Parking ticket nightmare: Man fights fine after ticket falls out of holder on dashboard

Matthew Price parking in the Sennen Cove Harbour Car Park, which is managed by Armtrac during a recent break in Cornwall. He had used the car park several times before during previous holidays in the area without any problems. However, on his most recent trip, he was issued with a fine after a series of unfortunate events. Sharing his story with CornwallLive, he said claimed that his car was damaged while parked in the car park, and that there was another patron urinating on the ground.

Matthew then detailed the parking ticket, and said: “Lastly, on a very hot day, my ticket fell out of its designated holder and fell face down on the dashboard.

“I was therefore issued with a parking charge notice. The photos taken by the employee of Armtrac showed the upside-down ticket with a reference number from the ticket machine on the back.

“Luckily, the ticket also had this reference number on the front as well, which showed it was valid for the day in question.

“We felt relieved, thinking that the company would show some discretion and once the details had been laid before them would cancel the parking charge notice.

“Again, unfortunately, this did not happen. The company were very rude from the first and have no customer service skills whatsoever. They refused the appeal on the grounds that our ticket was not displayed correctly.”

He continued: ”My position is still that it was displayed correctly, by sheer bad luck it fell from the window, am I really to be penalised for this?”

Matthew went on to explain he would be appealing to the IPC.

Express.co.uk contacted Armtrac for comment. They responded: “We will not correspond any further, until the appellant’s IAS Appeal has been addressed, as the IAS are a Independent body, and their decision is final. We are governed by the IPC and have to operate under their very strict guidelines.”

A spokesman for Armtrac said to Cornwall Live: “We have received several correspondences from the appellant regarding the PCN, which was attached to his vehicle on the 29/07/2019 for ‘ticket incorrectly face down’, as the pay and display ticket in his vehicle was face down and unreadable by our patrol officer.

“For a pay and display ticket to be valid it must be clearly displayed in the front windscreen or on the dashboard face up , so that all the details can be read. On the 15/8/2019 we received an email of appeal for this PCN.

“On the 03/09/2019 the appeals team declined the appellants appeal, as the photographic evidence clearly showed the pay and display ticket was face down. It is also clearly stated on our signs that we do not accept retrospective proof to park.

“During this process the appellant has forwarded us copies of correspondence he has sent to many media platforms.

“We also received a complaint from the appellant which we responded to and advised him that if he was not satisfied with our appeal response, he should appeal further to the Independent Appeals Service (IAS), which he has now done.

“We will correspond accordingly with the IAS and the IAS will then adjudicate the appeal.

“If in favour with the appellant the PCN will be cancelled, if in our favour then the appellant will get a further period to pay the charge, before we then hand the PCN over to our legal team.”

source: express.co.uk