Parking Tales and hassles

[Paul-R]

Barely the width of a dressing gown rope.

Luckily...

[NewcastleFalcon]

Marc Has put up another fake Penalty Charge Notice scam on the Scams thread here. Not about Parking per se but using a vehicle on a road in a charging scheme without paying the appropriate charge. All fake of course.

viewtopic.php?p=660007#p660007

Regards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

To recap the purpose of the thread:

I presume we all like motoring for social domestic and pleasure purposes, maybe even some for business too, but at various points the old jalopy has to be parked. This thread is to mop up your parking tales and hassles.

Here's a starter from me

Steve's unwanted scam penalty charge was reminiscent for a similar thing which landed on my doormat a few weeks ago.

It wasnt a Council thing or a Police thing but a private car parking management company. There was a penalty charge of £100 and a cut-off picture of the Nissan Leaf showing the numberplate and not much more.

The location of the "offence" was decribed in a two-word street name. No number/no postcode/no town. The picture could have been taken anywhere, and the offence.....

"leaving the premises"

The scam-like pay within x days and the fine will be reduced to £60 was also part of information.

To cut a long story short, I discovered that it was a private car park of a coffee shop we have used for years which had been having trouble with customers of the wine bar next door using their car park so they had employed a car parking management company to enforce their "customers only" rules in the car park.

The parking company waived the charge on my appeal backed up by the owner of the coffee shop. Rather than sitting in the car on a hot day, while my wife was getting the takeaway coffees and cake, I had got out the car wandered about a bit and had been caught on camera exiting the car park.

Notices are posted all around the walls noting the terms and conditions you supposedly agree to for parking in the private car park. The most obvious and one with which I would wholeheartedly agree is customers only. However, one of the conditions, (which I found out later), was "Drivers must remain on the premises at all times". Hands up anyone apart from me now, who reads the notices in full, or at all when parking in similar circumstances.

If anyone could be bothered to escalate the hassle and take a bit legal advice, I am fairly sure that restriction of a driver's civil liberties would be an unfair term and condition of any sort of contract entered into to park on the private land, and because there is no charge for the parking, and therefore no contract anyway, any sort of penalty clause or fine would be invalid and not recoverable.

Thankfully this litte saga had the Enid Blyton "Alls well that ends well" conclusion.

Regards Neil

Today's observation At McDonalds continues....in the next post

[NewcastleFalcon]

Having had the experience above, I am a little cautious about the Notices of terms and conditions in Car Parks

McDonalds Drive Thru's more likely than not in their carparking area have an INSTAVOLT Charger for electric vehicles.
Notices by the charger indicate EV Charging Point only Normal Car Park Regulations Apply.

Then I looked at the notice and it states Car park is for McDonalds Customers Only. Am I a McDonalds Customer if all I do is drive in and charge my car up at the INSTAVOLT charger I thought I had better go in and buy some token small fries just in case. Then again we are on CCTV clearly eating out own sandwiches in the car while getting charged up. I had a word with the manager who did take my reg no and put it on the system which discretionally allows allows stay over 90 minutes not that I needed that, so hopefully I will be covered and I'm keeping my 99p receipt for my small fries just in case.

I did notice that another condition of parking is that you must remain on the premises for the entire time you are parked. Must be a very common enforcement clause.

So walking the dog outside of the perimeter of the McDonalds parking area while charging leaves you liable for the penalty charge, and they will capture you on CCTV as evidence. Before my experience at the little coffee shop reported previously its the type of thing I would do without thinking.

read the small print!

REgards Neil

[GiveMeABreak]

If this is what we have to look forward to, God help us all!

I shall be prolonging this agony of switching to an electric vehicle until the last possible moment

[NewcastleFalcon]

If this is what we have to look forward to, God help us all!

I shall be prolonging this agony of switching to an electric vehicle until the last possible moment

More about parking than EV's Marc. Park your ICE, then walk your dog outside the premises, or park your ICE and not be a McDonalds Customer, same likelihood of a penalty charge landing on your mat. I am just overly suspicious of what the parking management company who McDonalds contract might do for using the EV chargers only. I probably didn't need to buy the small fries , just being overly cautious.

Regards Neil

[GiveMeABreak]

Yes, it's all gone a bit mad - even the shopping car park (LIDL and others) have notices up now for 90 minutes of free parking - so not generally an issue for us, and the day I spend 90 minutes in a supermarket is the day I get home deliveries!

[bobins]

More about parking than EV's Marc. Park your ICE, then walk your dog outside the premises, or park your ICE and not be a McDonalds Customer, same likelihood of a penalty charge landing on your mat.

