Smart Parking Technology Reviews

How this company is allowed to operate and hoodwink people into paying fines for parking in a pay and display car park is beyond me.
I genuinely told them in writing that we over stayed as they highlighted burnt only 19mins . This was due to the long walk back from the beach in Newquay and not thinking we would be filmed etc was the last thing we expected. Then a week later receive a letter in the post telling us we owe them £60 or delay and pay £100 for overstaying by 19 minutes.
They said they belong to this and that trade associations and their signs are clearly marked.
What they don't tell you is the massive sign that says 5 mins to the beach to encourage you to park is more like 10/12 mins to walk unless your Billy Whizz.
Absolute disgrace which made our afternoon visit to Newquay one we shall not forget or will be returning any time soon.
I will be writing to Cornwall council and expressing my concern about allowing this type of business to operate in the area and request that Smart Parking return my £60 as paid under stress and demanded by unfair means

SCAM SCAM SCAM!! Payed for car park ticket and left with over an hour to spare! Got a ticket for £60 2 weeks later saying I never payed!!! Have been ignoring letters as I will not give money to these scamming scum bags !! Haven’t had a letter in a while now so think they have stopped, DO NOT PAY THESE CRIMINALS!!! I hope they go to HELL! They need to be shut down and sent to jail!!

Do Not Use. We parked at Burton upon Trent car park which used Smart Parking. We paid and kept the parking ticket. We recieved a PCN . On checking we had slightly incorrectly punched in the car reg . We called, spoke to a very abrupt lady trying to explain, she was not interested at all. We put in an appeal with a copy of the ticket attached, apoligising for our mistake but stated that we had paid the correct amount. We recieved at letter dated 26/9 stating that the PCN was upheld even though we had paid the correct fee and had the ticket. as proof. I am disgusted

Biggest bunch of con artists I've ever come across. I purchased a 4 hour ticket for my car and still received a fine, tried to appeal this fine and got a snotty emailing stating cos I have paid it I have accepted liability. No o paid it because you gave me 2 days to pay my fine before it increased to £100 and I didn't want it to increase. How can I be told I haven't paid for a ticket when I did and can tell you the exact time, coins and duration it was for. Horrible people and company

As clearly stated on other reviews this is a scam. The machine in the carpark opposite the Snowdonia Railway didn’t work when we visited recently. I have proof of three attempts to pay. I have received a fine, I won’t be paying it.
Has anyone reported this company to the police or the fraud squad?
I am starting a campaign against them. Firstly I will contact the local police and relevant authorities, then the railway operators and the Welsh tourism group. This will then be progressed to a media campaign that includes press, radio and TV programs including Rip Off Britain. I am a journalist currently based in the UK. I have the contacts and the time to stop these thieves. If anyone would like to get involved please let me know.

Beware. I paid for all day parking with Just Park, who are no better, to use SmartParking Glasgow Elliott St. Two weeks later £60 fine. No feedback when lodged an appeal. My advice would be not to touch either JustPark or Smart parking - seems like an absolute scam as all the other feedback suggests.

To directors and staff of Smart Parking

Your fraud company Smart Parking are nothing but a bunch of lying thieves stealing and defrauding money out of innocent motorists.

Your company are NOT a car parking management, your company are a complete bunch of scammers and criminals. You all should be prosecuted and jailed for your extortionate crimes!

You, POPLA and the British Parking Association are all a bunch of thieves and are all corrupt!

You say your signs about 3 hour limit at White City car park are clear - that is absolute rubbish! There was no clear signs at all!

You say your 0845 phone number is standard practice - that is total rubbish! That is fraud! You use extortionate premium line number simply to defraud customers and motorists further!

I hope this UK government will close down your scamming practices and put you all in jail!

20 years ago in the UK, we never had corrupt and robbing enterprises like yourselves!

Also give me back the £100 you stole from me!

Vile car parking company, had to take out a loan to cover the debt recovery plus letters I was receiving. Paid 50p to park for half an hour. Was in the car park for 20 minutes well UNDER my time.
Received a parking fine sent the proof of payment from my bank statement.
Never received a rejection letter so I couldn’t appeal to POPLA. Then told one was apparently sent and that none of my details were on the system.
Received month of harassing letters from debt recovery plus until I eventually took a loan out to pay the £170 as I couldn’t cope with the harassment anymore
Don’t even deserve to function as a parking company. Absolute scum.

