Man uses ChatGPT to win three-year parking ticket dispute

Essex man Rafal Gorfal used ChatGPT to help him win a legal dispute over a parking ticket fine He fed the AI the letters he received from debt collectors, and it told him what to say and where to go The fine was dropped just weeks before his scheduled court appearance People use AI chatbots like ChatGPT for all manner of things, but have you ever used AI to evade a parking ticket fine before? This man did, and he went on to win a three-year-long legal battle.

Rafal Gorfal, who’s originally from Essex, was fined back in August 2023 for not paying fast enough in a Newquay pay-and-display car park.

Gorfal said that when he arrived at the payment machine he had to wait in a long queue, only to learn that the machine was cash-only, to which he had no choice but to download the RingGo and pay with his phone — delaying his payment further.

Two weeks later, he was presented with a £100 fine that said he didn’t pay for a ticket until 16 minutes after entering the car park, which was delayed due to the long queue and the time it took Gorfal to set up an online account to pay.

A long three years Gorfal submitted his first appeal a month after receiving the PCN from Smart Parking Limited, but didn’t hear anything until January 2024 when he was sent another debt collection letter, this time with an increased fine of £170.

"I appealed straight away and heard nothing from them," Gorfal told The Independent , adding "They were trying to make me scared.

You have to give people the time.

I told them exactly what my problems were.

They could see on the cameras that I was trying to sort it out".

After appealing back and forth with debt collectors for four months, the case was put on hold, and Gorfal heard nothing for the best part of a year and a half.

This period of silence was broken when he was sent a new letter stating that the case would be going to court in October 2026.

This is when he sought help from ChatGPT.

Over the course of his legal dispute, Gorfal kept records of every letter he was sent, which he says he entered into the AI chatbot and asked for advice.

"From start to finish I was asking ChatGPT every time I got a letter what to do.