Parking Charge Notice after I paid for parking - or so I thought.

Stu666

Looking for advice please.  Last week I parked in a private car park and paid before exiting via the PayByPhone app. I noticed on the day that the app wouldn't let me pay via Apple Pay like it normally does - the button was greyed out and wouldn't allow me to tap it. I had to enter card details manually and paid that way, £1 for two hours.  It seemed to accept my card details and I recall seeing confirmation of parking on screen and went about my day.

A week later, I have received a parking charge notice through the post from SIP Parking Limited. They want £100, dropping to £60 if paid within 14 days. They have ANPR images of my vehicle entering and exiting the car park just less than an hour later. 

I checked the app and to my surprise there is no record whatsoever of me parking here and no payment appears to have been taken. I have received no confirmation emails, nothing in spam. It seems to me that some sort of technical problem on the day has resulted in the transaction not being processed.  I have used the app on a couple of occasions previously with no issue.

Seems very much like it's going to be a case of my word vs theirs, although nobody in their right mind would have risked a £60 charge for the sake of £1.

Any thoughts?

Car1980

Look for Google reviews of car parks. Quite common for people to have similar issues and leave a bad review. Useful for any witness statement.

Gr1pr

Send SIP the blue text template appeal in the newbies sticky thread in announcements 

Bear in mind that SIP won't cancel the PCN 

Le_Kirk

Check with your bank to see the story of what happened; there have been instances of PPCs not taking the payment.

Coupon-mad

I wouldn't use the template appeal with SIP.  Like Carlow they make individual decisions.

Just appeal offering a tenner to cover admin and explaining what happened, asking them what went wrong at their end.

If you regularly pay them in this car park, attach evidence and politely point out you are a regular customer.

Not_A_Hope

Which SIP car park is this? A relative of mine has recently had an issue with a SIP car park on Parker Lane, Burnley where she believed she had paid by debit card but later found the payment wasn’t taken resulting in a PCN. Although T&Cs state a ticket must be displayed they don’t actually issue them so you have no indication or evidence that the transaction has been successful or failed. An offer of retrospective payment was declined. No doubt they will issue a court claim in due course.

Awful money grabbing company. Going to central Manchester tomorrow and deliberately avoiding their car park near to the venue despite it being the cheapest. No doubt that is also set up to scam as many motorists as possible.

Gr1pr

The offer to pay a tenner might work, especially with regular users who have proof of patronage 

I agree with the last person above, never ever use a SIP car park, avoid them like the plague. !

Stu666

Not_A_Hope said:

Which SIP car park is this? A relative of mine has recently had an issue with a SIP car park on Parker Lane, Burnley where she believed she had paid by debit card but later found the payment wasn’t taken resulting in a PCN. Although T&Cs state a ticket must be displayed they don’t actually issue them so you have no indication or evidence that the transaction has been successful or failed. An offer of retrospective payment was declined. No doubt they will issue a court claim in due course.

Awful money grabbing company. Going to central Manchester tomorrow and deliberately avoiding their car park near to the venue despite it being the cheapest. No doubt that is also set up to scam as many motorists as possible.

It was the Grove House car park in Hazel Grove.

Stu666

Thanks for the suggestions all.  I have approached the PayByPhone app company to try and find out if they were experiencing technical issues on the day. I doubt they would admit liability, but worth a try. Plan B is to explain the situation to SIP and offer them a tenner.  

Stu666

Just an update on this for anyone else who gets caught out - PayByPhone denied any responsibility and referred me to SIP. SIP rejected my appeal and offer of a tenner on the basis that there is a telephone number to call on the car park notice board should you have issues paying on the day, not that this would have helped me because I had no idea payment hadn't gone through. I decided not to challenge on this occasion and swallowed the £60 fine.

LDast

That's £60 you didn't have to pay.