SmartParkParking Omdömen 

Disproportionate fine for slightly overstaying parking accidently

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to express my profound disappointment and frustration regarding a £60 parking fine I received at the Whitefield Pets at Home car park.
I visited your location under extremely difficult personal circumstances as I needed to have my dogs put to sleep. Due to the nature of the situation, I was present in the car park for over three hours. It is distressing to receive such a fine during what was already one of the worst days of my life.

Parked (as usual) to pick up a takeaway at the Roti in Norwich on 26/07 at 6.14 for a 6.15 collection, but had to wait until 6.30. No problem, but unknown to me smart parking had taken on the parking and sent me a £100 PCN. I appealed with proof of purchase of course, but it was rejected because I hadn't read the signage, which I didn't notice as it wasn't there the last time. I was going to appeal further to the IAS, but in their info thier judgement is only based on what is legal and nothing else. I asked for help from the owners, but had no reponse. What a joke and a scam, with no further legal representation I can take. Well, no more Roti for me!!

Terrible con! How are they still allowed to operate? Queued for the ticket machine in Willen lake so went over the 10 minutes grace period. Now I have a fine for £80. Wouldn’t accept the explanation and refused appeal.

These private parking companies need to be abolished. They are a disgrace. My parents (pensioners) now cannot afford to eat this week because they got a ticket in McDonalds, despite using the McDonalds for the entire time they were in the car park. Robbing, thieving, unethical and just wrong. You should be ashamed.

Cradle bridge trowbridge they Changed time from 3hrs to 1hr and made signs smaller, no big notification to say that time had changed, £60 fine for 2hrs parking absolutely criminal ,curse this company they are crooks.

I had the misfortune to park in the Belgrave road car park Margate Kent ,nr Dreamland in July 25. A few weeks later i got a £100 fine for overstaying, reduced to £ 60 for payment within 14 days of issue of fine.
Not only had 7 days already gone when i received the notice, (Smart parking.com) it only showed pictures of my car entering and leaving the car park,no picture of the ticket i brought.....No phone number to actually talk to someone on there website. You just pay or appeal, if you appeal and lose , the price goes up !
Be careful where you park People.

DO NOT use their offer of one hour free parking. They will charge you! I paid for 120 minutes in Downpatrick Northern Ireland outside Sports direct. Their signage clearly state 1 hour free parking there for I should have been covered for 180minutes. I spent 163 minutes and they are saying they are upholding the fine and their signage is clear…. Yes it clearly states one hour free. Very clearly in bold writing. These cowboys can’t even stick to their own rules and regulations. Their response is contradictive beyond all belief. No doubt some bottom of the line admin worker, handing out a generic response instead of actually looking into the specific signage from that car park, and Northern Ireland don’t answer to UK companies. Stay clear.

Missed signs and parked in a permit holders only bay, due to rushing for a work meeting. Once I received the parking ticket, I appealed because I had paid to stay in the car park. I was just in the wrong spot. Refused. Accepted. In the two weeks of appeal, they put the price up from £60 to £100. I emailed them twice before I had a response agreeing to reduce to £60. Tried to call and pay, but it was automatic payment, so the account had not been updated to reflect the £60. Emailed again, no response and still when I called, it wanted to take £100. In desperation, went to post office and had a postal order sent to them, costing £67.50 (7.50 to create a postal order). Months went by and then lo and behold today, I’ve been contacted by a debt management company who want £170. I have the receipt of the postal order. I will send another email but I am assuming they will say the postal order never arrived. Something tells me I’m going to have to go to court.

Smartparking - they are just the thieves, no other words to describe it. I used the machine to pay for the parking for three hours in Margate (beware, near the Turner Contemporary) - the pay machine transaction declined, the bank card charged and no ticket issued. We had to use the app then, which is even more expensive - for the 3-hour period, instead of 7.5 pounds, we paid in total 15.00. I retained all the records, took pictures of everything, and I sent it to the company - they were arrogant and said it was not their business. Terrible service, terrible customer service. Beware!!!

