A football supporter who was hit with a £200 fine after falling victim to a parking 'scam' near Old Trafford has issued a warning. Arsenal fan Lewis Roper, 27, went to watch his team take on Manchester United in their Premier League clash in December.
After driving to Manchester from his hometown of Hull with his brother for the night match, and first visit to Old Trafford, Lewis says he was waved onto a car park in Talbot Road, around a mile from the stadium, by a man wearing a hi-vis jacket.
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Believing the small patch of concrete in between two blocks of flats to be an unofficial matchday car park, and that man was its attendant, he paid him £10 in cash to park before heading off to the match. However, Lewis, a DJ who works for a housing association, was left gobsmacked when he returned to his Volkswagen Scirocco later that night to find he had been slapped with a £100 parking ticket.
The car park in fact belongs to Talbot Court, a housing block run by Trafford Housing Trust, where parking is resident's only and you require a permit. And he had been issued with a Parking Charge Notice (PCN) by a firm called All Parking Services UK Ltd, who patrol the car park on behalf of the housing trust.
Lewis told the Manchester Evening News : "I've done it loads of times before where you park at an unofficial car park near the ground. So I didn't think anything of it.
"But then when I came back there was a ticket on the windscreen. I just thought 'ey, what's all this about.' There was about 10 of us who'd parked there, mostly Arsenal fans, and we'd all got a ticket. None of us could believe it really."
The housing trust say the two men were not in any way affiliated to themselves or the parking firm and that Lewis 'appears to have been the victim of a scam'.
Lewis immediately appealed the charge with the parking firm, who handle appeals independently of the trust, but says that this was rejected due to 'insufficient evidence'.' After he refused to pay, the issue was passed to a debt recovery company, with the charge having said to have risen to £200.
After being contacted by the M.E.N and learning of the circumstances, the housing trust now say they will instruct All Parking Services to rescind the charge.
Lewis added: "It was obviously a scam and the guy had just taken the money and gone. I appealed it straight away but they said I didn't have enough hard evidence.
"Then a few weeks later I debt collecting company contacting me saying it was now 200. because of admin fees. That's a lot of money.
"If I'd parked there deliberately I would have held my hands up and just paid it but I didn't want to as I didn't think it was fair and we hadn't done anything wrong."
A spokesperson for Trafford Housing Trust said: “The car park at Talbot Court is for Trafford Housing Trust residents only, and there are no arrangements in place to make it available to non-residents for match-day parking.
"We’re sorry to hear that a fan who attended a recent match at Old Trafford appears to have been the victim of a scam, having been led to believe that the car park was okay to use during the game, by someone not associated with Trafford Housing Trust.
"Due to the unfortunate circumstances that led to this parking ticket being issued we will be liaising with our car park contractor to revoke the ticket and ensure the fan isn’t further out of pocket.”
In 2018 we reported how Stephen Hopton from Dukinfield in Tameside was hit with a £100 fine by All Parking Services after parking on Longford Close, just off Chester Road.
A spokesperson for Trafford Council said “The Council has worked with partners in the past to clamp down on illegal parking sites.
"We would encourage anyone attending matches at Old Trafford to use public transport wherever possible, or if arriving by car to use approved event parking locations. Full details of these can be found on the council website at Event parking (trafford.gov.uk) ”
