PayByPhone Reviews 

Terrible and dishonest company.
They make it as difficult as possible to make payment by making the online process glitchy so it keeps crashes and the phone process just as bad. The idea is for you not to pay so that they can hit you with a penalty. Furthermore, you have no choice but to pay service charges on top the parking fee which is not mentioned anywhere at the time of parking

Very dishonest. They charge sms fee even if you opt out of these.

I’ve used the app quite a lot in the past but today, for an 80p parking ticket, they wanted almost half as much again in charges!!! I’ve not noticed these charges before but now I know, I’ll make sure I always have cash when parking in a place I go to regularly! Crooks!

The PBP process is quite laboured but for the most part I have had no issues. Today, I made a payment as normal via the telephone payment system. The call lasted approx 1 minute as it normally does and I was told that my payment had been successful (£1.50). I returned to my car to find that almost an hour after my payment had been made, I had been given a PCN. I log on to PBP to retrieve the parking receipt to dispute the PCN to find that they have not taken the payment. I then spend around 5 minutes going round in circles on their chat bot without success so make a call to PBP. After navigating a number of press key options I manage to speak with someone who just repeats that the payment is not there. I explain the issue (I went via normal process and all seemed fine). I'm then told that the only way anyone can look into this is if I log it with a chat bot. There is no email address that can be provided and I cannot talk to anyone by phone. I explain the issues with the chat bot and I'm told there is no alternative. Really poor customer service

My wife and myself took over an hour to register on the app, which we both down loaded from the app store (QR codes may be doge. and had to use 2 phones to get app to work, it still double charged us but that was only £2. THE BIG PROBLEM IS the app signs you up for a subscription service, so check you card statements for payments to FLNST.com a company called appsility, who have taken £39.95 and £14.95 from my account, I only become aware after Tesco's fraud team quested the payments, and tracked it back to the paybyphone. BE WARNED. SOMEHOW I DONT FIND IT STRANGE THAT YOU CAN ONLY CONTACT THIS APPSILITY BY EMAIL!!!!!!! PS if I could give them Zero I would

Please see PayByPhones response below. They are still trying to blame the use of a QR code, but as you can see I clearly state downloaded there app from playstore!!!!!!!!!, and guess what It still works.

PayByPhone offed absolutely NO assistance on this. Tesco's excellent and many thanks but the speed with which they refunded 1 day suggests this is a common and known issue that PayByPhone do not wish to address.

As you can see below, Paybyphone are still saying It's my fault, however there is only 1 PayByPhone app showing on Play store, it has the same emblem as this company and when you pay on it they charge you for parking, therefore how can it be a fake app? All I can suggest to customers is take cash and don't download any apps relating to this company at all!!!!!!

I would give 0 stars but hey , overparked by mistake , 2 seconds later i'm trying to sort it out , they tell me only thing i can do is extend , i don't want to extend it i want it less . But noo , it's not possible ! Rip off , i hope they become bankrupt !

Tried to use on isle of wight but found app to be useless

Stupid company with irritating new website needing infinite number of details for parking

The website is terrible to use. All data has to be entered manually. Enter your registration number and you still need to enter the car details rather than these load automatically. You can’t pay using Apple Pay so you need to enter your card manually. You need to type out your email address as the field is not set up to load automatically. If you’re in a rush then this really frustrating.

Got a PCN despite registering the parking. Have used the service before and was fine, but this time after confirming the parking duration and setting up SMS reminders, I closed the app without thinking anything of it; only to come back an hour later with a PCN. I then replicated the purchase and encountered various bugs, including my history showing no records (despite having used the service before in April 2025). I checked back later to find my April 2025 transaction in my account. Customer service were not helpful at all and showed no empathy, said there were no records and asked me to refer to my bank statement (FYI - parking was free for 2 hours). Will avoid using the service if I have to.

I’ve been using PayByPhone for a long time without any real issues, but on 7th Sept the app completely let me down. When I tried to pay, it kept failing and then asked me to add my payment method again, which has never happened before. No matter what I tried, it wouldn’t go through.

In the end I had to ask someone else to sort the parking for me, which was really inconvenient. For an app that people rely on every day, this shouldn’t be happening. If it’s the only way to pay, then it needs to work properly.

Scammed when downloading

Absolute scam. Avoid at all costs. Tried to pay for parking for subscribed to some bogus website. AVOID.

Using this app for years for work. App just stopped working last week. Wouldn't let me sign in on numerous tries, then, wanted me to re register. I didn't have my purse with me to register bank card.
I'm a carer, so, caused me to be late for client. Frustrating..
Asking around, 2 other friends had the same problem with the app.

I own an electric vehicle which is free to park. I have used the car park in question numerous times and always book my car in even though it is free of charge. Today the app wasn't working. So guess who has been slapped with a £90 parking fine???? Absolutely ridiculous!!

The app thinks I'm in Canada. Uninstalled it, Reinstalled it. Restarted my phone. No change. Worked OK up until a few weeks ago.

I would give zero if I could only wanted to pay for car parking got scammed 39.95 phoned the bank to sort it out had to wait for money to clear before doing anything absolute joke when I'm trying to stop payment

If there is minus star rating, I would give it to them. I tried to use that app to pay for parking because that was the only way to pay other than cash, which I did not have in hand.
In short, I could not able to log in to my account. My account was suspended. I was repeatedly told to contact customer service. There was NO HUMAN customer service representative available. Chatbot tole me to phone a number which found to be an automated number. It said my phone number was not associated with an account. Their web site told me that I had an account which had been suspended. I was told to contact customer service. Very much disappointing customer service. No wonder why people gave that bad rating. National Trust should consider to use other parking fees colleciting service. I will write to them.

It has become apparent that there is no customer support for the app and and no way of redirecting funds paid for locations entered in error to the correct location leaving the customer with a parking fine even though they have paid for their parking. I have used this app for years and it has worked well for me but this is the first time I have had an issue and the result is diabolical. This app is being used in many locations in London and it should not be as it’s not fit for purpose and it’s costing consumers because the company doesn’t have the proper infrastructure to deal with errors at the very least for such a widely used app. This is disgusting, I cannot believe this app is operating so widely in the uk.