Regards Neil

It sounds like you visited MaccyD's because you had to / needed to to recharge your car, and once there you're then at the mercy of their parking restrictions. Why would anyone feel that they can park in a McD car park and go elsewhere ? The thought of being obliged to be a customer of McD to recharge a car doesn't appeal to me, I'd rather nip in to the petrol station, spend a few minutes refueling, pay for it and be on my way. I can't ever remember having to read any Ts&Cs to fill up my car in the past

[NewcastleFalcon]

Question of whether the 100's of Chargers installed by Instavolt at McDonalds, or similar arrangements coming up with Costa are part of the public charging network, or a private charging network just for customers McD.

My first time charging at McDonalds and the purpose was to charge up using the Instavolt Charger. Very useful set of locations and a welcome addition to the charging infrastructure and no question whatsoever all instavolt chargers across the country in whatever location are freely available to all EV Drivers, and no club to join just pay with a bank card, simple and well maintained. I presume they pay McDonalds for the revenue generating opportunity at their premises, and a bit of a partnership between the two, and paying for the charging forms part of the revenue of the site for McD. Instavolt probably don't want their revenues to be throttled, by McD enforcing a strict customers only policy, but reality is that McD will get revenues into their drive thru's from most EV drivers calling in for the primary purpose of charging up their EV like me, and whiling the time away with a bag of small fries at the minimum, and likely much more.

Yes if you use the McD car park you do subject yourself to the regulations, which hopefully I did, just in case

Regards Neil.

[bobins]

There's got to be quite a few scenarios where charging points are located on 'private' car parks - i.e. the likes of McD etc. I'm sure there's a business opportunity for someone to set up a 'permit' scheme where BEV owners can purchase an annual permit that allows them to visit the various 'private' car parks and charge up their cars for however long it takes and not be subject to the "car park for customer's use only" Ts&Cs. The permit will have its own Ts&Cs though, obvs

[NewcastleFalcon]

Why would anyone feel that they can park in a McD car park and go elsewhere ?

Well I did, in the small coffee shop tale, while a takeaway coffee and cake was being bought by my wife I had wandered along the street for a couple of minutes, caught on CCTV for the offence of leaving the premises and got got a £100 notice from the Parking management company. (subsequently cancelled).

Colours my judgement a bit.
Just as easy to do from a McD carpark without thinking you have just committed the crime of the century. Just have to take the dog out the car park to the nearest bit of grass while a takeaway is being purchased by another family member, or nip over to the Co-op garage to get a paper and you are on the CCTV leaving the premises.

REgards Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

There's got to be quite a few scenarios where charging points are located on 'private' car parks - i.e. the likes of McD etc.

Also in that category you have the supermarkets, whose car parks all have the "customer only T & C" which I have never really read. We are now pretty much 100% home delivery now. I have always been a wanderer out of supermarket car parks, dog walking/mooching/exploring you have to amuse yourself while the hard work of shopping with a trolley is being done by another family member.

Maybe those boards say you aren't allowed to leave the premises too

LIdl have a fair network of chargers, as do Morrisons/Tesco/Asda and I have never even thought about being obliged to shop in store just to use the charger, so have probably fallen foul of the carpark notices on many occasions.

REgards Neil

[myglaren]

Yes, it's all gone a bit mad - even the shopping car park (LIDL and others) have notices up now for 90 minutes of free parking - so not generally an issue for us, and the day I spend 90 minutes in a supermarket is the day I get home deliveries!

I recently parked in a Tesco car park - two-hour limit.
Walked up the street to Vision Express (owned by Tesco).
Normally this would take me five minutes, but, and a big but, it took the best part of an hour, my legs weren't too well that day, happens sometimes. Had to stop and rest every twenty yards.
Took a similar time to get back.
I was a bit panicked as there was no way out of the £90 parking charge.
Must have just got back in time as no charges have been received (yet).

[mickthemaverick]

This little gem came through the letterbox this morning:

Own work

Somewhat irritated I searched through my wallet and found this:

Own work

So I have now been on Eurocarparks website and launched an appeal!! Watch this space!!

[mickthemaverick]

At least they have acknowledged it!! This is the text from their response:

Thank you for contacting Euro Car Parks, we acknowledge receipt of your appeal. Appeals received with full and concise information will ensure that your parking charge notice is placed on hold and there will be no increase in the amount. Please note that we will endeavour to respond to your appeal as soon as possible, however a full written response may take up to 35 days from receipt of the request.

Please Note: This is an automatically generated notification. Please do not reply to this email – any replies will NOT be attended to.

Regards

Parking Charge Notice Department

I am tempted to take this further as the vehicle was registered with the staff at the restaurant and I feel that the hassle involved warrants some compensation!! However I simply can't be bothered!!! (Unless of course my appeal is rejected at which point all hell will break loose!! )