Parking Ticket Appeals successes and failures

gilby_2

Many years ago I parked in a Northampton Town car park, arriving at 17.45. The Pay & Display notice stated that the cost was "£1 per hour or part thereof up to 18.00 and £1 from 18.00 to 06.00 the following day". As I was expecting to be having a meal until around 21.00 I duly paid £2 - £1 for the 15 minutes to 18.00 and £1 for the remainder of the evening.:beer:
I returned to my vehicle just before 21.00 to find a warden sticking a penalty notice to the windscreen. According to him, because I had arrived before 18.00 the hourly rate applied so my £2 only covered me up to 19.45. I had therefore overstayed my time. No amount of discussion would move him. Even my suggestion that had I driven around for 16 minutes before parking, I would only have had to pay £1 for the whole night fell on stony ground.
I immediately appealed to the Town Council, pointing out the wording of their notice did not support their view. I also mentioned that as I was flying to Australia the next day (the reason for the celebratory meal) all correspondence should be referred to an accommodation address.
Whether it was my pointing out how the wording of their notice supported my argument or my absence in Australia I will never know. The penalty was cancelled without comment and I returned to this country with a clean slate.:A
Although I rarely visit Northampton these days I often wonder whether the same wording appears in that particular car park - even if the hourly cost has increased.

Coupon-mad

help_adam wrote: »

.Hi There

Any advice would be appreciated I have received a parking fine of £40 if i pay within 14 days from UKPC which then goes up to £80 if paid within 28 days . The offence committed was displaying a disabled parking badge which was out of date . I had no idea they had a date on them i thought it lasted as long as the mobility award . As my son is at school during the week we very rarely use the parking badge and do not pay much attention to it . Is there any way we can avoid the fine or it a matter of an expensive lesson learnt and pay up and arrange for a new badge . The offence was committed in Tesco Coatbridge

What fine? What offence? Boy they have almost taken you in with this fake PCN haven't they?!

What on eath makes you think they have a right to do this? They do NOT. You only ever need to take seriously - and usually appeal - a real ticket, from the Police, Council, TFL or occasionally a penalty parking ticket from a train operator (Northern Rail issue real ones).

This is not an expensive lesson as you won't be appealing it nor paying it - do not even go there! Just compare each letter that arrives to the second-to-top thread 'PPC letters & threats'. Look at the whole letter-chain so you have a preview of each letter before it arrives.

Watch the Watchdog clip on that thread too. Job done, laugh at them now you know it is all a SCAM!

Coupon-mad

gilby wrote: »

Many years ago I parked in a Northampton Town car park, arriving at 17.45. The Pay & Display notice stated that the cost was "£1 per hour or part thereof up to 18.00 and £1 from 18.00 to 06.00 the following day". As I was expecting to be having a meal until around 21.00 I duly paid £2 - £1 for the 15 minutes to 18.00 and £1 for the remainder of the evening.:beer:
I returned to my vehicle just before 21.00 to find a warden sticking a penalty notice to the windscreen. According to him, because I had arrived before 18.00 the hourly rate applied so my £2 only covered me up to 19.45. I had therefore overstayed my time. No amount of discussion would move him. Even my suggestion that had I driven around for 16 minutes before parking, I would only have had to pay £1 for the whole night fell on stony ground.
I immediately appealed to the Town Council, pointing out the wording of their notice did not support their view. I also mentioned that as I was flying to Australia the next day (the reason for the celebratory meal) all correspondence should be referred to an accommodation address.
Whether it was my pointing out how the wording of their notice supported my argument or my absence in Australia I will never know. The penalty was cancelled without comment and I returned to this country with a clean slate.:A
Although I rarely visit Northampton these days I often wonder whether the same wording appears in that particular car park - even if the hourly cost has increased.

There was a case very similar to this on pepipoo forums a few months ago.

