A businessman was shocked to arrive home from his holidays, confronted by a postbox full of parking tickets worth “well over a grand”.
Erin Short paid £150 to rent a spot next to his home in Manchester for three weeks, unknowingly making a small but costly error.
Having accidentally typed a zero instead of an ‘O’ in the car registration box, the private car park company fined him £65 every day for 21 days, totalling £1,365.
They later refused to back down when he explained the simple, honest mistake.
When he declined to pay it, they went on to send 300 letters over a six month period, threatening bailiffs and court action, with the fines gradually increasing to a total of £4500.
Mr Short was taken to court, where the ticket costs were cleared, but was still left with a costly £1,000 legal bill.
Frustrated and angry at the system, he decided to do something about it to get back at the “predatory” car parking industry, dedicating the last couple of years to creating his own app called Parc, designed to stop users from getting parking fines.
He said: “Parking is one of the most predatory businesses in the country.
“There is a parking ticket issued every other second in the UK, and I’ve been on the receiving end of how brutal this system can be, and it’s incredibly distressing.
“The pressure to settle was relentless – there was no common sense applied or any understanding.
“It was clearly a simple mistake, and the fine I received cost more than my three week holiday to Cambodia. That experience opened my eyes to how broken parking enforcement is.
“There is no other industry where being five minutes late can mean a fine that’s dozens of times higher than the original cost.”
Still liable for making a mistake, he lost out at court, using his personal experience to create Parc, an AI-powered parking assistant that automatically detects where you have parked, checks if payment is required, and pays for parking on your behalf until you return.
It works across all UK parking providers, meaning drivers only ever need one app, wherever they park.
He added: “It’s designed to stop people getting caught out in the first place by automatically handling parking and removing the stress, the confusion, and the risk of unfair fines.
“It costs 40p a time, or £6.99 a month for unlimited use, and all you do is just walk away, and it will pay for you. If it doesn’t work and it’s our fault, we will pay for the ticket.
“Parc is built to protect drivers from parking fines, not profit from them.”