I can understand why this feels unfair, but if you both knew the car-park 'rules' you can only appeal for leniency on the basis of absent-mindedness or something. Three hours free is pretty generous these days. After all, how is anyone to know how long your car had been parked, without a ticket - or without examining the CCTV record?

"The "charge" seems out of all proportion to the failure on her part simply to display a ticket. Does my wife have to pay? I have spent ages looking through threads, but cannot find anything similar to this set of circumstances. Many thanks."

This issue has in fact been well worked-over on this forum. Never mind. As has been said, the two issues are: is your wife at fault? and, is the Parking Charge a reasonable way of dealing with it if she is?

She is at fault in failing to follow prescribed procedure.

Most would feel it was a fairly insignificant failure, in view of the circumstances, but in different circumstances it could be more of a problem to other users of the car park and/or unfair to the owners of the car park and discussions about the morality of it all would continue until doomsday.

£100 or even £60, as has been pointed out elsewhere, represents not a reasonable attempt to recoup losses to the Parking Company (which would in fact be pretty small and certainly difficult to quantify and prove in a court of law), but an attempt either to punish and deter (which is illegal), or simply to make money.

Some have argued (I believe HJ is one) that an offer of, say, £10 should be made as a gesture of re-imbursement and apology. In practice Parking Companies will not accept this - they never negotiate over the amount.

Another argument is that the whole issue of Parking Companies' way of going about things is wrong - they are monsters who should not be humoured.

Take your pick - pay your £100 or £60, try an offer of £10 which is a waste of time but which may give you moral satisfaction, or ignore the Parking Charge and every single piece of communication from them unless it escalates into a court letter. And if (a big if) you go to court, be prepared to argue about unreasonable demands for money and unclear signage.

As always in these matters, www.pepipoo.com is your friend. Go there and you will find masses of cases similar to yours.

What would I do?

Ignore. That's what I did last time and I heard nothing more.