A woman was furious after claiming she was slapped with a £60 parking fine for staying 16 seconds too long in a car park.
The car park was operated by a private parking management company, while the payment was submitted through a parking app.
The anonymous woman aired her frustrations on Mumsnet, explaining: "I am so cross. I have received a fine [...] for £60.
"I paid for 30 minutes on the [parking app] and they said I was on the car park for 30 minutes and 16 seconds. It just feels criminal that they can do this.
"I have appealed with photo evidence of the [parking] app payment and they have declined with no explanation. I have escalated the appeal."
The woman explained that there was a camera at the entrance to the car park which timed the entrance and exit, which on the [parking] app said was 1.51:44pm and 2.22pm respectively.
The angry driver asked fellow forum users whether she should keep "holding her nerve" and hope that it would be settled in court.
The comment section was flooded with fellow drivers who were furious on her behalf, saying there should be some sort of grace period to get in and out of the car park.
One person fumed: "I thought you had some grace time too - 16 seconds is a joke!"
Another added: "Hold your nerve. I do believe they are suppose to give you a number of minutes grace too."
However, others say that she will have a hard time disputing the fine, because she did go over the cut off time. One person commented: "But what's the cut off? 16 seconds over is fine, but 17 seconds is not? Why? If their cut off is 30 minutes, then you've gone over it."
Others said it was unfair, given the fact that she paid for 30 minutes of parking, and shouldn't be fined for the time she was entering, looking for a space and exiting.
One person commented: "You paid for 30 minutes parking. Assuming you are one of the 75% reasonable drivers, you would have carefully reversed out of your parking space, driven at under 10mph to the car park exit, and stopped before moving onto the highway. Which would have taken more than 16 seconds. So it is factually incorrect to levy a parking charge."
The woman finally said: "I have escalated to the next appeal and have also send an email to the company asking them exactly what I am being charged for and also asked for a copy of their camera calibration certificate and a copy of their terms and conditions.
"I have tried to call them 10 times for clarification and despite the voice mail promising a call back they are yet to call. I will keep all logs as evidence that I have tried to resolve this."
The Mirror has approached the companies for comment.
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