Wilson Parking reverses fine for wrongly pinged Wellington driver
Wednesday, 1 July 2026
Wellington driver Dez Tessler was hit with an $85 fine from Wilson Parking, which claimed he had parked at the Martin Square site for two days when he had only used the entrance to execute U-turns.
Despite Tessler providing dashboard camera evidence, Wilson Parking rejected two appeals, initially offering a $30 “admin fee” reduction before inflating the final demand to $105 for delayed payment.
Wilson Parking voided the ticket within three hours of Stuff submitting questions, admitting its automated licence plate recognition (LPR) technology misread a late-night U-turn entry as an exit.
This is the second recent Wellington case where a driver was wrongly ticketed for a U-turn; the Commerce Commission is investigating parking operators following 250 complaints in a six-month window.
A Wellington driver sent an infringement notice for parking in a car park he never used has had his fine cancelled after Stuff questioned the parking firm about the case.
Dez Tessler briefly nosed his car into the Martin Square Car Park on May 15 and again on May 17 as he made U-turns on the “exceptionally narrow” city centre road.
Both manoeuvres were captured on the Victoria University technician’s dashboard camera as he drove off to park elsewhere.
However, on May 18, Tessler was shocked to receive an $85 fine from Wilson Parking for failing to pay for two days’ parking at the Martin Square site.
“It’s unjust that Wilson Parking can get away with this when I never parked there,” Tessler told Stuff when he first approached us.
The infringement notice came with photos of his car at the entrance of the Martin Square Car Park on May 15 and May 17, but no image of the vehicle parked inside it.
Tessler appealed the fine twice. The first appeal was rejected, but the fine reduced to $30 to cover “administration costs”.
The second appeal, with the dashboard camera evidence included, was also thrown out and the fine increased to $105 given the delay in payment.
However, three hours after Stuff asked Wilson Parking about the case, Wilson Parking’s Parking Enforcement Services website showed the fine was “voided”.
“I can’t believe it took media involvement to get this dealt with,” Tessler said. “I think it just shows, people who don’t have time to fight these things will be taken advantage of.”
In a statement to Stuff, Wilson Parking said the Martin Square site was monitored using licence plate recognition (LPR) technology.
“Following a review of this case, Wilson Parking identified that the images captured showed the front of the vehicle,” a spokesperson said.
“One of these images was taken late at night, making the direction of travel difficult to distinguish and it was incorrectly recorded as an exit.
“Wilson Parking acknowledges that an error was made, and the notice has been withdrawn.
“We are reviewing our systems to ensure a more robust process going forward, and we apologise for the inconvenience caused.”
In April, another Wellington driver reported she had been wrongly fined for parking in a space she never used, by parking firm Smart Compliance Management.
She had used a parking lot at the Brooklyn shops to complete a U-turn twice in one day and, again, the parking firm assumed she had parked there in the time in between.
In that instance, too, the parking firm and debt collectors backed down after Stuff got involved.
The Commerce Commission is investigating parking operators and whether the conduct of any companies breach the Fair Trading Act.
A man wrongly fined twice by a parking firm says he complained to the commission to prevent more “innocent” people being “taken advantage” of.
In May, the commission said it had received 250 parking grievances in the previous six months, with 17 citing automatic number plate recognition or similar technology as the problem.