Just waved goodbye to perfectly good money through my own stupidity

[Reluctantadult]

I reckon dh & I have £120 in parking tickets heading our way. Dh drove mil in her car and didn't realise the car park had a time limit. I realised, but didn't tell dh, then misread my watch and was 20 mins over. Its got apr number plate recognition so think it's automatic. Feeling gutted, what a pair of idiots. We were shopping for cut price kids school shoes in the outlet 😭

Anyone else who might as well have waved goodbye to their money today?

When I helped at brownies we had a trip to build a bear. I explained to DD that she couldnt have a bear (skint).

Came out at 8pm and had a parking ticket. The was free parking afyer 6pm but they said I was parked over the line and not in marked bay. It was snowing when we arrived so lines were difficult to see.
Honestly still riles me 10 years later.

Private parking companies cannot issue ' fines ' they are merely invoices.

You cannot get a ccj by not paying one of these invoices. They use threats to scare you into paying. They can and do take people to small claims courts and only a judge can, if the private parking company is in the right, make you pay. If you don't pay what the judge says you owe within 30 days then it is possible you will earn yourself a ccj. Not recommended, nor is it recommended that you ignore letters from private parking companies.
Debt collector letters can be ignored, they are powerless.

For help and advise with a ticket from a private parking company and steps to help you beat them, go to the threads on the moneysavingexpert.com pcn forum.

NOT the advice given on the general moneysaving pages, no use.

Maybe he had no signal/data. Maybe he doesn't have a smart phone. Maybe he wasn't as clever as you and didn't think to use the website...

Many years ago, heavily pregnant, I got a ticket for being 5 mins late back. I had 2 young kids and gave birth to my 3rd the next day.

The warden was still there. I am normally very accepting of fines if I am late but my 9 month pregnancy hormones kicked in, and after putting my children in their car seats, I kicked the wing of my car in in front of the traffic warden. He let me off the fine...but my car cost a lot more to fix. Still ashamed of that now.

Anyone who has had a fine for overstaying in a supermarket car park can go in and speak to the store manager....they have the power to over turn them.

I paid for the Dartford Crossing online but accidentally put a zero where there should have been the letter O in my number plate.

And no, they would not cancel it so got my money for the crossing and the money for the fine.

Twats. All of Kent is dead to me now.

That's annoying!
I think they proved that 0 and O are actually the same identical character on number plates due to the fact that the width of each character is prescribed by the rules, so if you'd appealed high enough you should have got off that one.
I think the only way to know for sure is to check the original registration document.
Doesn't help you now but might be useful for someone else in future.

In Northern Ireland the company have to send it to the driver of the car and provide their proof. Apparently this is very difficult to do The Consumer Council provide advice, seemly the only benefit to living here.

I stumbled across an old passport of mine in a drawer, I panicked and thought I didn't have an update one so I send it off to be renewed along with the £75 charge. About a week later I got a phone call from them to say that I did in fact have a current passport with 7 years still valid on it but seeing as they had started the application they can't refund me the £75. All they could do was renew the passport that didn't actually need renewing. I went to my filing cabinet and sure enough there was my still valid one sat right where it usually is. Cost me £75 for absolutely nothing.

I'm impressed you got your leg up there?!

Driving MIL and DH into the town where she lives and I'm not overly familiar with. Tried to get into the car park but missed the turning. 'Just go up here to the roundabout and come back in again' she said. As soon as I moved off I realised I was in a bloody bus lane. (She doesn't drive so goes up this road all the time - on the bus 😡) £60 fine. I made DH pay as it was his mum 😂

Dh got a speeding fine in a city about 50 miles away from us for doing 40 in a 30. It was a hire car the car shop lent us as our brand new car at the time wasn't working. They lent us a nicer car then our new one as apologies. It wasn't dh speeding though. OUR hire car was in his works underground secure car park. The car speeding was the same type of car with same plates. Weeks of arguing with car shop and council and turns out it was a duplicate played car. DH even pro ed it wasn't him by showing his CCTV of our hire car in his works car park at the time of the speeding. The car shop sent the fine to the other hirer who had the duplicate car and we didn't pay. I suspect the car shop maybe using the same plates on multiple vehicles to avoid paying more insurance ?

