So cross… parking fine

[CrochetMadRosie]

Does anyone have any ideas of where to go next please?

Back in the summer I was in hospital for 2 weeks. My family came to visit me every day paying the horrendous car park charges.

One day the cameras weren’t working and said that my husband had been parked for 24 hours. A security officer/ parking attendant was there and told him to just pay for the hours that he had been there.

Roll on a few weeks and he had a parking fine with photos showing that he entered one day and left the next.
We looked on the Money Saving Expert website and appealed with evidence showing that he paid on the first day and paid on the second day and hadn’t been there for 24 hours and they rejected it.

It went on to the next part of the appeal process and we provided further evidence of a time and date stamped video of my husband at home onto the evening of the first day from our blink camera (unfortunately the videos of him arriving home in the car were already erased from our other blink camera), but we’ve just heard that they have rejected it again!

I had two stays totalling almost a month in hospital over the last few months and we’ve paid almost £200 in parking fees and it is making me SO cross that they want even more of our money when we didn’t do anything wrong!
DH wants to pay the fine (now £170) and not go to court.

I’m looking for people we can contact now to at least feel like we’re not just accepting it!
I’ve so far got…
Our MP, PALS, the security team at the hospital, Rip Off Britain.

Any other ideas please? Thank you!

Just pay it and get on with your life

Don’t pay. Appeal it to the ombudsman and answer every letter with the same standard response about what happened. Don’t ignore letters but just keep sending standard lines back.

Ask a few difficult question like for the maintenance records of the camera, any repairs done over the relevant period. Say you will ask for costs if it goes to court. If they threaten High Court Enforcing Officers it’s bollocks, ignore them.

Eventually they will drop it. If they are stupid enough to take you to court a judge will throw them out and you might get your coats.

I'd just tell them that they are welcome to take you to small claims court and that as they will not win as you have significant evidence that you went and came back again on seperate days, it will cost them both the court costs and also, your out of pocket expenses which you are entitled to.

Does your husband have google Maps timeline which would show when he arrived and left the car park?

I think we just found the CEO of Parking Eye. 😂

No help but when my DD was in hospital for several days I got an exemption pass- I had to go apply for it (within the hospital) but it was a nurse who told me and gave me the form. Maybe for next time your hospital might have similar

Thank you for all the replies. Some good ideas of people to contact that we hadn’t thought of.

Husband definitely did pay on both days for the times that he was there and hasn’t messed up (other than maybe getting some ‘official’ confirmation that he was told that the cameras weren’t working and what to do maybe).

Some very good points about if the cameras weren’t working then lots of other people would have been affected. I’ll definitely look at a facebook post to see about that.

I’ve since found out that they do this at our hospital too but they don’t publicise the fact! I wish we’d known as although it might not have resolved this issue, it would have saved us a fortune!

I agree, in the overall costs if owning and running a car, this isnt huge. Its unfortunate but concentrate on getting better

This exact same thing happened to me and my DH when we had a room in a local hotel for a week due to a power cut but had to be at home a lot for the pets.

I phoned the hotel reception and they just cancelled the fines. I could hardly believe it, I’d prepared for a fight with the parking company, court, the lot.

Looked into this recently - as far as I’m aware the parking ombudsman has no teeth - I think there are vague guidelines the companies are meant to try and adhere to but there are no actual regulations governing them. It’s lunacy that they have the power behave like highwayman - but that’s the UK at the moment it seems…nothing’s run or done properly with any sense of rationale. With our issue we ended up going to the owners of the car park (rather than the company they outsourced the parking to) and threatening to take the matter to court which would have been expensive and irritating for them. They caved but it was a shed load of hassle we could have done without!

You’re either joking, the CEO of Parking Eye, or just a complete pushover.

He’s annoyed but I think just wants to pay it and get on with life as he doesn’t want to have the stress of going to court over it.
He’d rather pay it and then see if we can get it back after complaining to people.

We thought that once the independent body saw our evidence that they would see it was obviously a mistake by the parking company and uphold our appeal, but they haven’t!

Don’t pay it and expect to claim it back. You won’t get it back.

You are completely in the right and the parking company would very unlikely take it to court because they know they won’t win. They are just trying their luck scaring you into paying.

Did your husband pay by card? If so he can provide this as evidence that he paid on both days.
Maybe check with the hospital/on site about providing evidence that the cameras were down.
Let them take you to court - you have provided suitable evidence which is being ignored. They are just trying to bully and intimate you

Not joking in the least, life is too short, cars are expensive

Seriously?

If you received an invoice from a random tradesman for doing work to your house they hadn’t done, would you just pay it?

This is exactly the same situation. A spurious invoice which is not valid, because the OP has fully complied with the terms of the car park. This is a fault with parking company’s cameras / systems. There is absolutely no reason the OP should pay for their incompetence.

Showing your DH was at home at the time is not relevant at all! Does it show the car is parked at home? The fine is not for your DH being in the car park, but the car. Anybody could have been driving it as far as they are concerned.

I've been down the route of fighting a PCN before. Absolute ball ache. But as PPs have said, find the groups/forums on the internet and ask for help. Hope you win

Yes we provided that as evidence but they are still adamant that the car was there for 24 hours!
We will get in contact with the hospital and see if they have evidence that the cameras were down that day.
Thank you for replying.

Yes, I see that having evidence of him at home isn’t the same as the car being there but we hoped that it would work in our favour as why would anyone drive to the hospital, leave the car there and then get a taxi/ bus home and then back the next day to pick up the car… Apart from myself (and I was in hospital) no one is insured to drive the car/ has keys.
But I get your point about that not legally proving that the car was there.
Thank you for the hope we win.

Thank you to everyone who has replied. There are some good ideas and it’s good to know that most people would fight it and agree that it’s not fair.

Ultimately it’s up to Parking Eye to prove you were there for 24 hours, not for you to prove that you weren’t. They’ll never be able to prove that, especially when you have evidence that suggests you weren’t.

I believe these appeals are lately deallt with by AI and the ‘computer says no’ approach.They don’t have a chance of this case holding up in court, and once they get a human to look at it they will realise that.

Why should she!? It’s a lot of money and ultimately not her fault!

Does he have location history on his phone? If so, that would show him moving from the hospital to home and back again (it’s not proof the car moved but it would be pretty persuasive).