A woman faces a bill of £1,906 after taking more than five minutes to pay for parking.
Poor phone signal meant Rosey Hudson had to leave a Derby’s Copeland Street car park to pay the full £3.30 daily rate online every time she used it, the professional bodybuilder said.
But that’s landed her with 10 parking charge notices (PCNs) from Excel Parking Ltd, which told the BBC she’s ‘the author of her own misfortune’.
Ms Hudson initially received a PCN letter instructing her to pay £100 within 28 days, reduced to £60 if she paid within 14 days.
Despite calling to explain the situation, the company insisted she had to pay, so she did. They then sent her nine more PCNs.
The combined £900 has now more than doubled due to Excel Parking adding a £70 debt recovery charge for each one, interest of 8% per year, a £115 court fee, and £80 costs for a legal representative.
A spokesperson said: ‘The signage at the car park made it clear that it was ‘Pay on Entry’ and that there was a maximum period of five minutes to purchase the parking tariff.
‘This is one of the specific terms and conditions for use of the car park. It is the driver’s responsibility to read and understand the terms.
‘It seems that Miss Hudson is the author of her own misfortune.’
They insist Ms Hudson took up to 190 minutes to pay for parking, a claim she dismisses as ‘absolutely ludicrous’, instead blaming the app for not processing payments straight away.
She also said the only pay machine she saw on site was out of order and later replaced.
Regardless of who is at fault, Ms Hudson believes the five-minute rule is ‘totally unreasonable’.
She said: ‘I haven’t got children but I can imagine a busy mum trying to sort her kids out, trying to pay for something when there’s no signal here, and the machine being out of order.
‘This has been going on for over a year now, and I’m just really hoping it can be resolved.
‘I desperately don’t want this to happen to anybody else, more than anything, because it gives you a lot of stress.’
But it has already happened to hundreds of people, according to Nikola Slovakova, manager of next-door business Jumpin Fun, who keeps a folder of customers’ complaints on her computer.
Jumpin Fun briefly installed a touch-screen tablet in reception so customers could enter details and get a period of free parking on them.
But still they received PCNs after entering details, she said, leading people to think ‘we were cooperating with Excel and we didn’t want to help them so it reflected even worse on us’.
Concerns have previously been raised with Excel Parking by two MPs – Lola McEvoy and Abtisam Mohamed – regarding the way it fines people at other car parks it operates.
The company insists the five-minute rule is necessary ‘to mitigate against abuse from motorists who simply use the car park to drop off and pick up passengers from adjacent retailers’.
Ms Hudson, who works at the nearby Derbion centre, faces a court hearing within six months after mediation failed to reach a settlement.
She said: ‘I believe I have got a good case and I believe that it will help not just me, but potentially other people that have been in this situation.
‘Hopefully the judge will understand my case and see my point of view.’
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