Terrible company to deal with. Their defective cameras/analysis concluded I had spent 7 hours in a McDonalds in Pontypool... no option to speak to a human being to discuss why this was not entirely likely, or explain that I had visited the same place for coffees at both ends of the day as it was a long drive. The only way to appeal is with documentary evidence. But they will not accept a cctv still of my car somewhere else, as the date/time may be incorrect... go figure.

Ive been parking at the same car park every year and paid for a ticket to do so I'm now after dealing with smartpark or indeed any carpark that has parking cameras and machines I'm taking photographs of the machines the tickets and the ticket in the window screen as proof I paid for parking in full didn't overstay and still received a parking charge notice

Beware of the sharks
Didn`t realise you had to pay to park for McDonalds,
Stayed 25 mins sun tea time,the whole place was empty but it cost us £60 what a rip off :-(

I got a parking ticket as they said I had not paid the correct parking fee I told them it was a private site I had spoken to the restaurant who took my details and placed my registration in to their parking tablet out of sight. I appealed the ticket gave them the times they came back saying my complaint wasn’t valid as I’d inputted the wrong reg no. In the letter they posted on the 16th of June it arrived with me on the second of July giving me 2 days to appeal naively I paid the reduced ticket under duress so that I had time to raise an appeal to the review panel governing Smart Parking to be told sorry you have paid no redress as the case was closed absolute rip off company in addition to this when I went to pay the fine the reason the fine was to be paid was insufficient parking fee it can’t be both I have asked for evidence of the incorrect fee being inputted they came back case closed absolute robbers I have escalated again for a response still waiting for the evidence it’s really interesting that they say that all signage is compliant with BPA regulations yet they left BPA membership in May 2025 so they are governed by the other membership association IAS

Another parasitic parking operator making a fortune from public land. Network Rail should be ashamed of themselves for partnering with this organisation

Visted the wallasey car park on 17th may. No problem with time spent although I cleaned the car shortly afterwards and threw away the payment ticket but was issued a penalty charge. I appealed to their internal system showing I made payment with a copy from my bank showing the time which tallied with the information sent to me but my Appeal was unsuccessful. I was very annoyed as the only issue was whether payment was made . I have a feeling they send out standard responses such as this purposely as the independent Appeal process is complicated and time consuming so i decided to pay the charge ! Won't be parking there again but I suppose smart parking couldn't care less . Moral of the story is keep payment tickets for a month before disposing of it .

Parked my car in McDonald's road car park, Leicester. Checked the charges for 1 hour. Charges came to £1.50. Paid £2, thieves did not refund 50p.
Returned after 23 minutes, and left. A week later I get a penalty notice saying I underpaid for the time I used the parking.
Really? These guts are scammers. Have appealed, got photo if payment saying 1 hour charges are £1.50, got my reciept showing £2 paid for parking. No better than common thieves

I'm the latest victim of the many thousands of people who have debt collectors chasing them, where a prior PCN has not been received from Smart Parking. The first I knew about the PCN, was from the debt collection company. Apparently it is up to me to prove that I didn't receive the PCN from Smart Parking! A complete sham which I believe is abuse of my personal data and have raised with Smart Parking's data protection officer. I also intend writing to my local MP, and the landowner of the Car Park concerned. How this company is allowed to get away with this repeated fraudulent behaviour is staggering.

These people are obnoxious parasites. Check their accounts, they are making £millions. My car wouldn't start causing me to overrun the 2 hours free parking (no other options available). After a battle I got the charge reduced to £20 and paid it just to close down this issue.
My tips to anyone who breaks down are
Show Smart Parking that you mean business by quoting the BPA Code of Conduct exact section and wording which says they "should" reduce the charge to £20.
Supply supporting evidence from your breakdown service/garage/insurance company/anyone who can provide it.

Absolute rip-off merchants.
£60 fine for parking for 10 minutes to drop off my blue badge invalid husband in a £1.20 for all day parking area.
Totally uncaring, insensitive, greedy company.
Avoid their car parks and see how long they last with no income.