After some advice from you good people.

I visited my local pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap sports retailer the other week, paid at the machine for parking, went into the shop, bought some cheap sporty tat then left.

I now have a parking demand from the company that monitors the car park, the usual £45 if you pay now or £90 if later plus whatever extra fees we add and we'll take you to court etc letters. I distinctly remember paying as they have a new fangled machine that requires your registration number and I had to ask my daughter to move out of the way of the car boot so I could check my registration.

I remember reading that the oft quoted on peepipo "just ignore them all" doesn't work nowadays as people have lost cases trying that defence.

I can provide witnesses of me paying and also evidence of what was spent in the shop if that's relevant (it obviously won't be to the car parking company but may be to the sports shop whose car park it is). Any ideas on how to get them to bog off?

You've mentioned Pepipoo and I would ask on there. There are some very knowledgable people on the site.

Don't you have a ticket from the machine to prove you paid? If you paid but did not display a ticket you can still be fined. It's really not worth arguing with them I have found, you end up with nasty threatening letters and having to pay a lot more than the original fine.

Did you pay over the phone or using an app? I got caught out by the phone-based payment system in Royston a few years ago; I thought it had registered my payment but it hadn't. I ended up paying, though it was to a council, not a criminal thug in a parking warden's hat.

I had this at the botanical gardens in brum. We fought and won. I will see if I still have the letters and send them over.

That would be very helpful thanks CoupeDummy. I was thinking along the lines of mentioning the availability of witnesses in my appeal and seeing if the retailer in question have CCTV footage as that should show me paying. I paid cash and will have thrown the ticket out when I got home. There should be a record on their machine as I had to enter my car reg although I suspect that could be where the failing is.

It's the one time that I wish I treat my car like MrsWishy and just accumulate months on ends worth of tickets on the dashboard. Hopefully she won't read this though as I'd hate to have to admit that!

The plot thickens, reading the letter closer it states that the offence is "overstayed paid time" so they aren't saying that I didn't pay, just that I stayed too long. I'm pretty sure that I paid for an hour (the minimum in that car park) and their image times show me as leaving within 30 minutes.

Computer error methinks, will check the actual car park times tonight.

If its a "computer error", then you should send them an invoice for your time in having to deal with it and conduct the (un)neccesary research

From my experience, "computer errors" don't exist, they are just a convenient scape-goat. Computers are programmed by people, so any error that manifests itself through a computerised system almost always has a flesh & blood weak point at its source

If its anything like the multistorey car park in Bicester then it could be badly run, with little human control.

You get 2 hours free parking, and normally there is a sign at the entrance/exit saying when your 2 hours runs out. If you drive out it supposed to say you've stayed for x minutes etc..

I once parked there and the sign wasn't working. Panicking I thought I'd double check to see if I'd been there over the 2 hours (you pay £1.70 extra for the extra hour).

I spoke to the parking company and they couldn't actually tell me how long I'd parked there. They said just wait and you will either receive a fine or not, or I could just pay the extra

In the end I had to dig out till receipts from some shops and I was under the 2 hours by 10 minutes. I believe there is a similar system for the congestion charge in London - there is no way you can check to see if you've been 'in' or not, you just receive a fine out of the blue.

Good luck.

Kinda off subject: Have you seen the Joe Lycett clip about parking fines from 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown a few weeks ago. Very funny.

I'm tempted to use that defence!

The clip in question.

FWIW it's run completely automatically as far as I can see. The ticket machine takes your car registration as input which then presumably gets checked against ANPR enabled cameras aimed at the entrance/exit. The company that sent the demand are based in Birmingham so nowhere near here. It's the entrance/exit photos and times that they have sent me as evidence.

Exactly the same. My argument was that the fine wasn't representive of the loss to the landowner. The loss would of been £7 and same charge of £45 within 14 days. Successfully won with popla.

I've had a quick look at the history of the company on peepipo and it seems they tend to give in to appeals pretty quickly. I've been back to the car park and it's an hour that I paid for so I was well within that. Doesn't look like the retailer has CCTV pointing at the car park but I can ask tomorrow.

My defence will be that I actually paid and displayed for the time that I was there.

Can you see the time you paid in the shop on the till receipt? Most retailers date and time stamp these days

Not sure if we still have the receipt but can provide proof of purchase via bank statements. Will gather together some scans and photos for a PePiPoo post tomorrow but after reading through the FAQs the fine not being representative of the loss that coupedummy mentions above should be in there as well as the obvious fact that I paid and displayed.

Now on Pepipoo

Appeal now sent.

I went back to the retailer today and got a reprinted receipt. They don't have any CCTV pointed at the car park and they don't own the land. They did however also confirm that they've had "hundreds" of complaints from customers regarding fines.

When I logged my appeal on the website there was an option to view their photographic evidence and I was able to zoom in on the photos they sent in the fine notice. It's not even me driving

Whether or not I know who was driving is an entirely different matter but it's not me in either of the two front seats unless I've either changed sex or turned into a small boy. Anyhow, will see what happens next.

Boom and the parking fine has gone.

Thanks for all the suggestions (except for the one to just pay it ). They have confirmed it cancelled today. For the record, in case anyone else has such issue, I used Gan's suggestion word for word from the Peepipo thread in my appeal. I just missed the extra bit about doing it before I needed to take the goods back.

They confirmed that it was the driver's fault as they had put in a letter of the registration incorrectly. It looks like the driver used an amalgamation of their previous two cars' registrations. They then pointed out that they may not be so generous in future.

I may direct all my negative energy towards them in pointing out that if their system can't match records then it shouldn't issue a ticket and take the money. Or I may not bother.

Thanks again anyway, especially for the Joe Lycett bit.

Another way of avoiding parking tickets


https://youtu.be/kxcWtCopXpI

I see your 8 out of 10 cats and raise you.....

Indeed. Post 1548270.