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A frustrated motorist is complaining about the parking ticket machines in a Tunbridge Wells car park.
Neil Frost visited the Royal Victoria Place car park, which is run by the borough council, for the first time before Christmas.
He said: "With a queue of people behind you eager to use the machine, you first have to navigate your car details and input them into the machine.
"Once done you swipe your card on the front receptacle and hey presto out comes a ticket!
"Done! Or so you believe."
But like many motorists, Mr Frost did not inspect the ticket closely - it actually read "Not a valid ticket" because his card transaction had not registered properly.
He said: "When I returned to the car after 20 minutes to check out, you have to swipe again for the machine to calculate how long you have been there, but it told me that my card was not recognised.
"I spent the next five minutes trying to work out why it wouldn't let me 'check out.'
"That's when I saw a council employee and asked for help.
"We both tried to check out and it was at this point that I rummaged through my pockets and found the ticket that the machine printed - 'Not a valid ticket.'
"The staff member told me that it was a common problem and that people just assume that the printed ticket is valid, and why not because why would it print an invalid one? I didn't have my reading glasses with me so probably couldn't have read it anyway!
"I feel this is very misleading."
"When I got to my car I found a penalty notice for £25 under the wiper (£50 reduced to £25 for prompt payment).
"When I appealed it, explaining that I had believed I had purchased a valid ticket, I just received a standard email back stating that the machine showed no evidence of my payment .....duh! "
But a spokesperson for Tunbridge Wells Borough Council said the explanation was simple - it was following the law.
The spokesman said: "When the card authorisation company cannot process a transaction, they send a message back to the payment machine saying that the transaction has failed.
"By law we must produce the failed/declined transaction ticket for the customer.
"There is a notice explaining this at all the pay points.’
And indeed there is.
