A receipt that never existed
Many years ago I dealt with an appeal where the motorist said they had paid, and sent the app receipt to prove it. I couldn’t find the payment on our system, so I asked the app provider. They had no record of it either, and told me the receipt must have been doctored.
After years of reading every reason imaginable for cancelling a charge, I still found it hard to believe someone would fake a receipt. On that occasion, they had.
Most appeal evidence is genuine, but every so often something doesn’t add up. As other ways of avoiding parking charges are identified and addressed, it’s reasonable to expect that some people who are determined not to pay will look for alternative methods to challenge a charge.
At the end of September, Wandsworth Council reported the prosecution of a driver who had appealed 13 PCNs issued in a single month. Each appeal came with an “RAC breakdown report” he had downloaded from the internet and altered to fit. In July 2026 he pleaded guilty at Wimbledon Magistrates’ Court to 13 offences under the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, was disqualified from driving for eight months and ordered to pay £2,492 in costs.
The case is unusual, but it raises a more everyday question for private parking operators: what can you do when the evidence in front of you doesn’t stack up?
Editing software has never been better, and even a well-trained eye won’t always spot a tampered document. The answer isn’t to become suspicious of every document. It’s to build an appeals process that can distinguish between a document that looks genuine and evidence of an event that actually happened.
Look for the footprint, not the forgery
Treat every document an appellant sends as a claim, rather than simply a fact.
“Here is my payment receipt” really means that a payment of £X was made at time Y, through provider Z, under reference A. The useful question is then: if that event really happened, what footprint should it have left?
A genuine app payment will sit in the provider’s records with a reference, VRM, location, tariff, start and end time and amount, and in the payment processor’s records too. Most real events leave a similar trail:
| Appeal claim | Where the footprint should be |
|---|---|
| Paid by app or machine | App provider’s transaction record; payment processor; your own tariff and ANPR data |
| Vehicle broke down | Breakdown provider’s job record; recovery or garage invoice |
| Vehicle sold before the event | Payment and messages with the buyer |
| Vehicle on hire | Hire agreement and the hire company’s records |
| Medical emergency | Contemporaneous medical or hospital documentation |
| Delivering or loading | Delivery notes, invoices, the delivery company’s records |
| Permit or Blue Badge | The issuing organisation’s records |
| Vehicle cloned | Police crime reference; DVLA make, model and colour against your images |
Start with what you already hold. A receipt for a tariff your site doesn’t offer, or a location code that isn’t yours, is an inconsistency you can show from your own records.
Ask the source the right question
Where an appellant relies on a third party’s document, check it with the organisation that supposedly issued it, where you reasonably can.
Don’t ask “does this PDF look like one of your receipts?”
Ask “can you confirm transaction 123456 took place at this location and time?”
That question makes no judgement about anyone’s honesty. If the provider says “we have no such transaction”, that is simply evidence, and far stronger than an opinion about fonts.
A strong package might look like this: the receipt quotes transaction 849271, the provider has no such transaction, its references are system-generated, the payment processor shows nothing, and there was no outage that day.
There are also two data protection points to consider. Sharing an appellant’s details to verify their evidence needs a lawful basis and, for most operators, this is likely to be legitimate interests. Your privacy notice should also state you may do it.
Some organisations, breakdown providers especially, won’t confirm anything without their customer’s consent. In those circumstances, it may be quicker to ask the appellant to authorise the check or to obtain confirmation from the provider themselves.
What the Single Code already gives you
The Appeals Charter already provides a framework for dealing with evidence.
Under Annex F, F.1(h) and F.1(j), proof of valid payment can cancel a charge outright. Under F.3, evidence of a breakdown, or a copy of a valid permit or Blue Badge, reduces it to £20 for 14 days.
The Charter also expects the motorist to provide the evidence. Where you aren’t satisfied with it, Annex F states you “should request further evidence from a motorist”. When you do, explain why what you have isn’t enough and say exactly what would help.
