Hounded for a £180 fine...when I couldn’t find space to park car
Catalogue of complaints, but no independent appeals system
BLAMELESS motorists from all over Scotland have been plunged into battle with parking firms after the DVLA handed over their personal details.
These include a 90-year-old shopper who entered a single digit of her registration number wrongly, a mother who pulled into a car park to let her child be sick and a motorist who could not even find a space but was still charged.
All fell foul of inflexible automatic number recognition systems which log vehicles’ entry and exit from car parks but do not take account of commonly arising difficulties.
Yet despite the fact the motorist is often not at fault and there is no independent appeals system in Scotland, their names and addresses are passed on to the parking pirates by a government agency flouting its own guidelines.
One victim is Tom Pendreigh, chairman of the Inverness Ice Centre. He drove into the Strothers Lane facility in the city to turn his car around but found himself blocked in by a truck trying to manoeuvre its way out.
He said: ‘My engine was never switched off, I was never parked in a space. I was hit with an initial fine, then a second, for £180.’
He took legal advice and refused to pay. However, operator Smart Parking claimed he was there 15 minutes and, by failing to pay at the time, was in breach of the contract customers enter into on entering the car park.
Dundee councillor Will Dawson is, as city development convener, a key decision maker on parking in Dundee. He paid for his parking in Kinnoull Street, Perth, using the RingGo app on his phone. He had entered his car registration details on the app three years ago and used the car park and those details many times without incident.
But on his last visit he received a parking charge of £100 because the details have a zero where they should have an O.
Mr Dawson said: ‘If I have been using the app in the same way for three years then why now?’ He added: ‘I have two receipts on my desk and, to my mind, I’ve paid them. The way I’m looking at this at the moment with Smart Parking is bring it on, take me to court. That’s the only way you’re going to get this money out of me. As far as I’m concerned I paid them for a space within that car park.’
Smart Parking did not see it that way. It said: ‘Mr Dawson clearly admits that the parking app he used was at fault and thus he broke the terms and conditions of use at our car park. We would remind customers to always check the registration number that is entered when using any of our car parks.’
Wendy Reid, 74, from Almondbank, Perthshire, used the same car park in November last year but accidentally entered the wrong registration number after forgetting she was driving her husband’s car rather than her own. Within days her husband received a £100 penalty in the post.
Mrs Reid said: ‘It’s ridiculous. It was a genuine little mistake. They know the car is my husband’s because they sent the fine to him. It’s not like I didn’t pay the charge for the time I was there.’ Smart Parking responded: ‘We rejected Mrs Reid’s appeal as she accepted she did not buy a ticket for the car she parked in the car park.’
The same firm runs a car park at Clarkston Toll, near Glasgow. There, Dorothy Matheson mistakenly entered a zero instead of an O. She said: ‘I wasn’t trying to evade payment I simply made a genuine
error. This company are a nightmare to deal with, they don’t have a complaints department, and appeals are not heard by an independent body. They simply act as judge, jury and executioner.’
Smart Parking argues that there are multiple notices in its premises reminding customers registration numbers must be entered correctly.
It also runs the car park where a mother, who asked to remain anonymous, stopped only because her child was being sick.
She stayed for just ten minutes in Strothers Lane, Inverness, while she cleaned him up. Receiving a parking charge notice weeks later, she said: ‘I was shocked to say the least, but angry at the same time. I refused to pay the bill which now sits at £160, and I will never pay it.
‘I would happily argue my point in court if it ever gets that far.’
At the same car park Steven Brash, from Beauly, Invernessshire, drove in and, finding no spaces, left. He said: ‘I at no point parked or even stopped my car, and didn’t purchase a parking ticket. I received a parking charge from Smart Parking with the reason for issue being “overstayed paid time”.’ He added the firm rejected his appeals.
Inverness South councillor Carolyn Caddick received a penalty notice after failing to find an alternative pay machine after the main one failed to work.
She said several constituents had contacted her about the car park and customers were being punished ‘disproportionately’.
Meanwhile, Hilary and Russell Brown enjoy the rare distinction of receiving an apology from Smart Parking. The couple, from Aberfeldy, Perthshire, went to a concert in Perth last February and returned for their car in the Kinnoull Street multi-storey just before it closed at midnight.
But a minute before midnight the attendant locked the car park and drove off, leaving the couple stranded. Their taxi fare to get home was £55. To add insult to injury, the number plate recognition cameras clocked their car a second time as they had driven around looking for another exit.
As a result, they received two parking charge notices. Mrs Brown, 53, said: ‘Our car was directly behind the attendant’s when they got in and drove off. There’s absolutely no way on earth that they could have missed us, it just wasn’t possible. It was deliberate – as far as that person was concerned they were leaving us locked in the car park.’
Smart Parking apologised, cancelled their penalties and offered to reimburse any expenses.
ParkingEye uses similar technology and also relies on the DVLA to provide it with customers’ details. Fiona Lovatt, from East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, complained that her daughter Alison was unfairly fined when she parked her car in the town’s Queensway Retail Park after 11pm for 25 minutes.
The place was deserted and she had just stopped to eat her meal from the park’s McDonald’s drive-through.
But days later a £100 penalty arrived. The mother said: ‘The signs in this car park are small and on lamp posts, so there’s no way you could read them at night. The car park is essentially closed as of 10pm and if that’s the case they should put a gate over the car park to stop people going in.’
Parking Eye said the fine was issued because parking was banned between 10pm-7am.
Aberdeenshire motorist Nigel
‘Act as judge, jury and executioner’ ‘Trapping and intimidating’
Bowker also crossed swords with ParkingEye when he exceeded the four-hour limit in the Beach Boulevard retail centre in Aberdeen. The reason for his delayed departure was torrential rain.
He refused to pay his £135 fine, accused the company of ‘trapping and intimidating people’ and described the appeals process as ‘laughable’.
He said: ‘Like many people I didn’t see the signs, mainly because there wasn’t one visible at the entrance and within the car park I was understandably rather busy trying to drive and park safely.’
Mr Bowker added: ‘I’d be interested in finding out how many other innocent people have been entrapped in this way.’
ParkingEye said it encouraged customers to appeal if they feel there are extenuating circumstances but in this case the appeal was rejected because Mr Bowker had overstayed without reasonable cause.
In every case it was the DVLA which armed the parking companies with the information necessary to pursue the motorists.
And in none of them was an independent appeals body available to the motorist.
Who speaks, then, for Scottish drivers left at the mercy of ruthless parking firms by a government agency failing in its own covenant to motorists? Thousands of victims of a shambolic industry are waiting to find out.