On 6th April the driver visited a retail park which used smart parking meters. The driver only had £1 in the car (the parking was, if remembered correctly, 80p/hour). The driver went to the machine, typed in the registration, put in £1 and pressed the button for a ticket but it threw out the £1. The driver repeated this 3, possibly 4 times and on the final time, it took the money but didn't print a ticket. Assuming that it had either run out of paper or didn't give tickets, the driver went shopping and was back in the car in less than an hour.
A few weeks later a charge notice for £60 was received from Smart Parking. I read online that the first step in appealing is to request the store owners step in. This was Nike so after tracing down a customer services email I contacted them. They messaged back and said I'd need to contact the local store. We then went on holiday and forgot all about it :-o .
This morning DRP (debt recovery) has sent a letter to the driver stating an outstanding debt of £160.
Is the driver able to appeal this do you think? And if so, how?