Airdrie - we've ONE carpark you have to pay for. The first half-hour's free, then there's a forty pound fine, doubling to eighty if you don't pay within 28 days. This carpark is right next to the surgery. My wife, having arranged an emergency appointment, was parked here for 35 minutes a few months ago. A week later, a letter arrived.
Parking Eye had contacted the DVLA for the car's registered owner details, and sent us the bill.
I wrote to them. I mentioned that under Scottish law, it's the driver who incurs a fine, not the owner, and they had offered no proof of who was driving. I asked them, until FOI rules, who owned by the land in question. I mentioned that the fine was an unfair reflection of 'damages' incurred, and also asked why the same fine would be passed on to someone staying five hours, or five minutes over the allotted time.
They wrote back, suggesting my points were 'too general', and cited one case under English law that they had won, a few years ago.
Stuff that, I thought. They're nothing but a money-grabbing scam designed to rip off the vulnerable, by expecting the 90% to cough up when threatened.
I've heard nothing since.
Andy