Reasonable if you have the nerve to pursue it

I got done at Luton airport a while back. You will lose the initial appeal and have to be prepared to take it to the govt parking ombudsman for an independent appeal. Means you will get the higher level of fine if you do lose but in many cases they drop it as soon as they realise you are prepared to take it all the way. That's what they did with me. Blanked all my initial appeals and then as soon as I went to the ombudsman and put a decent letter together they withdrew the fine.

They are supposed to give you a reasonable period of grace to decide whether to park (or to leave a car park after you've paid) before any charges kick in.

They just gamble that enough people will pay the lower level fine or be spooked by the payment demands you will receive etc. You will keep getting demands including threats of debt collectors etc so I think most people just end up paying to make it go away.

There are some very good threads on the martin Lewis money saving forums about this stuff, include templates based on successful letters/appeals that people have submitted.

Posted By: Jim, May 29, 15:49:09