PCN Appeal for failed telephone payment

somersetsarah · 26 June 2018 at 6:15PM

Does anyone have any experience of successfully appealing PCN where automated telephone payment was used in a council operated car park? I have looked on the forums and can’t see any mention of issues with telephone payments. My initial appeal within 14 days has been rejected despite the fact that I supplied the telephone system with all necessary details to take a payment at the time of parking. I intend to appeal further but I am looking for advice to fight this, but I am not sure under what grounds I should be fighting?

I used the telephone payment system operated by a local council. During the call I fully registered my vehicle registration number, selected the duration of parking and also supplied my card details for the payment to be taken, and my mobile number. The system is automated with no human interaction. As far as I was concerned I had supplied all of the necessary information and had no intention of not paying. I left the carpark and raced to meeting believing I had a valid telephone ticket.

Only during a break in the meeting did I see that I had received a text message from the parking company asking me to confirm my registration details immediately by text (despite the fact I provided this verbally during the call). I replied to the text as soon as I saw it with my vehicle registration, but this was over an hour after it was sent because my phone was silenced due to being in a meeting. I then saw a second text sent just a few minutes after the first one stating that because I had not supplied my vehicle registration number immediately my parking was invalid. So, there I am having left the carpark and in a meeting, unable to leave what am I supposed to do as I left that carpark believing I had a ticket? On returning to my car at the end of the day I had PCN which was issued over 2 hours after I text my registration details. They still could have taken payment even with my delayed text response as I had requested all day parking. No number had been supplied to call the parking firm in the text message, and even if it had because I wasn’t in the car park I wouldn’t have known what the unique car park reference number was that is printed on the signage to go through the payment process again. I just feel that this is totally unacceptable as I believed I had paid for all day parking and would never not have paid!!

I don’t consider its my fault that I didn’t respond to a text message within 10 minutes given that I had supplied all necessary details to take a payment already. I did not overstay the max time limit, and my vehicle was properly parked. Any advice would be gratefully received as I am ready for a fight.

Redx · 26 June 2018 at 6:37PM

if this is council then you need to go to pepipoo forums, join with a non hotmail address (use gmail ideally) and post on there in their council section