An Edinburgh driver has hit out after he was charged £85 to park at a local shopping centre.
Derek McKinley took to social media to warn others after he received a letter in the post claiming he stayed at Craigleith Retail Park for over four hours.
The 55-year-old posted on the social media platform Nextdoor after getting a letter from GroupNexus, an organisation that manages parking services for Craigleith Retail Park, informing him of the huge fine.
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The parking fee, issued on April 6, referred to the trip Derek made to the shops on March 25, claiming his vehicle remained at their parking area from 9.50am to 14.23pm that day.
Craigleith Retail Park offers shoppers three hours of parking free of charge, and the letter claiming that Derek was using the parking for four hours and 32 minutes ordered him to pay £85.
However, Derek believes that the parking charges he received are unfair, and says he has photographic proof to back up his point.
On the day when he was charged at the car park, the shopper says he made two separate trips to Craigleith Retail Park, both lasting less than half an hour.
Derek said: "I knew I would never spend that long there, so I checked my Ring video of the driveway, and it shows me coming back 15 minutes after I first went in and then leaving for a second trip that afternoon lasting less than 30 minutes.
"I tried to upload the video as evidence, but their system can't handle it, and despite explaining all this and giving a photo of my car in my driveway that morning, they rejected the appeal."
The post, in which Derek shared his experience, quickly got many comments from people relating to the situation. Recalling a similar experience she had, one woman said: "They tried to say I'd spent the night in the car park. I'd been up at Sainsbury's just before it shut and had nipped in quickly the next morning for something else."
Reflecting on the number of comments he got under the post, Derek said: "Several other people have been wrongly charged in the same way, so the company are clearly at it.
"I could accept them perhaps missing one entry/exit but not two, so I think this is deliberate on their part."
GroupNexus were contacted for comment.
