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection received numerous complaints concerning the company’s practices. The President of UOKiK found that the collective interests of consumers had been infringed—the company must pay a fine of more than PLN 820,000 (PLN 822,850).
And explains:
APCOA Parking Polska restricted the ways consumers could submit complaints, allowing only two types of submissions: via a form on the website or by post to the registered office address. Meanwhile, it should also accept complaints submitted in other forms, for example by email or in person. In addition, the company informed consumers that the time in which it would consider complaints could exceed 30 days. This is contrary to the Consumer Rights Act, which states that the time for responding to a complaint cannot be extended unilaterally. Until 1 January 2023, if a business did not respond within 30 days of receiving a complaint, the complaint was deemed accepted. New regulations connected with the implementation of the Omnibus Directive reduced this period to 14 days.
– The complaints procedure must not restrict consumers’ rights. They, not the business, should be able to choose their preferred method of submitting a complaint. Furthermore, the information provided by the company should be accurate and complete. If consumers had not been misled, they could decide whether it was justified to pursue their rights further or defend themselves in court – explains Tomasz Chróstny.
Officials emphasise that this is not the only action concerning car park managers: – Informal requests to change practices and provisions that could infringe the collective interests of consumers were sent to ATPark from Jaworze (the operator of the car park at Stara Mleczarnia, about which Readers istotne.pl have complained repeatedly; see, for example, the article She received a ticket at Stara Mleczarnia even though she had a parking ticket) and Europark from Warsaw, operating throughout the country. Both businesses restrict the ways complaints can be submitted and provide information about the need to incur additional costs in connection with failure to pay the requested charges.
They also add: – The President of UOKiK has been examining car park-related cases for some time and challenging unfair practices used by their managers. The latest decisions concerned car parks at retail stores and the car park at an oncology hospital in Wrocław.