Damaged car had 7 tickets

ALEX PRENTICE went to a gaming conference in Birmingham in September and left his car in a street that had no Saturday parking restrictions.

When he returned to the car on the Sunday, it had been bashed by another motorist and was undriveable. Police had been in attendance and said it would be OK to leave the car in place until insurers could recover it.

Alex returned home to Cupar, Fife, and the RAC were to recover his car. This took a few weeks.

In the meantime, his car gathered seven parking tickets, which Alex didn’t even know about. The pick-up driver stuffed them in the glove box.

When he discovered the tickets Alex reckoned the other driver’s insurance firm would pay. But it said that, as it hadn’t been officially informed the car was in restricted zone, it wasn’t liable.

By this point, the seven £30 fixedprice fines had become penalties costing £187 each – that’s £1309. Raw Deal stepped in. The insurance firm, 1st Central, said: “Upon further investigation, we have seen that there was a miscommunication in the handling on this complaint, for which we would like to apologise. We have waived the outstanding fee and will be compensating Mr Prentice for the inconvenience caused.”