Hundreds of Inverness drivers may have been wrongly slapped with fines due to a faulty payment machine.
Technical issues affecting Rose Street Retail Park meant parking payments were not being properly registered.
As a result, drivers who paid have been issued £100 penalties by operator Brittania Parking.
Highlands journalist David Scott discovered the glitch after successfully appealing the fine.
Mr Scott, who lives in Watten, Caithness, was visiting Inverness on August 8 and paid £2.50 for a four-hour stay.
Rose Street car park fine successfully appealed
10 days later, on August 18, he received a parking charge notice letter claiming he had failed to pay and owed the company a £100 fine.
He told The P&J: “I was flabbergasted, it makes you question yourself or your sanity, ‘What did I do wrong?’”
“I just didn’t trust them at all, I thought I’d have to pay them something but luckily I had the snapshots.”
Mr Scott shared screenshots from his online banking, which showed he had paid for parking, and sent them as part of an appeal to Brittania.
More than two weeks later, the company sent him a letter saying the fine had been cancelled and they had scrubbed his personal information (his full name and address) from their system.
Brittania Parking blame technical issue
In the letter, the company explained that a technical issue with the machine meant his payment did not fully register.
The letter added: “We are completing a full investigation as to why we are not receiving the machine transactions, to prevent a re-occurrence of this issue happening again.”
While Mr Scott was relieved, he is worried there may be other residents who have paid the £100 fine.
Several other residents have previously complained of similar occurrences on local Inverness Facebook pages.
Brittania Parking has been asked for comment.
