Horizon Parking - Initial Appeal Rejected for Short Overstay

scentedcandle34

Hello again MSE community,

After successful help with a previous case, I have returned. This time the circumstances are very different and more my own lapse of judgement, but I still believe due process is not being followed.

30/05/2025 - Date of alleged breach
05/06/2025 - PCN issued for £45 (£75 after 14 days)
15/06/2025 - Appeal submitted to Horizon (based on template with a little extra info which I will  soon explain)
30/06/2025 - Appeal rejected by Horizon.

Their evidence on the PCN is two low quality images of my vehicle entering the car park at time X and leaving the car park at the time X + 1 hour 5 minutes and 47 seconds. 

I had paid for 1 hour of parking and visited a nearby cafe. Towards the end of that time, for various reasons (call of nature, limp from a leg injury and replying to an e-mail whilst sat in the car), I don't deny leaving the car park at the time they say. 

However, I was under the impression that BPA guidelines allow for grace periods of up to 10 minutes which would more than cover me in this case. In fact, if you count the time it took to purchase a ticket and exit the car park, I would likely be within my hour. 

Given this, I submitted an appeal online to Horizon on these grounds but it was rejected. They have offered another 14 days to pay the discounted rate of £45 along with a boiler plate explanation, but I feel it would be worth going down the POPLA route. 

I have been looking at the newbie thread again and other templates but just had a few questions.

1 - I do not have the physical paper ticket anymore, however, in my initial appeal I did send a  screenshot of my bank statement for £1.10 to Horizon Parking at the location of the car park. Would this act against my case to POPLA?

2 - In their rejection e-mail Horizon said: "Our systems do not show any evidence of payment made against this vehicle on the incident date." I don't see how this can be true given the money has come out of my bank account, unless again, this is just meaningless boiler plate text.

3 - Bit of a vague question, but given the arbitrary nature of how decisions are made, what would be my chances of successful appeal to POPLA based on these facts?

Thanks for any help in advance.

Gr1pr

Was the correct VRM used when paying for the parking   ? Because they are saying that there is no record of payment against that VRM  ( they are not saying that no payment was made   )

Chances are that its either a keying error,  or a machine fault,  meaning that any payment wasnt tagged against the VRM on your vehicle 

scentedcandle34

That did enter my mind. But to the best of my knowledge, yes, the correct number plate was used. Is there any way to confirm this from their side? I doubt it's in their interest to cooperate but they could look at all VRNs within 10 minutes of me entering the car park and/or search for my previous number plate and my current one minus 1 character.

Gr1pr

All that is certainly a possibility and would explain their rejection,  or it's a machine fault,  if its not human error 

Presumably they have given you a popla code,  so they won't accept a second appeal,  meaning that you need a carefully worded popla appeal,  with evidence such as the payment statement. But proof of payment doesn't guarantee a win, because Horizon didn't match it to the VRM in order to authorise the parking 

So popla may reject it too, even though you think differently 

Its a shame that you dont have a paper transaction receipt which might have had the VRM details on it, plus a paper ticket at the time of the transaction showing proof of payment for the agreed at the time parking contract between the driver and the parking company 

Coupon-mad

Take it to POPLA and say that Horizon failed to identify whether this was a major or minor keying error, despite being shown proof of paying £1.10. Also add this:

That proof immediately put the operator 'on notice' as part of the first stage appeals process, that there WAS an unmatched payment in their system and they had to check for a near-match VRM. They have this information easily to hand. The driver doesn't have it because the paper receipt was discarded after the day of parking and they never thought for a minute that the keypad had not fully recorded the VRM properly. How could a driver guess this? Horizon should have acted upon the bank statement proof that was provided and they were required to do a 'fuzzy whitelist' search.

Then when they identified the £1.10 payment and which VRM was input alongside that payment from that card, they HAD to either cancel the PCN or offer to settle for £20 ... but they did neither and are silently sitting on the answer. It cannot be incumbent upon a motorist to know to use the magic words 'was it a keying error?' when they don't even know that it was a possibility. Horizon do know and failed to respond appropriately.

scentedcandle34

Thanks both for the help identifying the issue and CM for the detail on what to add. I'll try POPLA then and let you know how it goes.