Dunno about anyone else, but I have had a few run-ins with these.
The last 3 occasions went like this:
Went to hotel to give blood. Signs up everywhere to say parking rules and regs suspended.
Got sent an invoice for £100.
Mrs S went to a FF joint with someone. They forgot their wallet, so she left and they came back shortly.
She got an invoice for exceeding the 90 mins because they counted her time from the first entrance into the carpark to the second exit.
BPA said these mistakes rarely happen but we have had it happen twice.
The latest was when Mrs S went to a place of work to supervise a client. She gave her reg to them so it could be put on the system to avoid a ticket and she got one anyway!
Hilarity ensued when they insisted we could not appeal etc etc, so I just wrote a letter and got Mrs S to sign it. It told them we were not entertaining them any more by correspondence but that we would be more than happy to see them in a court room and ask the nice judge what they thought about the situation.
Never heard another squeak.
Common to all these cases is being told that letters have been sent to us that we have never received.
This allows the parking company to refuse an appeal as you miss the deadline. The deadline you didn't know you had because they never sent the letter. We've also had no NTK letter. These tactics save the parking companies money (not printing off or sending out letters) and put pressure on the punter to cough up.
Not helping this is, knowing you are disputing the charges, the parking company forges ahead and engages a debt collection agency who then send regular threatening letters ramping up the disputed bill.
Their tactics are just plain scummy.
Joris Bohnson said he would lower the invoice limit to £50, but bless their cotton socks, these hard-working diligent people said they wouldn't be able to ply their trade, so Joris backed down.
Makes my pee boil.
Thanks! I feel better now.