Grandfather, 73, who was threatened by debt collectors after being slapped with a £160 hospital parking ticket has positive QUASHED after it was discovered he’d been scammed by a ‘pretend’ firm
A grandfather who was hit with a £160 parking fine and had bailiffs sent after him has seen proceedings against him dropped after it emerged he had been scammed.
Ronnie Hayman, 73, from Bury, had been visiting a sick family member at St James’ Hospital in Leeds in June earlier this year.
Parking at the nearby Beckett Street car park, the 73-year-old followed signage instructing him to pay via a website called Tap2Park where he paid £6 for two hours.
The grandfather thought nothing more of it until a letter arrived from the car park’s owners one month later demanding he pay a £100 fine.
However, after checking his bank details, Ronnie saw that the original £6 payment had been diverted to an account called ‘Mr Muscle’ instead.
The grandad-of-seven informed owners I Park Services about the fraudulent activity but they responded by upping the fine to £160.
The following month a letter arrived from a bailiff company stating they would be collecting payment.
But now, after raising the matter with local media, Ronnie has seen his fine quashed by I Park Services in what the Bury resident describes as a ‘good win’.
Ronnie Hayman, 73, from Bury, had been visiting a sick family member at St James’ Hospital in June earlier this year when he was scammed paying for parking online
Beckett Street car park in Leeds where Ronnie had left his car for two hours thinking he’d paid
Citing the media coverage of his unfair fine as a contributing factor in having I Park Services call off the bailiffs, Ronnie said: ‘It was just annoying having to go through all that stress and aggravation when it wasn’t my fault.
‘If they had any common sense, they would have realised everything was genuine when I sent them a copy of the bank proof of payment.
‘As you get older and you’re not working as long hours then things bug you. This bugged me and I had the time to do something about it.
‘If it had been 20 years ago, I’d have probably done nothing about it and paid the fine’.
When contacted for comment, the car park payment website Tap2Park revealed that this was not the first occasion they had been targeted by fraudsters, with a fake website set up using their name and logo earlier this year.
However, they also stated that they are simply the online payment provider and have nothing to do with the running of Beckett Street car park.
The Tap2Park spokesperson said: ‘Earlier this year, we were alerted to the existence of an unauthorised website, accessible through a Google search, which misappropriated our logo and falsely represented our service.
‘This fraudulent site directs individuals to an illegitimate payment platform. Upon discovering this, we promptly reported the matter to Action Fraud and submitted a takedown request to Google to address the issue.
‘Unfortunately, to date, despite several follow-ups on our part, we have not received a response from either entity. As part of our ongoing efforts to resolve this, we are now preparing to escalate the matter by issuing a pre-action letter to protect our brand and safeguard users against this deceptive activity.’
Car park owners I Park Services were also approached for comment before the initial story was published.
