ParkingEye's latest parking scam was exposed in court this Friday. ParkingEye tried to charge a motorist for staying more than 1 hour 20 minutes at Corporation St Preston
The judge at Blackpool made the valid point today that the ParkingEye Greenbank witness
statement is a templated formulaic response which often does not address issues pleaded in the defence.
In today's case, the judge pointed out that the defendant did not deny entering Corporation Street car park at 12.14, nor leaving at 14.08, but he pleaded that he had also left at 12.16, and returned at 14.06, and during this time he was elsewhere. (Prankster Note - there is a one hour no-return policy at this site)
PE didn't directly respond to this in the witness statement of their reply to the defence, merely claiming by rote their ANPR is subject to 19 separate checks. The judge correctly dismissed as they were not listed so there was no way of telling if they related to the situation at hand. However, the judge was clear that the Defence statement saying "I wisna there" was of equal evidential weight as PE's statement that "ANPR does not show any other entries or exits" and as PE were not present to give further oral evidence on this point, the claim was bound to fail.
Prankster Note
It is well known that ParkingEye's systems miss entries and exists, causing them to issue charges when no contravention has occurred. The recorded number of these scam tickets has now reached the size where it can be clear that the ParkingEye system is not fit for purpose, especially as ParkingEye regularly fail to cancel tickets when they have been informed their system malfunctions, and instead persist in taking innocent motorists to court..
The main flaw can be summed up in the following diagram.
ANPR systems do not have X-Ray capability. thus if your numberplate is blocked by another vehicle, your entry/exit will not be registered. (There are also other problems which cause misreads)
ParkingEye are well aware their system contains inherent flaws, but to continue to issue tickets to innocent motorists in a well-rehearsed scam.
Happy Parking
The Parking Prankster
Another way for these rats to make money
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