Sons Car towed away because machine issued wrong ticket - blackpool

[dee1954]

My son parked in a car park last night - The charges are £4.80 for 12 hours, £5.50 for 24 hours.

He put £6 into the machine as he only had 3 X £2 coins in change.

no change was given by the machine.

 

He didn't check the ticket.

 

He's gone to the car this morning to find it's been towed away.

 

The ticket given was for 12 hours!

They are now demanding £175 to get the car back.

 

Can they do this??

[meerkatsmimm]

has he any way of proving how much he put in - are they able to allow him access to the car to retrieve the window sticker to see how much money the ticket is stating he paid?

 

i'm not sure where he stands but that does seem a little excessive - towing the car - why not leave a fixed penalty notice?

 

hope this gets sorted soon xx

[dee1954]

His friend was with him and is verifying his story but obviously they're not taking his word!

 

He's argued that it's not that he didn't pay - he did but that because of the fault on the machine he was 70p short!

They're saying they're giving him a discount of £100 - it should be £275 for being 1 hour over the 12 hours!

Good of them!

 

There is CCTV near the machine but they say he can't see it until tomorrow and has to pay the £175 now or it goes back up to £275 and will have £25 a day added until he pays.

 

The car park is in Blackpool and he's coming back home to Wales this afternoon.

[meerkatsmimm]

right - i'm now confused....

how are they able to show him cctv coverage on a sunday when the costs go up, but cannot access it today? i could understand if tomorrow were monday and the reason somehow was that there was only access during office hours.

was it a council or private run car park?

is it worth getting the police involved to try to get things resolved - your son has a witness to state how much he paid - you could argue surely that his car has been illegally removed?

i'm just throwing out there what i would do myself btw and it is by no means an answer.....

 

seems a bit threatening....pay £175 today, or wait til you can see the cctv tomorrow when the cost will be £275 - extortion springs to mind - i'd get the police involved if only to help access to the cctv footage....

xx

[dee1954]

He contacted the Police who said they would not get involved as it's a private car park.

 

He's now negotiated £100 to get the car returned as he's working tonight so has to get home and it's a hire car and would have had to pay extra on that for another day's hire.

 

My son asked the how he sleeps at night robbing people in this way and he replied 'on my £1500 bed that I paid for from people paying these charges!!'

 

Thanks for your help though.

[dx100uk]

if its a private carpark this is against all guidelines and is very close or if not already outlawed

they cannot hold people to ransom like this

 

report them to the OFT etc etc

 

now

pay by a card and then do a chargeback or a section 75 reclaim

 

dx

[meerkatsmimm]

his reply says it all - terrible preying on people like that....no doubt the 'faulty' machine isn't faulty at all.....programmed like that...

[sailor sam]

Was there adequate signage stating that towing is a possibility?