Sutton Council has apologised to a driver for making her pay a parking ticket twice after cashing a cheque she sent and then telling her it never received it.
Council officials lost a cheque sent by Alice Rawley after one of its CCTV cars caught her parking on a drop-kerb outside her son's house.
Ms Rawley, of Thicket Road, Sutton, ended up paying for the £55 ticket twice after the council sent her demands for the money, claiming it had not received the cheque.
It was only when Ms Rawley went to her bank and was told the council had cashed the cheque she realised she had paid twice.
Even after that it took the council several weeks to refund the 62-year-old's money.
Ms Rawley parked her car over a drop-kerb outside her son's house in Banstead Road, Carshalton, for a few minutes in August.
During that time she was photographed by one of the council's CCTV cars and was later sent a ticket.
She said: "I paid the ticket straight away - even though I would have thought I'd have been fine to park there as it's my son's house and I knew he wasn't there as I was only there to check on the house while he was on holiday.
"I paid it by cheque but later on they got in touch and said I hadn't paid so then I paid by debit card. I went to the bank to see what had happened to the cheque and they told me it had been cashed.
"I went back to the council and they told me they never received the cheque. I had to go to the bank to get a copy of the cheque showing it had been processed.
"Throughout all of this I've been back and forth to the bank several times, spent hours on the phone, been told the council would call me back when they haven't and it's taken them months to pay me back my money.
"I'm a pensioner, I'm also disabled. This is not what I need."
It was only after the Sutton Guardian contacted the council that it agreed an immediate refund of Ms Rawley's money.
"We would like to apologise to Ms Rawley for our error and any inconvenience it has caused. We will be contacting her immediately to arrange a refund of the overpayment."
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