Advice needed- Smart parking parking fine

abubakar

Hello and good evening to all,

I went to Argos earlier which where I live is located on a retail park along with other big name retailers such as Next, Boots, Tk max, peacocks and Decathlon.

I left my car parked in a disabled bay however I completely forgot to display my blue badge and clock, when i was in the Argos store a staff member who i'm assuming was the store manager (because of the way he was dressed) came up to me and told me my car was getting booked, he saw this because he was having a cigarette outside when I parked up.

I ran out and unexpectedly was faced with a girl who looked 18-20 years old dressed in ordinary clothes with a ticketing machine around her waist printing me a parking ticket. I tried apologizing and told her I forgot to display my badge but she told me she couldn't do anything and that I should call the number printed on the back of the ticket to appeal it.

I got home and tried paying this ticket of £70, £40 if paid within 14 days but when i put my details (penalty charge notice number & vehicle reg) into the relevant fields I was faced with a screen which said the "penalty charge notice could not be found".

Details about the ticket (as there is no option to upload a picture) -

Starting from the top:-

Parking charge notice number, who the parking ticket is to, how much I am "DUE" to pay, details of the date,place, vehicle reg, why it was given etc and at the very bottom it says I should make cheques payable to smart parking an there is a bar code and a long number.

BACK of the ticket:-

from the top again-

Tells me how I can appeal the ticket, then says issued by "smart parking LTD also trading as town and city parking registered in Scotland VAT no-607582041" and finally payment instruction.

The ticket itself looks like a receipt you would get from a till which has really raised my suspicions.

So my question to all you kind people is, should I pay this parking ticket? what may be the repercussions of not paying this? Have any of you ever been faced with the same problem and what did you do/what happened?

I would like to thank everyone in advance for any kind advice that may shed some light on this issue.

Regards.

wiogs

What country are you in? e.g Scotland
Oh - and read this https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4816822

One thing you need not do is pay these scum.

abubakar

I'm located in the UK, specifically Bolton not too far from Manchester.

I shall definitely read that, thank you for the link and your advice.

Have you had a fine from "smart parking" in the past may I ask? if I don't pay is there any risk of an enforcement company getting involved, court proceedings etc?

wiogs

The rules are different depending if you are in England and Wales as opposed to Scotland.

Read the link I posted - all the answers you need are there

Stroma

Why the hell are you trying to pay this scam invoice??? This is not a real parking ticket but a fake one issued by a company who are useless! Please read the sticky threads at the top of the forum by coupon mad.

You should make complaints to said Argos manager about this, he know you were shopping there, ask him to get this cancelled. In the meantime wait for the notice to keeper to arrive in 29-56 days time . We can then help you appeal this and get it cancelled if Argos don't do it.

Umkomaas

You need to WAIT and read here. Once you've got to understand what this is all about you'll be all the better to deal with this successfully.

We could spoon feed you, but there are so many daily in your position that we wouldn't be able to give everyone the same service.

Please read here ........... and wait for the NtK. Get back if there's something you don't understand (but not in the next 5 minutes!!).

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4816822

abubakar

Thank you for your replies, I will definitely not pay it now and read more into this from the links you have kindly sent me. I will also contact Argos tomorrow and explain this to the manager. Hopefully all will work out well.

Guys_Dad

The point is that before the ticket was placed on your car, you had a discussion with the operative and at that point they knew that the driver had a disabled badge.

In hindsight, you should have pphotographed the incident to prove your point.

Have you any witness that can support your version of events? If so, and even better if they were neutral, try to get a statement from them.

You then can use that initially with the landowner and Smart.