ParkingEye has been a source of controversy for many drivers, who claim they were unfairly ticketed.
A furious father claimed he was given a £70 parking fine after being stuck in a queue waiting to get out of a hospital car park for 45 minutes last year.
Scott Michael Clarke, 31, from Sleaford, Lincolnshire, paid £1.70 to park outside Lincoln County Hospital and take his one-year-old son to a routine one hour appointment after he had broken his leg in a fall.
The family made it back home to their cars in 30 minutes. But traffic in the parking lot meant it took another 45 minutes for them to get out and have their number plate recorded on the automatic cameras.
ParkingEye a volunteer ambulance service driver £70 even though she was picking up a patient as part of her duties in August 2019.
Julie Hyde, 62 years old, is from Allenby, West Cumbria. She parked her Volkswagen Tiguan at the Freeman Hospital, Newcastle, after checking with staff.
She helped the wheelchair user into her car and drove 80 miles back to the patient’s home in Cumbria, but received a letter from ParkingEye three days later demanding £40 within two weeks or the figure would be increased to the full amount.
The fine was later canceled by the firm.
A terminally ill man was twice penalized for visiting Lincoln County Hospital in July 2019, despite the fact that cancer patients have the right of free parking.
Lincolnshire Live reported that Edward Sutton, 79 years old, was diagnosed with lung cancer in November 2018. The fine was overturned after an appeal.
ParkingEye, which operates over 3,500 sites across the country, is one of Britain’s largest private parking companies.
In May 2019, 79-year-old Irene Smith was fined £70 for parking outside an Aldi where she was shopping despite inputting her details into the ParkingEye machine.
According to a screenshot taken by the company, it was later discovered that she had missed one digit.
Holly Edwards, 34, received a £100 fine for parking outside an NHS clinic even though she was having a scan at the time and was allowed to park for free.
She was confident about getting the fine – at the Harold Wood Polyclinic in Romford, east London, in June 2019 – overturned and sent ParkingEye her GP appointment note.
The company director was shocked when he received a letter offering a reduced fine as a gesture of goodwill.
However, some drivers have managed to turn the tables on the parking giants.
In 2017, top lawyer Nicholas Bowen won a high-profile court victory against the firm after they fined him £85 for overstaying the two-hour time limit at a motorway service station.
A judge struck out the case and ordered the company to pay his costs of £1,550.
Marilyn Heald paid 50p to park for 30 minutes when she went for a simple X-ray – but it nearly cost her £70.
Retired British Airways stewardess was penalized for exceedingly long stays at the Samuel Johnson Community Hospital, Lichfield, Staffordshire.
Mrs Heald, aged 69, won the fight against Parking Eye, the firm that issued the fine.