Hello, I'm very prepared to be told I'm wholly in the wrong here but here goes, on 8/3/15 we pulled briefly in to a local TK Maxx car park as we'd heard they sold Comic Relief red noses. My husband was driving and opted to stay in the car. There were many empty spaces and my son and I just dashed in to the store, looked for the noses, couldn't see any and joined the line for the till to ask there. ( We left noseless incidentally!) we hadn't bought a parking ticket.
This morning I've opened a letter from Smart Parking which states we have to pay £100 within a month and this will reduce to £60 if we pay within 14 days.
We hadn't bought a ticket. I understand this was a real error of judgement as a £1 ticket would have stopped this situation happening.
I've read over and over that private parking firms don't have a leg to stand on in recovering fines. They have to prove that they were out of pocket due to our parking choice. We would have had to park there for 60 hours to make their charge reasonable (or 100 hours if not paid in 14 days).
I've read that if you ignore the letters then it is all unenforceable. I am very afraid to take this risk and on the brink of going online to pay them.
But....but.....£100 pound charge for parking unpaid for 14 minutes!!!!!!! The letter contains two time stamped images of our car entering and leaving the car park. And there were many empty spaces.
We are going to have to pay this aren't we???? Thank you for reading this. Any opinions welcome.