First Parking Reviews 

Scammers! Mistyped a letter when putting in my reg number. Paid for 4 hours even though I stayed 1 hour. No letters nothing for 2 months - then I get a final warning letter from Dcbl bailiffs demanding £155 or I’m taken to court. When I type in my parking notice ref number for appeal (as found on the dcbl letter), nothing comes up so how am I meant to appeal!

What a scam. This company charge you from 4am in the morning.
Let me make this clear. We arrived at our hotel at 2pm, left the next day at 10am.
And that qualified for 2 days payment.
Which equated to 50% more than the hotel charged.
What a deal....

I received a parking notice charge yesterday which clearly contravenes my daughters university parking on site terms and conditions. Hatfield university on their own website clearly states two hours free parking chargeable from Monday to Friday between 07:00 and 19:00 hours. I collected some of my daughters stuff from her Campus on Saturday the 10th of June the letter I've received clearly says I was parked onsite for 52 minutes on a Saturday just before midday. The fact that either the universities own website is not up to date or first parking are going into competition with the bitcoin scammers

Flat rate of $19 per day, but entered after 2pm, out before 9 am and charged for 2 days. They are not interested in sorting, grabbed money double for 19 hours. A day is not 24 hours in their fine print.

These money grabbers are employed by South Devon Healthcare Trust on their Torbay Hospital site. As a hospital worker, it's one thing to have to pay for your parking at work, it's quite another when you do so, and then you're fined for "parking in patient spaces". Surely, if someone is parking and paying, it should not make any difference. Furious and irritated beyond believe. On top of that, the one ticket I had to pay so far, they tried to charge me twice for!

Stayed in hotel, was incorrectly told to validate parking on exit. Company won't listen to appeals. Hotel powerless to do anything (what's the point?).

5* in terms of taking your money.

Crooks. As a student I parked in university car park during the half term and parking is free when the uni is closed. Get a letter saying I need to pay £40. I explained the closure days and half term dates and even send proof from uni website to which they say they have reviewed but I still need to pay the fine. I advise my SU who agree with and reach out to them to resolve the issue but they are given a similar excuse, claiming the uni was open and that I still need to pay the fine. Either this company has no common sense or are greedy crooks, can’t decide which but they should be ashamed of themselves.

Be aware of the app Ringo and this company, I'm a student and I have free time to park at UNI for 2 hours, after that you need to pay on Ringo. The problem is that if you forget for some reason to pay on time, have an exam, or have a very stressful day you may receive a fine. It happened to me on exam day, I remembered to pay late, I choose to pay for all day which is £4, and cover until 17pm because after that is free, unfortunately, the app takes only £2.2 because were left just almost 4 hours and for this reason, I was fined. Meanwhile is clear that I paid and my intention was to pay for all day on the receipt my appeal was denied. I complained about this on Ringo too as they should make things simple for people not generate other expenses and stress.

Scumbags park my car in disabled bay with disable badge on refused to cancel neither cancelled in appeal end up paying £50 instead £25

I was issued a ticket by First Parking when legally parked with a valid ticket because their parking attendant entered the letter 'o' rather than the number '0' in my car's registration. As he was searching the wrong number he failed to find my valid Ringo ticket and issued a fine. Given that he recorded the wrong car registration, I was unable access their system to appeal the fine as the system didn't recognize the real number plate number. First Parking have no help line, no customer service, no number for enquiries, in fact no way of contacting them in real time at all.
Eventually I sent details and evidence to the car park owners to have the fine cancelled.
First Parking seem to do no more than collect money from the public and the car park owners offering no routes to communicate with those they abuse.
I strongly recommend you avoid First Parking run car parks at all costs!

SCUMBAG, deceitful, immoral, fraudulent criminal organisation that hides behind their emails and automated pay…how they have been allowed to penetrate institutes like the NHS, universities and colleges is outrageous and merely showcases the level of corruption from the so-called ELITE who pretend to run the country; profiteering at its UGLIEST!!!

