Penalty Charge Notice - Paid for Parking Late Due to App
Discussion
Just a quick one, I have a PCN from the Council details as follows - I parked at about 14:50, I was observed from 14:56 to 15:07 as having no ticket. I paid for a ticket at 15:17 for a ticket for one hour and left before 15:50. ie I did pay for what I needed, just late.
I paid late because the sign said I could use their app, so I did, but the app required me to receive a text message to reset my password, which was never sent. It said to wait 5 minutes for receipt, so I resent the code every 5 minutes for about 20 minutes. I then went through the website instead of the app to reset my password and paid for parking as soon as I could.
I appreciate I could have joined the queue for the machine, rather than assuming the app option would work in such a way as to avoid getting a fine, but I didn't, I don't think what I did was unreasonable. My question isn't whether I should suck it up, but whether it's possible to appeal successfully on the grounds that I acted reasonably under the circumstances and did pay?
As an aside only, the offence is not that I didn't pay but that I, "Parked in a car park without clearly displaying a valid pay and display ticket or voucher or parking clock." That offense would have still occurred if I'd used the App prior to 14:56. This seems legally ambiguous.
Last question; are we still doing that thing where if you appeal you get hit for double the fine, or has that travesty been resolved since my last ticket in 2006?
I paid late because the sign said I could use their app, so I did, but the app required me to receive a text message to reset my password, which was never sent. It said to wait 5 minutes for receipt, so I resent the code every 5 minutes for about 20 minutes. I then went through the website instead of the app to reset my password and paid for parking as soon as I could.
I appreciate I could have joined the queue for the machine, rather than assuming the app option would work in such a way as to avoid getting a fine, but I didn't, I don't think what I did was unreasonable. My question isn't whether I should suck it up, but whether it's possible to appeal successfully on the grounds that I acted reasonably under the circumstances and did pay?
As an aside only, the offence is not that I didn't pay but that I, "Parked in a car park without clearly displaying a valid pay and display ticket or voucher or parking clock." That offense would have still occurred if I'd used the App prior to 14:56. This seems legally ambiguous.
Last question; are we still doing that thing where if you appeal you get hit for double the fine, or has that travesty been resolved since my last ticket in 2006?
If it was me, I'd take screen shots of your texts, showing your repeated attempts to use the app, along with the times, and send them with your appeal.
In my experience, if it's the council directly, they can often be quite lenient if you have a decent case. If it's a private parking company that manges it then they usually they stick to the letter of the law and will do all they can to reject any appeal.
In my experience, if it's the council directly, they can often be quite lenient if you have a decent case. If it's a private parking company that manges it then they usually they stick to the letter of the law and will do all they can to reject any appeal.
A subject access request to the company asking for the audit log for the app may show the multiple times that you attempted to make payment online and also request the cctv for good measure, they should put the penalty charge on hold whilst the subject access request is ongoing.
The fact that you paid for the parking time used plus didn't leave the car park (I assume) means they didn't lose any money so they likely won't take it to court anyway.
The fact that you paid for the parking time used plus didn't leave the car park (I assume) means they didn't lose any money so they likely won't take it to court anyway.
paulrockliffe said:
Last question; are we still doing that thing where if you appeal you get hit for double the fine, or has that travesty been resolved since my last ticket in 2006?
This has never been the case for me - I appealed to Edinburgh and Newcastle Councils some years and both stopped the clock on the period for the fine to increase while the appeal was heard and only restarted it once the appeal was resolved.QJumper said:
If it was me, I'd take screen shots of your texts, showing your repeated attempts to use the app, along with the times, and send them with your appeal.
In my experience, if it's the council directly, they can often be quite lenient if you have a decent case. If it's a private parking company that manges it then they usually they stick to the letter of the law and will do all they can to reject any appeal.
The app is local to the phone, so there will not be any record anywhere on the receiving server if the app never sent the request to the server in the first place or failed to send it. This is most likely the case as otherwise you would have lots of users having reported the same communication issue.In my experience, if it's the council directly, they can often be quite lenient if you have a decent case. If it's a private parking company that manges it then they usually they stick to the letter of the law and will do all they can to reject any appeal.
If the app did communicate with the server, it is up to the provider of the app whether they use audit logs or not. The type of app is unlikely to store audit events as it is not something like an access control system.
The council will most likely see the events as:
- Parking ticket issue for non payment
- Owner paid via the app after the fine had been received
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