Anyone successfully contested a parking ticket?

craker

Parked in a new town for the first time. Bought a ticket with my phone. Had fun in town. Got back to find myself ticketed; apparently I was in the wrong car park. Now they want £60 / £100 despite my protestations.

The internet seems to suggest they can't charge more than the headline value (£100) as its not a fine and they may take me to the small claims court to get it. Seems a bit steep for a misunderstanding of the signs on display.

Or I could just pay the thing.

Ben6899

You were in the wrong car park?

I presume you paid by phone, by calling a number displayed in the car park in which you parked?

This is odd.

Alejandrosdog

take a picture of the misleading sign and any others that contradict it.

croptonboy

I'm sure plenty of people have sucessfully contested a parking ticket, myself included, but all depends on circumstance

weezyswiss

If it is a parking charge notice and not a penalty then it's a private firm acting on behalf of the land owner. These are invoices and NOT fines, even if they try and make them out to appear as such. They are simply legally allowed to invoice you for this.

If you refuse to pay, then to collect they have to take you to court over the matter, and seeing as this eats into their profits then a lot of the time they do not see it as worth the expense. I have contested these people twice and never paid one of their fines. However, that's not to say that they won't make further chases on this.

Personally, I would take pictures of the misleading signs, proof you paid in good faith and submit that stating that their "invoice" is therefore not warranted in this case. Money Saving Expert has some good advice on how to appeal

shirley_basso

WeezySwiss wrote:

If it is a parking charge notice and not a penalty then it's a private firm acting on behalf of the land owner. These are invoices and NOT fines, even if they try and make them out to appear as such. They are simply legally allowed to invoice you for this.

If you refuse to pay, then to collect they have to take you to court over the matter, and seeing as this eats into their profits then a lot of the time they do not see it as worth the expense. I have contested these people twice and never paid one of their fines. However, that's not to say that they won't make further chases on this.

Personally, I would take pictures of the misleading signs, proof you paid in good faith and submit that stating that their "invoice" is therefore not warranted in this case. Money Saving Expert has some good advice on how to appeal

This is wrong. The law has changed and there are lots of profits to be made by outsourcing the pursuit of claims which is now being done by 3rd parties.

graeme_s-2

My wife and I parked in a carpark in Belfast a few years ago, paid via phone/an app, and when we returned to the car we had a parking ticket. Turned out when my wife had registered for the parking service (on a previous occasion) the speech-to-text system they were using had misheard her reading out the numberplate and registered our numberplate with 1 incorrect character. Off the top of my head I can't remember what the character was, but when it was read back in the robotic voice the service used, it was ambiguous enough for her to not realise. I seem to recall our fine was a formal one from Belfast City Council.

I used a form letter I generated from this website to protest it, explaining the situation and we received a letter explaining that we had been in the wrong, and the fine was our fault - but waiving it in this instance. Worth a go.

https://www.donotpay.com/parking/

cougie

Yes twice both successfully. Once when a car park went to pay after being free for years and they had minimal signs.
Once when a supermarket carpark tried to charge me. I had a receipt from the shop and the store manager wrote to the parking services to call them off.

Sounds like a good defence to me - you've paid for a space and the signs weren't clear enough for the car park. I'd be optimistic.

laurentian

Don't know if this would be of any use . . .

http://forums.pepipoo.com/

craker

Ben6899 wrote:

You were in the wrong car park?

I presume you paid by phone, by calling a number displayed in the car park in which you parked?

This is odd.

It was a car park within a carpark, partially surrounded with a metal barrier. This I failed to grasp as significant.

weezyswiss

Shirley Basso wrote:

WeezySwiss wrote:

If it is a parking charge notice and not a penalty then it's a private firm acting on behalf of the land owner. These are invoices and NOT fines, even if they try and make them out to appear as such. They are simply legally allowed to invoice you for this.

If you refuse to pay, then to collect they have to take you to court over the matter, and seeing as this eats into their profits then a lot of the time they do not see it as worth the expense. I have contested these people twice and never paid one of their fines. However, that's not to say that they won't make further chases on this.

Personally, I would take pictures of the misleading signs, proof you paid in good faith and submit that stating that their "invoice" is therefore not warranted in this case. Money Saving Expert has some good advice on how to appeal

This is wrong. The law has changed and there are lots of profits to be made by outsourcing the pursuit of claims which is now being done by 3rd parties.

There has been a more recent ruling yes, but the premise you have agreed with me on. The point is these companies go for the money and the profit and it is a multi-million pound industry. They are aggressive and IMO the tactics are used to scare people into simply paying up without knowing their rights.

Contesting and dispute is a very valid mechanism, and a lot of the time the circumstances mean they don't / will not take the grief of chasing in a court as it's more hassle than simply writing off. I have been successful twice as, for me, I felt I was not in the wrong and the activities of the parking enforcers, or how rules were applied were invalid.

