Parking charge notice

fhicks83

Hi,
I would be grateful for any advice you can offer. My husband got a parking charge notice from a private car park in Scotland recently. I had been driving my husband’s car and accidentally put in the registration for my own car instead of my husband’s when I bought my ticket from the machine. I appealed this as I thought they would accept this and cancel the charge as I also had proof of the ticket I did buy, with the wrong registration number. They rejected my appeal. In retrospect now I have researched this further I should have just ignored the letter.
So my question is do I pay the £60 now they know we received the letter and I identified myself as the driver or just ignore it?
Thanks.:p

Umkomaas

Ignore it in Scotland as the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post #1 tells you. Read it as it will have just saved you £60.

fhicks83

Thanks, I did read it prior to posting but I am still worried about not paying as they know I have received the charge and that I was the driver.

Umkomaas

they know I have received the charge and that I was the driver.

What exactly did you say?

Which parking company?

Coupon-mad

Who is ''they''?

Only about three firms currently even sniff around cases in Scotland. Hundreds don't have a clue.

fhicks83

I don’t have a copy of my exact words but I explained I had incorrectly entered the vehicle registration etc. It is Smart Parking Ltd.

Umkomaas

If you’ve identified the driver they are one step nearer a court case. Saying that ‘you incorrectly entered the vehicle registration’ isn’t an admission as to who was driving. It could easily be a family member or friend, with you jumping out of the vehicle to sort out the ticket. So you haven’t necessarily blown off any of your toes. But you do need to edit your opening post to remove any evidence of who the driver was.

While there are a couple of ‘scary’ Scottish cases (Carly Mackie £24,000), we haven’t seen anyone pursued through the Sheriff court for a one-off ticket. In fact we’ve never really seen anyone pursued, other than the couple of headline cases. So I don’t believe you are going to be the first single-ticket court case north of the border.

So you just sit back and see what the next move is from Smart. Probably harmless scare letters from debt collectors which can be ignored (the NEWBIES FAQ sticky, post # 4 covers debt collectors).

Smart have 5 years to pursue a court case in Scotland (6 in E/W) - you just have to ride it out.

Have you complained to the landowner and asked them to intervene and get this cancelled? They often will for genuine customers.