We have a little granny annexe with its own electricity supply/meter. The readings have been sky high for the last year despite no one using it for anything other than wfh (so... laptop charging/occasional light). DH did some investigating and it seems the electric towel rail in the bathroom (so small it's basically useless) has been on 24 hrs a day for months. I turned it off a few weeks ago and now suddenly we're in credit for nearly £100 already on that DD-paid bill. Ffs.

I wanted a tap for my new kitchen and had seen a Sauber tap, not very expensive but look nice. By the time I came to order one I struggled to find one anywhere as that particular model had been discontinued. Eventually I found one so I ordered it. Then I realised it was coming from China so I tried to cancel it but oh no, it was 'in the post'. No sign of it a few weeks later when the kitchen fitting was imminent so I bought a different tap. A couple of months later my parcel from China finally arrived. A rather small parcel, which contained 2 pairs of fake Raybans. Fortunately I only wasted £28.

Let her get a fucking CCJ if shes not willing to cooperate with you! Tough shit isn't it!

@Reluctantadult my rage lent me a lot of hidden strength...

I got into the car afterwards and said to my 2 little kids, who were actually pretty cool about the whole thing, "NEVER think that having a tantrum will get you what you want!"

I thought the barrier remained down until you either paid, or your reg was recognised as having already been paid.

Got a parking ticket off the council, paid it straight away. Got a reminder about 2 weeks later checked that the payment had come out of my bank, it had so ignored it. Month later turns out that I had actually had a parking tickets 2 days before the ticket I paid, someone had obviously removed the ticket from my screen otherwise why on earth would I park there again!!!. Emailed council and explained they said your out of time to appeal now, not that my appeal was unsuccessful but just can't appeal at all and now it's £105 rather than £35. Fuming but DP said just pay it or you'll end up paying more.

Bought a new blind for the kitchen window today. DH cut it 20cm too short.

Absolutely @Neveranynamesleft
This comes up again and again! Only the Police and traffic wardens can issue fines; private companies issue Parking Charge Notices. They rely on people wanting to avoid hassle and pay up to make it go away whilst they rake in £££££
There has been lots of advice on here and places like Pepipoo (strange name I know)
A CCJ would be issued if the case went to court, you lost and then didn't pay.
Please people- read around this as there's a strong chance you'd keep your money 😉

Drove into London Friday night due to the "everything transport strike". No idea where I was going and totally reliant on Sat Nav. Sat Nav gave me the instruction of "keep left", so I move to left lane thinking it might be a filter lane and I didn't want to miss my turning. Turns out I was driving in the bloody bus lane! There was a moped ahead of me, which threw me, and then I later discovered they can drive in bus lanes with no penalty.

My stupid fault I guess for flowing my Sat navs exact instruction, and likely a £120 fine on its way.

Needed to pay a deposit for emergency roof repairs to a local contractor. As I had not used this company before, I decided to use a credit card to obtain purchase protection. Made a payment to credit card company so that I had sufficient available credit. Credit card company decided to reduce my credit limit by that same amount.

If it’s an outlet village type place with free parking for a certain time you might be able to send the centre manager / relevant store manager a copy of receipts for what you bought and ask for the charges to be cancelled. We have a very small out of town retail park near us that has a quite short time limit because people were parking there to walk their dogs in the neighbouring woods. However, if you overstay this while shopping they will cancel it.

DP & I were in France with the DDs, stopped overnight on the way to Disneyland and parked in the local car park. Our knowledge of French was basic to say the least. Next morning we went to pick up the car to find that it had been towed and there was a market being held in the car park.

Had to track down our car and pay a small fortune to get it back before we could belatedly head off to Disneyland.

Moral of the story- learn to to speak the language!

I got a letter from Tescos car park management saying I’d parked for 5 hours in the car park and sent photos of me entering and leaving.
I was livid and wrote to them and Tesco ; my partner went in at 8.40 and came out just after 9am; I went in at around 13:00 and left about 40 mins later! What happened to the other exit and entry photos, I asked… and why would I park for 5 hours when I live just over the road! And also my partner has a disabled badge so gains nothing from parking in Tesco for that long when he can park virtually where he needs to in town!
We had a reply from Tesco saying they asked the parking company to waive the fine!
How many others must that have happened to?