Man wins £100 parking fine battle after three years by using ChatGPT as his lawyer

A man was able to avoid paying a parking charge after using ChatGPT as his 'lawyer' to push back against the charge.

Rafal Goral had gone to Newquay in Cornwall in August 2023, hoping to enjoy a lovely day out at the seaside.

He parked up at a car park operated by Smart Parking Limited, and joined a long queue to go and pay for his parking, but when he got to the machine he found that it wasn't accepting card payments, so he downloaded an app and paid for his parking that way.

Unfortunately for Rafal, 45, during this period he had unknowingly passed a time limit, with a ticking clock that started the second his reg number was registered driving onto the car park. Between arriving and paying via app 16 minutes had passed.

Two weeks later Rafal, a refinery worker from Chelmsford in Essex, received a letter informing him that he would have a pay a £100 parking charge due to his late payment but after years of back and forth between them, he was finally able to get the charge cancelled.

Rafal was able to successfully get the charge cancelled (SWNS)

“From start to finish it was not about the money, I could pay it, but it is about the principle," he said. “If you know you are right then you shouldn’t be paying any money to them.

“This is kind of a David and Goliath battle. They have lawyers and they are a big company and they just gave up in the end.”

In a desperate move, Rafal had uploaded the letters he was receiving into ChatGPT and asking the AI to generate a response for what he should say.

“From start to finish I was asking ChatGPT every time I got a letter what to do. It was telling me what to say, where to go, and everything," he said. “I did it all with the help of AI."

Rafal has shared a message that people can push back against parking charges.

“I want the public to know that they can do it and they shouldn’t give up," he said. “People don’t want to go through the hassle, so they just pay but it is wrong. It is shocking.”

Rafal had arrived at the car park at approximately 10:12am on 4 August 2023, and said it took time to download the app and pay for his parking.

Rafal had to push back against the charge for years (SWNS)

After receiving the parking charge notice on 25 August, he appealed the charge in September, but didn't anything else until January, by which time the parking charge had gone up to £170.

“I appealed straight away and I heard nothing from them. They were harassing me and sending me letters saying that I had to go to court," he said. “They were trying to make me scared."

Things continued to escalate, until Rafal was threatened with being taken to court over the charges in October 2026 after refusing to pay a fine that they dropped to £60.

Eventually, the parking charges were dropped, and Rafal was left ecstatic.

“I am so happy," he said. "This is something that properly raised me up after three years of this fight.

It is not recommended to use generative AI for legal advice.

A Smart Parking spokesperson told LADbible: "Smart Parking were brought into manage the car park at Tower Road to stop parking abuse and to ensure people are treated equally.

"Across the car park there are numerous signs that clearly outline the terms and conditions of use, including that you must pay the correct tariff for parking by using the payment machines or the RingGo app.

"In the case of Mr. Rafal Goral, he used the RingGo app to pay for 4 hours of parking but stayed on site for over 4 hours and 11 minutes, so was correctly issued a charge. Importantly, if Mr Goral felt he was in danger of staying in the car park over his allocated time, he could have topped up his payment using the RingGo app which would have alerted him to this fact.

"Smart Parking are members of the International Parking Community (IPC) and strictly follow its guidelines. In addition, we operate an IPC audited appeals process.

"Mr Goral did appeal saying that the payment machines didn't work correctly on the day. We checked this, and ascertained that they were working and were used by numerous other motorists on that day at Tower Road. In light of this we rejected his appeal and passed the matter onto debt recovery to resolve."