Readers’ emails: I wasn’t even parked!

From: Janie
Subject: Have a guess? – £100 APNR ticket

Hello! Thanks for your site. Brilliant. I will make a donation. My query if you can help is:Like many others I’ve received a £100 ticket from Parking Eye at the [redacted] Hotel, somewhere I regularly park and pay. I was waiting to pick someone up and pulled into the car park. I was there from 18.12 – 18.22; didn’t use a space, didn’t get out the car, had the engine running. It never occurred to me I needed to pay as I was waiting not parking. I’m furious! Should I appeal or pay – do I ask them to provide evidence that I was parked? Many thanks (ticket issued 26-09-14)

The flaw in ParkingEye’s system is that all it shows is that your car passed by their camera at one particular time, and passed it again at another time. It does not prove who was driving it, that it was parked, or that it was present in the car park between those times. On that latter point (not relevant to your case), we have seen lots of evidence that ParkingEye’s cameras do not pick up all entries and exits, causing many people to get tickets even if they left the car park and came back later in the day.

So anyway, you have two strongs points of appeal:

1. Your car was not parked. The signs in the car park (presumably) communicate terms and conditions for parking. If you were not parked, then those terms and conditions do not apply. If this went to court, it would be decided on the balance of probability. If you can demonstrate you were more probably waiting than parked, then that would support your case.
2. The BPA Code of Practice requires them to allow a grace period before issuing ticket. Unfortunately the BPA (the trade association, funded by the parking companies) do not state what the grace period should be. In your case, if you were there for 10 minutes, arguably that is within a reasonable grace period.

My recommendation would be to appeal to POPLA, stating both of these arguments, plus the ‘killer’ Genuine Pre-Estimate of Loss argument. The latter you should read up on, but is almost always upheld in appeals against ParkingEye.

Another line of attack that you should consider in parallel is to complain to the hotel. Is this what the employed ParkingEye for? Were you abusing the facilities? Is it going to drive away customers? Would you recommend that hotel to friends family having been treated like this? The hotel will have the power to get the ticket cancelled. It may also encourage the hotel to reconsider their arrangement with ParkingEye – you wont be the only customer to have been unfairly ticketed.

Best of luck.

PS. Many thanks for your contribution – it really does help with the running costs of the site.