Annex F also states there is no obligation to engage the Charter where evidence isn’t provided within a reasonable time, where it is unacceptable, or where there is a history of non-compliance from the motorist.
That doesn’t mean that an unverified document automatically means the appellant has done something wrong. It means the operator should be able to explain why the evidence wasn’t enough and what was done to establish the position.
Patterns matter too. The F.3 reduction applies only to the first parking charge issued to the vehicle for that contravention. A run of near-identical breakdown claims for one vehicle, like the 13 in the Wandsworth case, is useful context when considering the evidence.
Verification takes time. Clause 8.4.1(b) allows you to take longer than 28 days, provided you acknowledge the appeal and confirm the timeframe for concluding it, including the supply of additional information.
Instinct tells you when to check, not what to decide
If something doesn’t feel right, it often isn’t. But a document that won’t verify doesn’t always mean the appellant has done anything wrong.
Someone may have sold their car to what they believed was a legitimate dealer, been paid and been given a receipt with company details on it. They may only learn the company doesn’t exist when they use that receipt to transfer liability.
So a red flag is a reason to ask for more, not to reject.
“We cannot verify the dealer details. Please send any independent evidence of the sale, such as correspondence with the buyer or the payment record.”
A genuine appellant can usually produce something. Equally, if there is no further evidence, that may help an operator reach a decision.
Keep your language evidential.
“We have been unable to verify this transaction” is a finding.
“You have forged this receipt” is an allegation of misconduct.
The first is almost always enough to decide the appeal, and it leaves room for the appellant to show your information is wrong. A genuine motorist may well produce a bank statement that reveals a system error.
The same discipline applies when a keeper says their vehicle has been cloned. Do your images allow a spot-the-difference? Start with the make, model and colour on the DVLA record, then compare headlight shape, wheel trims, badges, door handles, number of doors, signwriting, dashcams and permits. Even the placement of the screw caps on the number plate can tell two vehicles apart. Ask the keeper for photos of their own vehicle and the police crime reference.
The aim is to train appeals handlers to spot claims that don’t reconcile with independent data, rather than giving them a list of “signs of a fake”. Clause 13.1.1(e) requires appeals handlers to be trained, and clause 17.5 requires that training to be recorded.
Keep the trail
If there is reason to question a document, don’t rely on a screenshot of it. Keep:
- the original file as uploaded, where available
- when it was submitted, and the appellant’s explanation
- every verification request and response
- all later correspondence
- the specific reason the evidence was found to be inconsistent
Treat metadata as supporting detail only. It’s easily altered, and phones and email often strip it innocently.
That record shows how you reached your decision. It’s what the independent appeals service will see if the motorist takes the route offered under clause 8.4.6, and what a court would see if the charge is pursued.
Clause 17.1 sets 36 months for records the Code requires you to keep, so it’s worth making sure your retention policy covers appeal evidence too.
Finally, link appeals by vehicle and appellant where you reasonably can. The Wandsworth driver altered one downloaded template 13 times. A single altered report may pass unnoticed, but the same template appearing across a run of charges is much easier to identify.
The rule to take away
Never make “does this document look genuine?” the main test.
Ask what event the document claims to prove, identify the footprint that event should have left, and verify that footprint wherever you reasonably can.
That protects the integrity of the appeals process without treating an honest motorist as a suspect.
Most of the time, the evidence will be genuine and the verification will simply confirm what the motorist has said. But when something doesn’t add up, having a consistent way of checking it means the decision can be based on evidence rather than assumption.
That’s better for operators, and it’s fairer to motorists too.
If you have an appeal that doesn’t feel right and you’d like a second opinion, we’re happy to review redacted data and point out anything we think is worth a closer look. There is no expectation or obligation. Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can help you find what you’re looking for.
Clause references are to the Private Parking Sector Single Code of Practice, version 1.1 (17 February 2025).