Harassed with £160 fine for underpaying by just 10p...

TWO months after George Taylor’s wife Sybil died of cancer, a pair of friends finally managed to get him out of the house, writes Jonathan Brocklebank. Their plan for re-engaging the 80-yearold with the world was dinner and big band music at Perth Concert Hall – and a great success it was, too. Or so it appeared until a few days later, in May last year, when that first letter dropped on the doormat. A company called Smart Parking was demanding £60 because, it seemed, the widower had underpaid by 10p when he parked in Kinnoull Street car park to go to the concert. Mr Taylor, pictured left, was baffled. He had left the car park well before midnight and his ticket appeared to indicate he could have kept his car there until 1.52am. The former computer engineer decided to research the issue on the internet and speak to the Citizens’ Advice Bureau. The more he learned the more convinced he became that Smart Parking did not have a case. He said: ‘My friends had been in there before and knew you paid when you leave. We had overstayed the four hours by 14 minutes so we were due to pay £5.30. ‘After we’d paid £5.20, the machine issued a ticket, which said we could stay till 1.52 the following morning. ‘If we hadn’t paid the right money, I maintain, we shouldn’t have got a ticket. Who is going to bother about 10p at 10pm on a Sunday night?’ But Smart Parking’s pursuit of its quarry continued and more letters followed – many more. Soon the sum being demanded was £160. They warned that if the money was not paid, the matter would be passed to the company’s solicitors. Mr Taylor said: ‘I was beginning to look forward to my day in court. It looked as though it might come about but there was no way they were going to get £160 out of me because I was 10p short.’ Another letter soon arrived, indicating that it may be possible to pay the £160 in instalments. Infuriated, Mr Taylor sent the firm a blown-up image of his parking ticket indicating 1.52am.

The company responded by sending him a blown up image of its parking charges.

Next a series of letters arrived from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd.

Mr Taylor was amused to note that, as he continued to ignore his pursuers, the sum demanded now began to fall. On one occasion the firm indicated it would settle for the reduced sum of £136 to avoid court action. He did not respond.

A subsequent letter bore a new name on the letterhead – Zenith Collection. Close inspection revealed it was a trading arm of Debt Recovery Plus. This time, it offered a settlement of £80.

It seemed the pensioner had them on the run. Refusal to co-operate with the firm’s demands resulted in ever more desperate attempts to recoup something from him. But it was already clear silence was the best policy.

Ultimately Mr Taylor got in touch with his local MSP, Murdo Fraser, who contacted Smart Parking and asked the firm to stop bothering his constituent.

Only then, after six months of pestering the pensioner for money, did the company let him be.

For its part, Smart Parking maintained the ticket showed 1.52am because the machine had counted four hours from the time Mr Taylor had inserted £5.20.

The confusion arose because customers can pay either when they leave or when they arrive.

But the machine does not make a distinction, which means that if customers pay when they leave they receive a ticket displaying a time bearing no relation to the actual time by which their car must be out of the car park.

The company offered no explanation for the machine issuing a ticket before Mr Taylor had paid the full £5.30.

It said in a statement: ‘In the case of Mr Taylor, he correctly received a parking charge, used our appeals process – and we cancelled his charge.’