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Parking Charge Notice


monkie

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I'm sure this has happened to most of us. I have managed to get a Parking charge notice (not penalty charge notice) in my 110. This is from a company called SmartParking. I understand they look after car parks for Lidle, McDonald's, Asda etc. 

It's a joke and certainly not very smart. They haven't got my name, just initials and half my surname. They have a photo of me entering the car park and a photo of me leaving. They have no photographic evidence to support their allegation I had no valid parking ticket and they have the fields of make, model and colour as "unknown"! 

I have responded to their online appeal form stating the above errors on their part and explained I therefore cannot accept the allegation so will not be paying their fine. 

I'll let you know how I get on. Anyone had any dealings with a similar situation? 

Edited by monkie
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They state: "smartparking Ltd believes that a parking charge notice is payable.... Insufficient paid time which is supported by the pictures of you entering and leaving the car park". 

So, it was a pay and display. I had a ticket for 1 hour (which I have since thrown away), their cameras show I was in the car park for 22 minutes. 

They have no evidence to support I had no ticket. I note they do not allege that I was not displaying a valid ticket!

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I was issued with a notice for parking at an Aldi without paying / displaying a ticket. I had no idea that I should have done but it was in an unknown town (Leek) on the way home from a trip.

We were shopping there and had the shop receipt. That was sufficient for them when I challenged them.

I had a huge fight with dart charge when even though I’d paid the fee that the registration triggered on their website, they then decided that we were a class C not class B and were therefore 50p underpaid. 
We were away for six weeks and so by the time we got home the penalty letter had been on the mat for ages and they had got snotty with me.

It was almost impossible to workout what had gone wrong and I couldn’t have a sensible discussion. All I could do was appeal and after weeks they admitted “an administrative error”. I think the camera thought I was a van even though I’m not. That implied they had assumed I was on the wrong plates!

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The thing that really gets me about these letters is that they look official and quite threatening, but dangle the carrot in front of you if you just pay up it will all go away. Lots of people must just accept them and pay up. 

Last year I got one for my company car saying I had driven in a bus lane in Warrington. It all went quiet when I showed them a receipt for my hotel in Boston MA! 

They've picked the wrong person here because there is no way they will get any money out me, just hastle!

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It’s an invoice and not a penalty as far as I’m aware.

 

you can chose to not pay it, I highly doubt they will take it further as the costs to them far outweigh the gain.

 

There are an awful lot of people who will pay it and it is these that they earn their money from.

 

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12 minutes ago, Badger110 said:

It’s an invoice and not a penalty as far as I’m aware.

 

you can chose to not pay it, I highly doubt they will take it further as the costs to them far outweigh the gain.

 

There are an awful lot of people who will pay it and it is these that they earn their money from.

 

You are correct on all 3 accounts as I understand it. I've responded within their 28 day deadline to tell them I ain't paying..... I may or may not get a response, time will tell. 

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 I got one from Aldi - you have to enter your reg in a terminal in the store and a private company manages the parking - I forgot one day and got a £50 fine notice shortly after.  I didn't have my receipt so just took a photo of another one, changed the date with photoshop and emailed it to them - job done 😁

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Did you pay for parking by card? A lot of machines offer that now and the bank statement would be evidence in your favour. 

They must have the numberplate correct on file as they got your address, did you type it into the machine wrong? If so can you supply a shop receipt or transaction on bank statement?

If you want to annoy them ask them to supply all the data they have on you on file for every time you've been in and out of all of their monitored car parks under GDPR, no reason apart from it would annoy someone. Although they are allowed to make a charge if they're switched on :rolleyes:

There is an Aldi at Scarborough where you have to put your numberplate into a machine before you drive away, not obvious bet it catches loads of holiday makers out. I only happened to see it as one of the kids was messing about next to it and I went over in dad telling off mode. 

A friend had a similar problem with Dart charge, he phoned and paid after the event and got a reference number, went to France for a while, came back to a 'you haven't paid your crossing' fine letter, phoned them with the reference number they gave him, "that's meaningless to us sir, we will only accept a copy of a bank statement with the payment on." No payment on the bank statement, obviously didn't go through, but what's the point in an reference number if it's meaningless? I have an account setup with all the numberplates on and pay monthly, although the factory I used to visit down there has closed so its maybe twice a year max now. 

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That's a good idea. If they come back to me I will start asking all sorts of questions to make them go on a paper trail. It's not a car park I use much as its near my mum's rather than near me. It was a pay and display but not linked to a shop otherwise I would have asked the shop to contact them to cancel the fine. The only way theybhave my number plate details is because of the Apr as you enter and as you leave. The only pictures they have is of me entering and then leaving. No evidence provided to support their allegation.

I paid with loose change not bank card, but then I wouldn't send them a copy of my bank details anyway. Its not on me to disprove them, they have to prove I was in the wrong which I refuse to accept.

I have had this happen before in a council run carpark and the "evidence" they provided wasn't even my car on the closeup picture allowing me to have a field day on their presentation of evidence! 

They can keep writing to me if they want to. It will be fun as they don't know my name or the make and model of my vehicle. I think they are going to find it tricky without those details :D 

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