BTW, I believe the court ruling that changed things was ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis

croptonboy

If you are going to appeal, you need to appeal to the parking company first. If that fails, you can progress your appeal to be independantly reviewed by organisations such as this:

https://www.popla.co.uk/

I had to do this as the parking company who gave me a ticket for not paying, rejected my appeal, even though I'd submitted the ticket I had paid for as proof I'd paid

bianchimoon

I got a ticket (and a photograph) as registered owner of a car that was parked in York Uni car park £40 invoice, one my daughters were driving and didn't show me the ticket at the time, I then received a postal 'invoice' to say it had gone up to £80. I said can you send me the original invoice and description of services and I'll look at it. They said no and had passed it onto debt collection agency, who added their £80 for writing a letter. As I didn't park in the debt collection's agency's car park I figured that they right to try to extort money from me, so I ignored 3 final warnings with threats of court action and...
the letters stopped after 6 months.
Big difference if they are council owned car parks, hard one to win and also Europarks private car parks, they are very aggressive and usually will take you to court, worth going through the process if you feel strongly enough. Remember if it's not a council owned car park it will almost certainly be an invoice you receive not a fine. Good luck

crispybug2

One thing I have learnt is that if your vehicle has a tracker fitted challenge everything, you would be amazed by how many cameras and electronic devices used by councils and private companies have clocks that are out of sync.

morstar

No helpful input I'm afraid but, share some pain.
Got ticketed in Nottingham 15 odd years ago. Pulled up in spot on main road and went to parking meter to pay. Parking meter showed charges from about 10 am until 4 pm and from 6 pm until 8ish. It was about 5pm when I parked. Read and re-read the meter multiple times baffled as to why it was free. Left car and went about business. Return to car with ticket.
Phoned council to contest and informed that I should have read signs, not the meter.
Paid the fine as technically I was in the wrong. But it's so ambiguous. I consider myself a reasonably savvy individual and I considered the meter misleading as the meter should have made clear the fact that the reason parking wasn't chargeable between 4 & 6 was because it was prohibited. Expecting people to read multiple signs to comply with parking they are prepared to pay for seems poor in my eyes.
Anyhow, long story short, I'll generally pay for predictable parking e.g. a multi storey where I know I'm paid and done despite cheaper options being available. Whole thing is a racket that I'd rather pay a premium to avoid falling foul of.

morstar

No helpful input I'm afraid but, share some pain.
Got ticketed in Nottingham 15 odd years ago. Pulled up in spot on main road and went to parking meter to pay. Parking meter showed charges from about 10 am until 4 pm and from 6 pm until 8ish. It was about 5pm when I parked. Read and re-read the meter multiple times baffled as to why it was free. Left car and went about business. Return to car with ticket.
Phoned council to contest and informed that I should have read signs, not the meter.
Paid the fine as technically I was in the wrong. But it's so ambiguous. I consider myself a reasonably savvy individual and I considered the meter misleading as the meter should have made clear the fact that the reason parking wasn't chargeable between 4 & 6 was because it was prohibited. Expecting people to read multiple signs to comply with parking they are prepared to pay for seems poor in my eyes.
Anyhow, long story short, I'll generally pay for predictable parking e.g. a multi storey where I know I'm paid and done despite cheaper options being available. Whole thing is a racket that I'd rather pay a premium to avoid falling foul of.

john80

I got out of a private ticket once as I was driving the wifes car. They sent the ticket to the wife and she responded saying that she was not driving the car on the day and was therefore not liable. Given the parking authority could not be bothered to come round the house to ID me then they dropped it. This does not work with council parking as they can issue a fine against the registered keeper. i don't know if they have changed the law on this subsequently.

tangled_metal

A mate tried it. She shouldn't have had a ticket because she had a resident's parking permit on display. The parking guy took a photo with light reflecting from the windscreen where the permit was permanently stuck to the screen. You could still see something was there.

She also measured the distance between parking signs and found they were too far apart. After finding out there was no letter from the council to the parking ticket company saying they authorised the distance between signs being greater than the requirements under whatever code applied she appealed. She tried on the photo evidence of no permit but failed so used the sign distance. That caused a temporary halt while it was looked into. A month later they denied that appeal and she had to pay. Due to circumstances they could not take more than £1 per month to cover it without interest accruing. So she posted £1 in 1 pence coins and asked for a receipt. She got her first receipt with a first class stamp on the envelope. She then got another letter with another first class stamp from the company saying they were cancelling the ticket unilaterally so she didn't have to make any more payments.

I think this shows that to have to be lucky or well prepared to beat these tickets. Of course making yourself a legal nuisance works too occasionally.

angry_bird

I’ve got out of about half a dozen over the past few years. If they’re private companies and a member of the British Parking Association, they’re obliged to stick to certain guidelines regarding what they need to do regarding signage, letters, evidence blah blah. So far found it very effective to take a look at it, find a rule they’re breaking and remind them of this- usually related to their signage- location, size, font size, foliage blocking parts of it etc. They’ve backed off every time.

zeee

If its within a certain amount of days of receiving the letter write to them saying someone else was driving the car and give them any name and address. I had this from my old lease car and audi just wrote to them saying I was the driver at the time (but didn't provide any proof of this) I spoke to the company and said if that is the case then I can just provide someone else's details and they said that's fine.

cougie

That's not a million miles away from what that MP did ?

rafletcher

Croptonboy wrote:

If you are going to appeal, you need to appeal to the parking company first. If that fails, you can progress your appeal to be independantly reviewed by organisations such as this:

https://www.popla.co.uk/

I had to do this as the parking company who gave me a ticket for not paying, rejected my appeal, even though I'd submitted the ticket I had paid for as proof I'd paid

OT, but buying a ticket doesn't matter if, when you've been asked to do so, you don't display it, or if you do display it, but not in accordance with the instructions (wrong side of car for instance). (Not saying that was you case BTW, just an example). It was the same with the old vehicle excise discs, having one wasn't enough, it had to be displayed as prescribed.