The Council made the appellant go all the way to adjudication (or just before adjudication) but the motorist won of course, Council backed down.

charlesrodent

Just a quick note to say that I tried and succeeded in overturning my husband's parking fine.
Done for parking with wheels on pavement whilst collecting our poorly post-op dog at the vet and were also trying to keep out of the way of a succession of emergency vehicles.
Provided loads of evidence including photos of the position of the car to demonstrate it was not acting as an obstruction to road or pavement users, vet invoice for the operation, proof of dog weight (at 46 kilos he doesn't get carried very far!) and comments that we were unaware of the offence as we're new to the area and it was my husband's first parking ticket. All true but what swung it was being the only person in the council offices who spoke any English and weren't trying to verbally abuse the staff... Sad but true.
Anyway, thanks MSE, it was worth the effort.

gwhizz42

:money:
Martin! At Easter my father visited me from England (I live in Northern Ireland). My local shopping centre had recently started using a private parking enforcement company. I wasn't aware of this as the signs they had displayed were crammed with tiny writing and really they could have been telling me the story of Nellie the Elephant for all the time I had to go and read the whole thing.

My dad suffers from emphysema, and has a disabled badge but had left his badge in his car in England. The only available non-disabled parking spaces were on the far side of the car park, under a fly-over and up a hill. So I decided to park in a disabled bay near the shopping centre. I left a note on the dashboard to say that the badge had been left in another car but lo! and behold! there was a parking ticket on the car by the time we returned to it:D about an hour later, one very puffed pensioner in tow.

I was incensed as I hadn't even been aware that the parking rules for the car park had been changed. Pater wanted to just pay the ticket, "Cos you never win with these people." But, I got my dad to send me the details on his disabled badge when he got home, I contacted the company using their online appeals process with a carefully worded email with said details.

About 2 weeks later I received a letter in the post. Awash with trepidation I opened it and was delighted to find out that the ticket had been cancelled. All for the cost of a phone call from Dad and an email to the company.:j

By the way, until they privatised the service a few years ago I worked as a Traffic Warden.:D

Lone_Ranger_2

Would be interesting to know who the PPC was !

Sarahp5698

A couple of days after my return from holiday in Newquay, Cornwall I received a Parking Charge Notice from ParkingEye for £90. When reading the notice it showed photographic evidence of my car arriving and leaving with times. According to it we had overstayed by 13 minutes, when I recalled the day in question it was our first day there and had gone to check the parking prices for this season as we would be using the car park every day. While there we decided we would go and have breakfast in the town and return to the car park as the waves were good to get straight in.
When we came back into the car park we paid for just 3 hours as we knew we had to book into our holiday accommodation. When we returned to our car though we were blocked in by a mobile home vehicle. The passenger was in it and told us the driver wouldn't be long so proceeded to get changed out of wetsuits. After changing we still waited 10 minutes or so for the driver to come back.
I was furious then when this notice came, I phoned the local shop that is based on the beach to ask if there were any other cameras in the car park that would be able to clarify that I was blocked in. They said there weren't but even they were constantly having this problem with the parking company even over 1 or 2 minutes.
I wrote to the company and explained what had happened, and that if there were further cameras in the car park they would show what had happened, and also if they'd like to check their records they would see that every other day we were there we paid for full day parking and in no way was I trying to get away without parking. I was really pleased to receive an email off them within a couple of days to say all charges were dropped and no further action would be taken.
It was the first time anything like this has happened and I can imagine how intimidating it could be to receive one of these. I'm just glad I had the sense to check out where I stood legally. And although all advice was to just ignore it, I knew I had to write to them to tell them it was a genuine reason.:T

Oopsadaisy

Sarahp5698 wrote: »

And although all advice was to just ignore it, I knew I had to write to them to tell them it was a genuine reason.

So pleased that you followed the advice...oh hang on you didn't.

Why bother???????

Coupon-mad

Really don't know why people are bothering to post about 'getting off private parking tickets' when all you have to do is IGNORE THEM:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2214803

Watchdog clip explains why you must just ignore these fake tickets. The letter-chain pics show you what to expect from the scammers.

Job done.

Paperbird

My Brother got one for overstaying in an Asda car park. He emailed Asda not the PPC and they emailed back saying it was cancelled. He thinks it was mentioning his blue badge that did it even though the car was there for 7 hours.
The car park is at the side of a railway station and when it was built one of the conditions was they had to provide parking for rail passengers. Originally there was an area marked for rail passengers but when the car park was resurfaced it was not re marked and they just use ANPR to time people in and out.