Sent my mother a parking fine for apparently parking and not paying because clearly they cant read tickets, She had her ticket on the window but because she entered 1 number wrong apparently the whole reg is wrong and they fine you, their demanding £50 when she paid £4 for a ticket...if it was me personally i'd write back and tell them to shove it and see them in court but of course thats my way of doing things, she's fount the ticket and sending it them so it will all be squashed soon anyway but what an actual disgrace of a company...9 out of 10 people you send fines to either went in to turn around or the ticket fell off the windows or entered a number or letter wrong on reg...Its VERY obvious you have CCTV and signs and everyone knows you're fine happy so you'd have to be stup*d to actually go in and not pay.

DVLA giving your details to a third-party company that has 0 power or anything is another joke...they pretty much give these guys ammo to use on 9 out of 10 times INNOCENT PEOPLE

Parked at fantasy Island in ingoldmills sun was on the machine to pay but kind of managed to work it out . Typed in my registration number and machine said I owed £2 which I did find a little cheap but paid anyway , 2 weeks later got a fine for £100 £60 if paid within 2 weeks. Smart parking should wear balaclavas to rob people but apparently this is completely legal . It's shocking .

I originally reviewed these jokers on this site on 17 August (see my review on that date for background info. to this case) at the stage when my initial appeal to Smart Parking had been rejected on very dubious grounds. After that, I appealed to POPLA and that appeal was rejected as well. Anyway, following a forceful set of comments to POPLA and an expression of interest on my part in meeting Smart Parking in court, my fine has been cancelled.

Smart Parking still worthy only of a 1 star rating, but at least I've saved £100. The moral of my story is to fight them if you receive an unwarranted PCN. PLEASE don't take the easy way out and pay the charge unless you are clearly in the wrong. That's how they get rich!

Not even worth 1 star!!! I work 50 meters down the road with hundreds of parking spaces, before I returned after my dinner I saw an elderly woman struggling with bags so I kindly pulled up in a smart parking for 4 minutes to help and now a debt recovery company are demanding £170. As I ignore it then went on holiday for a fortnight. Avoid absolute cowboys.

Utter crooks and thieves - Scum. I mistakenly entered one of their car parks and left after a few minutes, then received a penalty notice after two weeks. Because of a landmark ruling (Beavis vs. Smart Parking) they can LEGALLY extort money from innocent people. This company is the same as the thugs who wait in car parks and put clamps on cars then charge £300 to remove it.

Avoid parking anywhere this company operates, they are hassling my wife and threatening legal action, all because she got her reg number wrong!! She does have the receipt so we will not be paying them as they have suffered no loss!

AVOID AVOID AVOID

We parked in the car park opposite The Snowdon Mountain Railway north Wales. Paid £8 to park. The attendant even helped me with the machine!! 2 weeks later received a £60 fine for non payment fee! Sadly we hadn’t kept the ticket. Appealed but appeal got rejected. I’ve written to BBC Watchdog and BBC Wales X-Ray. Scum bags! One star too good.

Sorry but this doesn’t allow ppl to give no stars so I’m saying —10 star ..
These people are just cowboys .
I’m disabled went to part my car in
Ingoldmells you spar shop .
To realise I’ve no money as id left my one purse in my day bag , so I went to draw cash but the machine was out of order !!
17 mins I was in that parking to return to move my car as couldn’t by a tickets ...
Bare in mind it was about 9pm at night , but I moved my car I didn’t stay !!
Few days later when I arrived back home I get a parking tickets through my door !!
I appealed it , got a reply saying to tickets still stands and I should make sure I have change to purchase a ticket before entering the car park ..
Where does it state in the eyes of the law that you should have change when going into a car park ..
Total cow boys and they need investigating .
I’m going to complain to consumer rights !
They need to be brought to the tv and be investigated !!
I’ve paid my £60 stick it where the sun don’t shine and pity on you heartless ppl who don’t have any consideration for the disabled who sorry I didn’t have any change or cash
Ppl please avoid using these car parks !!!

scammers all other the country fining people £60 for honest parking and full payment. Would not recommend for anyone. We had paid £5 for the whole day and after a few days we received a ticket. 1 star too many. Screw this

They say that they use 'common sense' when assessing an appeal. What absolute b******ks!! They said I hadn't paid anything, when I did, and that there was no record of my registration number, which there was. Right shower of cowboys. PLEASE never use any of their car parks!! No way to contact on a personal level. All automated - and clearly their automated system just trots out the same old reasons for refusing an appeal. One star is one star too many!

