Has anyone ever just ignored a parking ticket?

[BalloonsAndWhistles]

Private car park I should add.

Cut a long story short, we went into a car park and were unable to pay. Machine not accepting contactless and RinGo just cutting out when we called them. We were in there for 20 mins.

About 2 weeks later, we got the invoice for £100, reduced to £60 for quick payment. We appealed. They said no, ignoring the fact we couldn’t pay. We appealed again and they declined it and reduced it to £20. We appealed it again and stated that we were unable to pay and have had another demand for £100.

What would happen if we just ignored it? Would we get in a lot of trouble? It’s not the money per se, I just feel absolutely outraged that due to them not maintaining their machines they are now harassing us for money and not listening to us.

And in the very unlikely event of it getting to county court AND you then losing, you would then get the chance to pay an amount set by the judge, with all the ridiculous admin charges the debt collection companies add stripped off, way, way before you ever got a CCJ. So imo what have you got to lose if you feel they are being unfair is my position - as long as you can handle the admin and letter writing and can do an initial Freedom of Information request to make sure you get copies of all the letters they sent you etc.

It’s just such a kick in the teeth. I’m really going to have to pay it aren’t I? We’ve only got £192 in the current account til payday and I was actually quite pleased at that as it was enough til our paydays and enough for DH’s birthday meal next week. I can’t believe we’re going to have to hand over more than half even though we were trying to pay in the first place. I actually feel sick. I probably won’t have enough for a birthday present for him now 😢

Disclaimer- I’m not hinting for money. Please don’t think I am. I’m just having a pity party 🎉

Call them and tell them you'll pay the price of the original parking fee.

I would definitely let them take you to court! I think you would win given you were unable to park - and even if you didn’t, I can’t imagine the court ordered fine would be more than £100. As PP have said, the CCJ is issued if you ignore the court fine, what have you got to lose? If you are scared I’d write to one of the money advice people in the newspapers as mentioned upthread.

I would.write back with another explanation that none of their payment methods were working but you are willing to pay.an amount to cover the actual parking fee (whatever that would be ). That would seem fair to me.

If they refuse,.go back with offer of £10 as a good faith offer but but tell them they will have to take you to.court for the rest as you feel that they are at fault for not providing an appropriate working means of payment. I would not pay the £100 as I'd be so annoyed and would feel like I was allowing they to steal from me . I could however afford it if the court found against and I appreciate it is a risk

Wtf! Lesson learnt. What lesson has the op learned? , except maybe to let herself be walked over by robbing companies

The op won't get a CCJ unless.they completely ignore it. if the court finds against then( which I seriously doubt they will) they can pay withing the time limit and it won't give them a CCJ

If the council issues a parking ticket they take you to court if you don’t pay it and can even instruct bailiffs. So personally, I’d pay those ones.

The other ones issued by private companies like Euro car park I just ignored in the past and nothing happened at all.

This happened to me. I currently have a CCJ due to an unpaid ticket. Didn't get the letters as I'd moved house

I don't pay bug I don't ignore either! Loads of websites giving templates for letters disputing the charge, I treat it like a bit of a game and after a few letters they usually drop it.

They tend to go for the low hanging fruit in terms of taking you to court not the people who reply with a knowledge of the system.

Having said that Parking Eye are absolute bastards so I just don't enter their carpark at the local shopping centre I either park at the tesco a 10 min walk away or just go elsewhere.

So always check if it's a litigious firm. Money saving expert has a good forum with advice on how to play it.

We had a similar issue with the parking machine at Formby beach. No contactless mechanism provided by the machine as it was in the sand dunes and there was no mobile signal. There was however a web address that could be used - but of course it didn't work either as there was.... no mobile signal. After wandering around for twenty mins trying and failing to pay, we gave up and went elsewhere.

The difference to your case however is that we contacted the owners of the facility (National Trust) and the parking machine operator, and explained what had happened. We also took the high ground a bit, complaining about the wasted journey and the expense in terms of fuel to drive there. The next day, the National Trust emailed back and confirmed there would be no fine and we got a week's free parking.

Perhaps we were lucky but I think being proactive certainly helped. Now we just book the car park before we arrive using the online service.

Thanks for all your kind words. We went for the pay option this morning. I honestly could have cried when £100 went out of our account, plus 15p for an SMS receipt! You’d think with all the money they’re stealing, at least the text would be free. I’ve saved the text in several different email folders, as has DH, as one review I read said that the company tried to fine them again as they ‘hadn’t paid’ 😮 I’m totally gutted but at least they’ll leave us alone. I was just getting so worried about stories of CCJs and people saying that POPLA can be a bit shit anyway that I decided to just leave it. Gin tonight I think to commiserate 😢

Yes I always pay council ones, absolutely foolhardy to try with them even if it's unfair. They can have teams of in house lawyers.

The private car parks and their debt collection firms however are run on a shoe string and are tight. For future reference, they don't want to hire a lawyer on £££ a day to go to caught as it's more than what they'll get back if the judge order you to pay, which they probably won't unless you blatantly just parked and didn't try and pay.

The one I played the game with and went all the way to court with was a Parking Eye one and they cancelled the day before the court date for this reason. They are litigious but also tight.

Hope next month is a better month for you OP!

Court not caught!

Thanks @Pennox We’ve done some gardening in the sun and are going to try and forget about it. If anyone ever does a class action lawsuit I’m going to be right there though. I’ve filed the ticket carefully away, stranger things have happened.