I see a lot of people are complaining about this company being dishonest or unreasonable. Of course they are - they are a Private Parking company. PPCs survive on being threatening and misrepresenting the lawful process. Here are some tips for dealing with and understanding the process:

- Your appeal to First Parking - this will almost always be refused, even if you have a solid case. Don't be put off if they refuse your appeal, as this stage of the process is completely meaningless. It's your next appeal - to POPLA - that mas some meaning

- When First Parking refuse your appeal, they will give you a reference number to make an appeal to POPLA, which is the regulatory organisation for private parking. Make an appeal on the POPLA website, stating your grounds for appeal clearly. There will usually be legal issues with the paperwork provided by First Parking. It is worth checking some of the main internet boards dedicated to challenging Private Parking invoices, but if you don't want to do this just submit the appeal to POPLA in your own words. You have nothing to lose in appealing to POPLA, the supposed fine will stay the same

- After the POPLA appeal. If you have a genuine case, it is likely that POPLA will uphold your appeal and demand that First Parking cancel their invoice. Even if they don't, you can still refuse to pay if you are happy to tough out the threatening letters

- Not paying. In order for you to me legally liable for this payment, or to have any credit damage, all of these things would need to happen:
a) They would need to take you to small claims court (they don't like to do this as it's a risk for them)
b) They would need to win (very unlikely, as it is a case of contract law, which they are unlikely to have a solid basis for)
c) You would then need to still refuse to pay

First parking will misrepresent this process all the way. They will try to make you believe that their "fine" is going up, that they will take you to court, and that your credit record will be damaged. This is NOT TRUE. This can only happen IF they take you to court, IF they win and IF you still don't pay. Obviously this is very unlikely to happen, and you would always have the chance to pay it before any damage.

They will pass it on to a "debt collector", even though there is no actual debt. Their debt collector will send threatening letters, but ultimately they have no power at all, as there is no debt and if there were one, the debt would be to First Parking not to the "debt collector". If you like, you can complain to the Financial Ombudsman that you are being pursued for an unproven debt and that they are misrepresenting the legal process. This usually scares the "debt collector" who will pass it back to First Parking, who will realise you are not easy prey and will finally leave you alone.

So to sum up:
- Make your appeal to First Parking although expect it to be refused
- Make your appeal to POPLA which will likely be upheld
- If it is not upheld by POPLA, ignore the threatening letters from First Parking
- When you receive threatening letters from a supposed debt collector, report them to the Financial Ombudsman
- Eventually they will leave you alone
- Only respond to actual Small Claims Court papers. The chances of this happening are so small as to be practically impossible
- Private parking companies cannot legally issue fines, only government bodies can
- Private companies work on contract law, which is complex, and which they will usually have made some mistakes on
- Whatever they tell you (and they will lie about this), you cannot get credit damage unless they take you to court, you lose and then you still refuse to pay.

First thing i knew about a fine was when I got a letter from DCBL saying I had a £150 fine. No previous contact. I actually tried to pay but the machine was broken

Luckily I took a video of me trying to pay, and contacted FP via email before DCBL, who come across as aggressive with the letter. I mailed FP explaining why I didn't pay and directed them to my video, and their own meter camera, so they could see me trying to pay.

They were very fair with their reply, confirmed there was a meter fault and canceled the fine. If you're genuine and couldn't pay, take a vid and send them it. They directed me to the app if it happens again.

Cant really argue with that. My only gripe is the huge fee, and the aggressive DCBL letter that is unpleasant and stressful to receive. Especially when they're not actually bailiffs.

They have literally give me a ticket when I'm parking on my drive in front of my university house. It's a warning ticket so there's no way of me contacting them and letting the know until i get a ticket number.

Had a ticket today for my Phev parked in an electric car bay. A simple free app called Vehicle Smart would have told them it's a hybrid. Or a basic knowledge of cars?

Just had a parking bailiff fine, no previous communication, letters, telephone call nothing about a parking fine had been enforced. There is no signage at Centenary Quay Limited to show you must pay for parking or hours of service. They do not have a customer service team you can contact. Disgusting service and scam merchants. BEWARE !!!

Thieving dishonest company
We got a £150 fine for parking at centenary quay's under Mettricks -Woolston-Southampton
It was after hours- No signs- no pay point
No letter to our address to say we had a fine - so we could dispute or get an early payment reduction. Naturally you cant call them or the bailiff- Direct Collections. Obviously they make more money by not sending you a letter of notification as they make more money putting the Debt collection bailiffs on you and so no early payment reduction. How can they impose such a high fine- its disgusting- Karma coming your companies way as this is daylight robbery.

do not pay always appeal the NHS should not be employing these scumbags to rob people who need to visit an hospital they need closing down now

There isn't any button on their website despite them saying you can do online pay and there's no way to contact them. Total scam.