Parking Fine - Grey area? No Hope?

Linkydink70

Hi there, If anyone can offer advice I would be so grateful.

Here's the story in short:  
Local Asda has a 2 hour free stay, the fee to stay an extra hour is £2, no stay over 3 hours is permitted.
In June I went and parked in an underground section of the car park and returned before the 3 hours was up.  I went to the machine to pay and for 10 minutes or so stood there trying to get the machine to take card payment.  It consistently failed to connect, (nothing to do with bank balance etc).  Each time I tried took minutes of 'pending' until it then advised me it had not taken payment.  I went up the escalator to the Asda store to ask for advice.  A chap there advised me to pay in another car park machine (above ground) which I did. 
The ANPR recognised that my car entered at 10.05 and said I owed £2.  I paid and went back downstairs and drove out.

I get a parking fine via Parking Eye, appealed by POPLA.  During the appeal process I explained about the machine not working and I had a photo of my receipt stating the time purchased etc (1.16pm).  When I sent the appeal I had not realised that the issue with them was not that it was at the wrong machine but that I was 21 minutes over the three hours, despite my first attempt at paying being before the three hours.

Do you think it is worth fighting this?  It is so frustrating and now fixed at £100.  I tried my best to make sure I did the right thing on paying and leaving and due to their machines I couldn't.  Please help.

Thank you,

Gr1pr

I think that with that story you may well win in court,  if it got that far 

Linkydink70

Gr1pr said:

I think that with that story you may well win in court,  if it got that far 

Thanks for the feedback.  I don't know whether to risk it or to just pay up.  Their appeals process is notoriously unsympathetic.

Gr1pr

I suggest that you try to get future changes by filling in the new government public survey consultation that ends in 2 weeks time 

This is your chance to be heard

GrumpyDil

Did you ask Asda to get the charge cancelled as they are pretty good at doing by some accounts I've read?

Half_way

Opening statement 

Parking Fine - Grey area? No hope?

first it's not a parking fine, nowhere on the stuff you have received will it state fine or penalty, so dont get confused and see it for more than it is, thats the grey area sorted.

Secondly, and for future reference never identify the driver, you have used the "I" word too often, sometimes if the drivers identity is unknown fighting these things can be made a lot easier.

 You can have three/four different entities/people as the following:

1: The registered keeper - the one who receives the tax reminders and the parking charge notices

2: The Driver on the day

3: The owner of the vehicle

4: the Hirer of the vehicle 

As for your parking charge notice, dont worry if you have outed the driver, but do send something to asda to get it quashed .

 Post what you intend to send on here first, and if they (asda) follow up with some nonsense about it being to POPLA and they cant do anything then post back here as that is known as a fob off 

knightstyle

email.   

customer.support@help.asda.com

Coupon-mad

Linkydink70 said:

Gr1pr said:

I think that with that story you may well win in court,  if it got that far 

Thanks for the feedback.  I don't know whether to risk it or to just pay up.  Their appeals process is notoriously unsympathetic.

But NOBODY pays unfair parking charges from private firms. There's no grey area or dilemma. Just get ASDA to cancel it.

Linkydink70

Thanks so much everyone for your feedback.  I knew very little about this process but your support it appreciated.  I will let you know how I get on.

prowla

For after the event future reference, etc...

It's always a good idea to take a picture of malfunctioning machines to have solid evidence.