Smart Parking unfair charge

clarenic

Hi everyone

I'd be really grateful for some advice on a parking motive I've received from Smart Parking relating to parking at an M&S store juts before Christmas.

I think it's unfair because as far as I was concerned I'd paid. I didn't have enough cash on me so I called the advertised number, entered my debit card details and gave my registration number. As far as I was concerned I'd done what was expected of me and was able to park there lawfully.

Unfortunate no money seems to have gone from my account to cover the parking charge. I could pay (£10 as EE are treating it as a SAR!) to obtain my call log but I'm reluctant to pay out even more because I strongly suspect they wouldn't accept it as evidence at all.

The only other 'proof' I have is that I had a short conversation with the parking attendant.

I haven't appealed it yet and don't have long left to do so. Do any of you have any advice please?

Thank you very much in advance

pogofish

Start by having a good read of the Newbies Sticky at the top of this forum. That outlines the best options for challenging this.

"Fair" doesn't really come in to it with these guys. They just want money and do not care.

clarenic

Thanks Pogofish. I did have a read through but didn't really see anything that came close to these circumstances?

Clare

beamerguy

clarenic wrote: »

Hi everyone

I'd be really grateful for some advice on a parking motive I've received from Smart Parking relating to parking at an M&S store juts before Christmas.

I think it's unfair because as far as I was concerned I'd paid. I didn't have enough cash on me so I called the advertised number, entered my debit card details and gave my registration number. As far as I was concerned I'd done what was expected of me and was able to park there lawfully.

Unfortunate no money seems to have gone from my account to cover the parking charge. I could pay (£10 as EE are treating it as a SAR!) to obtain my call log but I'm reluctant to pay out even more because I strongly suspect they wouldn't accept it as evidence at all.

The only other 'proof' I have is that I had a short conversation with the parking attendant.

I haven't appealed it yet and don't have long left to do so. Do any of you have any advice please?

Thank you very much in advance

Don't you have an itemised phone bill??

Assume that as you did not have cash, you paid for goods on your card, that coupled with a receipt is proof enough to complain to M&S and request they get ir cancelled

Umkomaas

clarenic wrote: »

Thanks Pogofish. I did have a read through but didn't really see anything that came close to these circumstances?

Clare

Circumstances are largely irrelevant - and in your case totally irrelevant in the context of this particular ticket.

All you need to do is send off the blue text appeal from the sticky, wait for the rejection from Smart (with a POPLA code), construct your POPLA appeal (model appeal points available in post #3 of the sticky), let us see your draft for fine tuning, send it to POPLA, Smart unlikely to contest, charge cancelled, get on with the rest of your life.

In parallel (not instead) complain to M&S and get them to cancel the charge with Smart. Take receipts in to prove you were a paying customer on the day.

clarenic

Hi

No itemised phone bill unfortunately ... I didn't realise but EE don't provide itemised billing for anything that falls outside of my plan. To get that information they want to charge me £10 as they're treating it as a subject access request. There's not much point paying it as they get forty days to respond under the SAR rules so won't be back in time for me to use it.

pogofish

clarenic wrote: »

Thanks Pogofish. I did have a read through but didn't really see anything that came close to these circumstances?

Clare

Circumstances don't matter - any appeal based on what actually happened will nearly always fail. This is a common mistake made by reasonable people who
don't appreciate how unreasonable PPCs and their fellow-travellers are.

Stick to the proven challenges in the sticky.

clarenic

pogofish wrote: »

Circumstances don't matter - any appeal based on what actually happened will nearly always fail. This is a common mistake made by reasonable people who
don't appreciate how unreasonable PPCs and their fellow-travellers are.

Stick to the proven challenges in the sticky.

Ok, I'll have another read through. I'm concerned though about ending up having to pay £100 instead of the £60 they've kindly reduced it to if I pay within 14 days :mad::mad:

clarenic

Umkomaas wrote: »

Circumstances are largely irrelevant - and in your case totally irrelevant in the context of this particular ticket.

All you need to do is send off the blue text appeal from the sticky, wait for the rejection from Smart (with a POPLA code), construct your POPLA appeal (model appeal points available in post #3 of the sticky), let us see your draft for fine tuning, send it to POPLA, Smart unlikely to contest, charge cancelled, get on with the rest of your life.

In parallel (not instead) complain to M&S and get them to cancel the charge with Smart. Take receipts in to prove you were a paying customer on the day.

Thanks - no M&S receipt unfortunately as I only bought a couple of bottles of drink in there. It should be showing on my bank account though.

pogofish

clarenic wrote: »

Ok, I'll have another read through. I'm concerned though about ending up having to pay £100 instead of the £60 they've kindly reduced it to if I pay within 14 days :mad::mad:

Kindly..?

Disabuse yourself of the idea that these jokers have any values at all - and even the reduced charge is sixty quid too much.

Smart are pretty straightforward to see-off if you follow the advice and procedure in the sticky, so you need not to expect to pay much more than nothing at all

Umkomaas

clarenic wrote: »

Thanks - no M&S receipt unfortunately as I only bought a couple of bottles of drink in there. It should be showing on my bank account though.

Try a complaint to M&S and show them your bank statement. It works so many times, and, from recollection, M&S have been reasonable in the past in helping their genuine customers.

See how it goes.