Smart Parking car park opposite North Tees Hospital Stockton-on-Tees. Parked about 11pm one evening and paid for 14 hours parking. Drove out the car park 4am so 6hrs parking then returned within the 14hrs time span and left before 14hrs was up. Got a fine and now appealing. The signage and T&C's do not state you cannot return once you've left within the 14hrs. About time these companies were regulated. They are an utter rip off. Either don't use them or if you really have to make sure you get your reg correct if required to enter on a machine and keep the receipt. Like many these people are PIRATES.

I live in Florida . Received a parking ticket whilst visiting family in Telford England in a hire car , At the local wetherspoons pub at Telford town centre is where I picked up the ticket . Received the ticket via a property I rent out . Anyway I tried the appeal process as I never knew you had to pay to park at this location in the evening , never even received a confirmation email stating they had received it . So after 14 days of not hearing anything decided just to pay as these companies are parasites & it would of just got out of hand as I no longer live in the UK

Parked car on Llanberis car park, Snowdonia on 30th June 2019. Followed signage instructions, tapped in vehicle registration number and paid £8.00 for all day parking with debit card. Stayed for a little over 4 hours.
On 8th July received Parking Charge Notice from Smart Parking Ltd for alleged breach of advertised terms and conditions within Llanberis car park. They stated that either I had not purchased the appropriate parking time or had remained at the car park longer than permitted.
After appealing this charge I received a letter on 18th July upholding their decision on the basis that the ticket I had purchased was for the incorrect vehicle registration mark ‘M’ instead of my full and correct vehicle registration number which resulted in no payment being assigned to my vehicle.
I appealed to POPLA who upheld the charge notice by simply quoting Smart Parking’s signage conditions and that I should pay the £100 charge. Smart Parking have taken £8.00 from my bank account so in my view have accepted I have paid correct amount to park. Smart Parking are conning large numbers of the unsuspecting public because their technology does not work properly.
POPLA are also a questionable so called independent body as they totally ignored my request for Smart Parking to show evidence of when they last calibrated their payment machines to show that they were in full working order.
It’s time that the BPA and the government banned this company from operating in the UK.

One star is very generous. I was fined £60 after paying £12 for 5 hours at Western Car Park Rye. The reason? 'I hadn't paid'. But I had and my Bank statement proved it. Noone answers the phone. You cannot appeal using their email address. If you pay the PCN you are admitting liability. They refuse to give you a POPLA code which is needed to appeal. A special place is reserved for Smart Parking in hell.

received a fine for underpayment, thankfully i have proof i paid, now i know why this particular car park is always empty they must have scammed alot of people
hell will freeze over before i pay this

A BETTER NAME FOR THIS COMPANY WOULD BE "SCAM PARKING" PAID FOR 3 HOURS PARKING AT FANTISY ISLAND EXTRA SKEGNESS, RECEIVED A PCN FOR OVER STAYING ENTERED SITE 12.08.43 LEFT AT 14.32.09 A TOTAL OF 2HRS23 MNS, THEY CLAIM I ONLY PAID FOR 2 HRS. THEY ARE CON MEN AND SHOULD BE CLOSED DOWN,THEY WILL GET NO MORE PARKING MONEY FROM ME!!!

Utter scum .
Was suddenly installed at my gym car park without
Warning and they say I forgot to punch my reg into an iPad inside the gym 2 days in a row
This seems highly unlikely and I appealed and showed them I was a gym member and entitled to park there and in fact using the gym at the times stated .
Appeal refused and I had to pay £120
Reading the reviews here I see that nearly all appeals are refused .
I also lay the blame with pure gym for their lack of support and not informing customers that a new parking company with no mercy had been introduced.