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Well, within two days of my email sending them the original ticket they have withdrawn the "charge". Credit where it due, they took two days to respond. You often hear cases of folk being required to pay £60 charge in 13 days and they "allegedly" reply after 14 days by which time their "charge" is about £120. Not in this case.

Pays to hang to your ticket........just remember that little tip

Phil

Could be madasaman. Under statute there is a two stage test to show fraud. The first is whether a defendant’s behaviour would be regarded as dishonest by the ordinary standards of reasonable and honest people. If the answer is "yes" then the second question is whether the defendant was aware that his conduct was dishonest and would be regarded as dishonest by reasonable and honest people.

Under automatic number plate recognition systems linked to ticket machines the usual practice is that the photo of you entering the car park is automatically relayed to HQ via the internet. Your reg number is recorded. When you buy a ticket and put in your registration that is also automatically relayed to HQ. When you leave the photo is relayed to HQ. The ANPR system automatically matches up the pitcure of the number with what you tap into the machine and that tells HQ that you have a ticket for the required length of time you are in the car park. When it works, if they ignore the evidence then it is fraud, IMO.

If the machine has a clitch and does not record you buying a ticket or the data you have input, or fails to relay the information to HQ, then it will appear at HQ that you have breached their terms. Question then is, if there is an apparent problem do they check their systems or just carry on and demand money without caring whether the claim is right or wrong. That may be a fraud. We are dealing with computers and internet and we all know what they can be like. Hence HANG ON TO YOUR TICKET. The evidence you have can possibly be different to what they have.

I take the view that they were wrong, not bothered why, job sorted, move on, rather than take them to task....more important things to do like go off in the van tomorrow and wander up some fell and sample some local brew.

An important point to consider - they have six years to sue the driver and you have to wait that length of time to be certain that they are not going to. When you are in the right don't just ignore them, let them know and get it sorted so you are not kept hanging around wondering what may happen.

Don't forget that the law is changing  on these cases and that from November they can sue the keeper of the car (if parking rules are broken) even if he or she was not the person who drove it into the car park and parked it there. So ignoring their missives thinking that they will go away is going to change. Too much of a financial incentive on their part to sue folk.

Phil

If it helps madasaman, Council car park tickets need only be kept for six months!!!

Phil