Repeated false parking charges from Fforestfach Retail Park

monkey1337

I have received probably 6 if not more false parking charges from Fforestfach Retail Park this year.

The car park allows up to 3 hours parking during the day time. They keep sending me letters claiming I parked for about 25 hours. I have never parked overnight and never longer than 3 hours. I always get coffee in the Caffe Nero and sometimes buy groceries from Aldi and Tesco before departing perhaps 1.5-2 hours after entering.

The camera system sometimes doesn't acknowledge me driving out of the car park, which means it only records the time I leave the car park the following day. For example, it might record me entering at 1pm on Thursday and leaving at 2pm on Friday. Because their system failed to record me leaving on Thursday and re-entering on Friday, it makes the logical but incorrect decision to issue me a charge.

I appealed the first charge. When they sent me a second charge a couple weeks later, I copy pasted my first appeal and submitted it. Then they sent me a letter where they acknowledged that they made mistakes and told me to ignore future charges. So I ignored the third, fourth charge and so on.

However, my "contravention" on 21st July 2025 was passed onto DCBL (Direct Collection Bailiffs Ltd). I called DCBL and explained everything. They told me they couldn't do anything about the situation except take my payment. Obviously I didn't pay them. They also said I should have appealed the charge which is ridiculous because the car park explicitly said to ignore future charges and they are perfectly aware their camera system is broken. You can't expect people to keep appealing charges that they are being bombarded and harassed with.

I emailed the "Asset manager" Adam Martin who is listed on the Fforestfach Retail Parc website to explain the situation to him and ask him why his company is harassing me with false charges. It has been over a week and I have not received a reply. So now I don't know what to do.

Who am I supposed to complain to stop this harassment and how do I get Fforestfach to drop this charge?

Car1980

Wait for a Letter Before Claim from DCB Legal.

Then I suggest we formulate a letter, copying in all parties and threatening a counter-claim if they don't drop everything.

monkey1337

Ok I will do that, thanks.

The latest letter I received today is a "Final Reminder - Unpaid Parking Charge £170", which is the second letter from DCBL. So I expect the next letter will probably be a "Letter Before Claim" as you mentioned.