MOTORISTS in Glasgow were fined almost 4000 times in error after using a ‘quick and easy’ cashless parking app.

Figures show Glasgow City Council has wiped 3805 fines – five a day – in the past year, which were issued to drivers who used the RingGo app.

The app allows motorists to pay to park using credit or debit cards in streets which have a designated parking meter.

Parking attendants are required to look up a vehicle's registration plate on a hand-held device to check if a driver has paid for cashless parking.

A spokeswoman for Glasgow City Council said there had been ‘connection issues’ with the devices and attendants have recently been issued with new equipment with improved connectivity.

The fines were issued from January 1, 2016 to March 31, this year.

One driver was hit with a £50 fine, which was later cancelled, because he had used a numeric 0 instead of the letter.

Ewan Fergus, 38, from Bishopton, in Renfrewshire, said: “I use the app because like a lot of people I guess I’m moving away from carrying loose change about for parking and using your phone, when it works, makes sense for me.

“But the fact that so many people are getting their tickets over-turned after having gone through the stress and hassle of an appeal shows there’s something not right with the system somewhere.

“The website, which seems to be the main way to appeal isn’t easy to navigate and isn’t designed to be helpful. Quite the opposite.”

Neil Greig, director of research and policy at the Institute of Advanced Motorists, said: “The council has to get this 100% right because consumers have

to have absolute confidence that the app is going to work and that it’s safe and secure."

A spokeswoman for Glasgow City Council said: "The RingGo app is a popular payment method, used by thousands of people every day.

"While appeals can be cancelled for a number of reasons, it amounts to only around 140 of 130,000 transactions a month.”

A spokeswoman for RingGo said: "As Glasgow City’s spokeswoman highlights, Council Enforcement Officers started using new 4G Android handsets at the start of this year, which are much better equipped to handle the speedy transfer of RingGo enforcement data.

"Prior to that (and during most of the period covered by this report) GPRS-based legacy handsets were used, and these are considerably less reliable and slower to receive vehicle information.

"This unfortunately meant some vehicles being enforced despite having paid with RingGo.

"As soon as the issue came to light, the council upgraded to new handsets.

"When mistakes of this kind are made PCNs are easily dismissed, although understandably annoying for the driver.

"We do make the process quick for motorists to query an error, as the parking session information can be downloaded via the Help section of the myRingGo website.

"The monthly volume of parking sessions booked in Scotland is now almost half a million which has definitely exceeded our expectations."

Last year, RingGo was forced to apologise after a glitch exposed the personal data of thousands of motorists.

Customers using the app found other people’s details when they logged into their own accounts.