My daughter received a letter with a link to a photo saying that she had taken £5.12 of PETROL for her DIESEL car without paying from a Tesco Esso Express petrol station in Hove using a photo (was a genuine error or a premeditated fabrication?) that had been taken a few days before the alleged event when she had filled up with £20.02 of diesel and paid for it. Furthermore, on the day of the alleged event she was over 100 miles away in Cardiff working for her law firm. We disputed the evidence pointing out the obvious flaws and asked to appeal together with provision of their evidence proving the date of the photo so that we could discuss and submit the evidence in more details. The response consisted of letters with a bullying nature flatly denying an error on the part of Forecourt Eye. In the context of private parking firms bullying and escalating fines, we decided to pay the fee plus charges to avoid the anxiety of a growing cost whilst we seek to dispute the charge via multiple channels because we were not convinced we would get a fair hearing in a timely manner whilst they allow costs to mount. Other channels include the police (who have been empathetic in light of many other complaints), the Civil Procedure Rules that addresses the authenticity of evidence, Tesco and Esso. The cost of the fine is small but the significance of the principle is infinite, the victim has to invest in protecting their innocence possibly only recovering the cost of the charge and rarely the cost of the investment in their defence. I am far from a conspiracist but this also raises wider concerns, for example; if they can use data like this now which they have on file, how might they use it again in the future?Update 29/1/24 - after much to and fro, I am pleased to say this has now been resolved and will improve the rating because we feel we have been listened to albeit not without its stresses. Aside from the use of logic in defence, the point about correct use of data was important - the Data Controller (Tesco) and the Data Processor (Forecourteye) must work to the data protection principles under the Data Protection Act 2018 which include the right to access personal data, be informed how data is being used and have incorrect data updated (in this case ensuring the correct time stamp is submitted with the photograph and linked to the correct payment).
Claim your business profile now and gain access to all features and respond to customer reviews.
