Any advice welcome.

LRT1

I used a private car park for an hour and when I got back paid for my ticket & got a receipt (less than £5). Went back to car and only when I got to the barrier realised that a token was needed.

No token in machine so it must have been taken. I was made to pay an extra £25 in order to leave the car park. There was no way of leaving the car park otherwise.

Any way to get this back as the fine doesn't seem proportionate?

Owner and agent are saying 'tough'. CCTV shows me paying.

Guys_Dad

Almost impossible to get a refund from a private car park after you have paid unless you do court.

Why were you not able to pay £5 again rather than £25?

LRT1

Manager refused to let me out. The charge was a non negotiable £25 (apparently detailed on signs).

Guys_Dad

Did the pay machine swallow your ticket?

LRT1

I put my token into the machine. Then paid my money and got the receipt (shows amount I paid plus time / date).

The only stage I missed was to take another token back. Not familiar with this type of car park so I assumed that the receipt was the thing I needed to get out of the barrier. On return to the machine there was no sign of my token.

Company knows I paid as this can be seen on CCTV.

Coupon-mad

LRT1 wrote: »

Manager refused to let me out. The charge was a non negotiable £25 (apparently detailed on signs).

Refused to let you out = against the law. POFA 2012, falls foul of 'vehicle immobilisation'.

LRT1

How is this against the law? Is there an appeal?

I staged a sit in at the barrier for half an hour but then had to pay as I needed to get home quickly (Mum very ill - terminally).

Lamilad

LRT1 wrote: »

How is this against the law? Is there an appeal?

Because the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 is statute law. If it says something cannot be done (vehicle immobilisation) then someone does it, they are breaking the law.

However I'm not sure it's the sort of thing you can go to the police about now- although at the time you probably could have rung them.

As above your only chance of redress would be through the courts and it sounds like you'd have a pretty strong case... One of the others may be able to advise further if you want to explore this avenue.

beamerguy

Where on earth was this ?

Who is this company ? Who does this manager work for.

This is not legal

fisherjim

beamerguy wrote: »

Where on earth was this ?

Who is this company ? Who does this manager work for.

This is not legal

Has Ted Evans extended his "estate" outside Haworth!

Coupon-mad

LRT1 wrote: »

How is this against the law?

Told you:

POFA 2012, falls foul of 'vehicle immobilisation'. You just need to Google that law and read that section.

The only difficulty in deciding for sure that this is 'illegal' is that they used a barrier and there is a 'sort of' exemption about barriered car parks (you'd have to read it for yourself). I seem to recall that part is simply designed to exempt a car park that shuts a barrier at the end of the day and leaves the car park unmanned and closed, which isn't illegal of course, and tough if a rogue parker is stuck.