Fair Go: Why it's so hard to appeal a parking fine

Get ready to put up a ding-dong fight if you're one of those people who've received a parking ticket that you think is wrong.

At least, that's the experience of the people who came to Fair Go for help, after trying — unsuccessfully — to get rid of some pretty questionable parking tickets.

In Christchurch, Rhonda Aitken was out at a concert, parked at a Wilson Parking car park, walked to the closest pay station where a couple where struggling with the payment system.

While Aitken was trying to help sort this out, a parking staffer arrived and also helped. Aitken was then able to pay for her parking.

Or, that's what she thought. When she got back to the car, there was a ticket sitting on her window saying "no valid payment".

Why? The fine said Aitken had taken too long to get her ticket — she'd breached the 15 minute window allowed after arrival.

But hang on — she was helping people, there was a delay — and all this was observed by a Wilson Parking warden.

She said all that when she contested the ticket but Wilson's said:

"Our breach fees are reflective of what is charged across the whole industry."

Sure, the Ts & Cs say to pay for the whole duration of the parking — but Fair Go asks is it fair to pay $10 to park the whole night but an $85 fine for taking 15 minutes to pay?

And what happened when Aitken appealed?

"On the 8th January they sent me a letter to tell me I now had a $105 dollar fine," Aitken says.

She'd notified Wilson Parking by then that Fair Go was investigating, and then, without explanation, the fine was waived.

Aitken reckons on busy nights, allowances should be made for queues. Wilson Parking again:

"We accept if there's a significant queue our officers are expected to and have permission to apply discretion.

We’ve taken the feedback on board with regard to adjusting grace periods for surges in demand." Excellent.

Our next stop is Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, where Elly Waitoa had rushed to help her daughter who'd been seriously assaulted.

They'd used a car park for 25 minutes — the limit was 15.

Days later, a fine arrived. But surely, once the couple had explained the urgency — and provided a police report — wouldn't it be waived?

But despite two appeals, the ticket stayed.

When Fair Go questioned the ticket issuers, Smart Compliance, about this complete lack of empathy, it replied:

"We now recognise there were mitigating circumstances and are in the process of refunding."

Waitoa says: "It was never about the money. It was just about needing to call out such poor behaviour from the company."

Sarah Harvey had a truly bizarre experience when stopping for a late night snack in the McDonalds car park, run by Wilson Parking.

It was 1am and she says she went through the drive-thru as per normal but, a week later, she got a ticket.

"What? $85! No, this is ridiculous," said Harvey, knowing that she came and left well within the one hour's free parking.

"Apparently, I was in the drive-thru for over seven hours from one till 9.30 in the morning."

She was certain the photos showing the times were wrong. For instance, the one showing the car leaving at 9.32am was in pitch black darkness — which defied common sense.

Harvey appealed the ticket to Wilson — but was rejected.

"I thought 'bugger this', so I went into McDonalds and asked to speak to the manager," Harvey said, also asking what the company was going to do to sort this out.

A month later, nothing. Harvey worried that because the ticket warned that if she did not pay, a debt collector may be involved and her car might be towed.

"Which I found quite terrifying."

When Fair Go got in touch with both McDonalds and Wilson Parking, they did respond:

"We can confirm that Sarah’s breach notice has been waived. It was issued due to a misread by the cameras."

Right. Good.

And we finish with an absolute blinder.

In December last year, Lynette and Steve Evans had parked at 8.30am at the Gondola station — he was going on the luge, she was off for a walk.

There were plenty of parks, they paid for three hours, and got back just after 10am.

Lynette first discovered that a cone saying "disabled parking" had appeared in front of their car and a ticket had appeared on their car window.

"What? But we've already paid. There were no cones around when we pulled in, otherwise we wouldn't have parked there," says Lynette, who then drove downhill to find a parking warden.

"Did you just ticket my car with a $150 fine for parking in a disabled car park? And he goes 'yep I ticketed you'."

Lynette then asked who'd put the cones up, because that was done only after they'd arrived.

"He goes 'I put the cones there', I was like 'you what?'."

Lynette was told to take it up with the council if she had a problem with that, which she did.

She was also able to provide them with a time-coded photo Steve had taken from the top of the gondola showing all the parked cars including theirs — without any cones.

Nice one, Steve. The couple appealed in December, but were rejected.

They tried again in January when, finally, they were told the fee was waived, but: "With a warning and education — I don't know who's getting educated," says Lynette.

Possibly not the council because, in March, the cones were still lurking in the garden before 9am.

"I had to tell four others not to park in that park — or get ticketed," said Steve.

And it still wasn't over. In April, they received a court summons to pay $180. They made more calls to sort it out including one to Fair Go. Our approach to the council resulted in this: "We have waived all infringements issued here (15 in total) after we became aware the temporary parking arrangements weren’t meeting requirements."

Now the cones are gone, and the council says it's open to appeals. But it took a lot to get this one ticket waived and Steve reckons the appeals process needs improving.

"It's just not fair. If they ticket people who aren't prepared to actually fight them about something, they make $150 bucks for being unscrupulous."

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