Morrisons car park warning

JaymesKenin_2

Okay, after having a late breakfast, coming back and reading everything...

I do everything in my (very, very limited) power to make sure that a genuine customer does not pay a parking fine/notice/invoice that they receive in our car park.

There are several pay-and-display car parks available, including two multi-story car parks, which for a whole day comes in under £10.
The barrier system was implemented and over peak periods (holidays and especially Christmas) it was found to cause more problems when a technical fault arose (which was... often).

I've already said I don't know the details of the disabled spaces apart from the "plan" of using the ANPR system, I don't know how feasible this is, what I *do* know is that they are abused by people who do not hold a blue badge and do not need a widened space. The people who do abuse this are typically teenagers who don't give a toss.

Now, I'm not trying to say fining people is the right and legal thing to do, but I don't see a better way or deterring people from abusing the car park.
A competitor of ours uses a pay-and-display method, and the parking charge is under £5, which is refunded provided that the car park is left within 2 hours.

We apparently have been told we will not implement this type of system, so that's out.

At the end of the day, there has to be some sort of control or there's no point in bothering.

hollydays

JaymesKenin wrote: »

Okay, after having a late breakfast, coming back and reading everything...

I do everything in my (very, very limited) power to make sure that a genuine customer does not pay a parking fine/notice/invoice that they receive in our car park.

There are several pay-and-display car parks available, including two multi-story car parks, which for a whole day comes in under £10.
The barrier system was implemented and over peak periods (holidays and especially Christmas) it was found to cause more problems when a technical fault arose (which was... often).

I've already said I don't know the details of the disabled spaces apart from the "plan" of using the ANPR system, I don't know how feasible this is, what I *do* know is that they are abused by people who do not hold a blue badge and do not need a widened space. The people who do abuse this are typically teenagers who don't give a toss.

Now, I'm not trying to say fining people is the right and legal thing to do, but I don't see a better way or deterring people from abusing the car park.
A competitor of ours uses a pay-and-display method, and the parking charge is under £5, which is refunded provided that the car park is left within 2 hours.

We apparently have been told we will not implement this type of system, so that's out.

At the end of the day, there has to be some sort of control or there's no point in bothering.

Why didnt they get a better quality barrier installed? They are taking the cheapest method for them.Without regard to the rights and wrongs.You seem like a decent person,but you will presumably not be aware of how the company is operating ,out of sight is out of mind.

pogofish

TBH, there are quite a few of us who take issue with Martin's advice in that old article - You will get much more accurate and up to date advice on the parking board stickies and on the board itself. Morrisons do feature quite often.

JaymesKenin_2

hollydays wrote: »

Why didnt they get a better quality barrier installed? They are taking the cheapest method for them.Without regard to the rights and wrongs.You seem like a decent person,but you will presumably not be aware of how the company is operating ,out of sight is out of mind.

I don't know why they didn't.
I can hazard a guess that after the first attempt that failed so very many times in such a short space of time on several criteria that the cameras are the "next best thing".
Edit: On top of this, I should add we have a very high flow of traffic around close of business, barriers to interrupt the flow of traffic to an extent that is can be dangerious for pedestrians and those that don't seem to want to pay attention to their driving.

In an ideal world restrictions shouldn't have to be imposed. But this isn't an ideal world, and people don't respect the fact that our car park is for genuine customers, so measures have to be put in place.

I honestly don't think a 3 hour limit is going to catch out any genuine customer, maybe I'm wrong. I'm not the person that someone comes to and I'll say "tough, you have to pay". Because honestly I don't think it's right. I've been caught out by these people too - I live in a block of flats and the management company decided to bring in parking managers. They don't issue fines, they clamp and remove vehicles. And there's really no way out of that one, enforceable or not I can't afford to lose my car, and destroying the clamp, which would be plenty easy to do for me, is criminal damage. Unfortunately for me my parking slip flew off my dashboard without me noticing one night, come 6am my car is clamped. That's £130 down the drain.

I don't know how the parking management company for my work place's car park operates past two warnings and then a fairly official type letter informing the recipient that the PMC is charging you money, you can view photographic evidence etc.

I haven't, in all honesty seen anything that goes beyond that. I've phoned them up a few times to query them and they've been absolutely fine.

peter_the_piper seems to be taking particular offence to this, all I can say is - if you were disabled and you came into our car park which has specific disabled bays which were twice as wide to allow wheelchair access and some teenage gits in corsa's were taking them all up, you would come into our store and have our heads off for not dealing with the problem.

So this is, for now, the method that has been chosen to combat the problem. It's not perfect, but we're responding to our local customers feedback, and we take that into consideration on a regular basis, which is why we're now trying to sort out the disabled spaces, parent and child spaces will no doubt be next.

peter_the_piper

[QUOTE=JaymesKenin;45424462

peter_the_piper seems to be taking particular offence to this, all I can say is - if you were disabled and you came into our car park which has specific disabled bays which were twice as wide to allow wheelchair access and some teenage gits in corsa's were taking them all up, you would come into our store and have our heads off for not dealing with the problem.

.[/QUOTE]
I don't take offence at all, Ive never parked in diabled bays nor ever will. What I don't like is the ppc's ticketing someone who is disabled, albeit temporarily, and those who are disabled but not enough for a blue badge or are waiting for a badge. Its against the DDA.

vax2002

JaymesKenin wrote: »

we're now trying to sort out the disabled spaces, parent and child spaces will no doubt be next.

If you keep dancing along with the scum that run these fake parking fines you wont have many customers left.
Anyway this is about Morrisons harassing its customers and I still look forward to seeing this "fine"

JaymesKenin_2

peter_the_piper wrote: »

I don't take offence at all, Ive never parked in diabled bays nor ever will. What I don't like is the ppc's ticketing someone who is disabled, albeit temporarily, and those who are disabled but not enough for a blue badge or are waiting for a badge. Its against the DDA.

I think people are unfortunately missing the point here - it's not to ticket the disabled people, it's to ticket the muppets that use them when they're not supposed to!

pogofish

JaymesKenin wrote: »

I think people are unfortunately missing the point here - it's not to ticket the disabled people, it's to ticket the muppets that use them when they're not supposed to!

Nonetheless, there is plenty of evidence of PPC's predating on disabled drivers and those who drive for them - Who are often amongst the least able to pay and most taken-in/disturbed by their threats.

You should take a shufty over to the parking board and have a good look at their methods. Oh and once the ink is dry on a PPC contract, the stores tend to find they have very little control over how these guys operate. Most just end-up trying to wash their hands of the scum.

And sorry, but however you want to control the muppets, ticketing is not an option - you (or the PPC's) simply have no right to fine anyone!

hollydays

JaymesKenin wrote: »

I don't know why they didn't.
I can hazard a guess that after the first attempt that failed so very many times in such a short space of time on several criteria that the cameras are the "next best thing".
Edit: On top of this, I should add we have a very high flow of traffic around close of business, barriers to interrupt the flow of traffic to an extent that is can be dangerious for pedestrians and those that don't seem to want to pay attention to their driving.

In an ideal world restrictions shouldn't have to be imposed. But this isn't an ideal world, and people don't respect the fact that our car park is for genuine customers, so measures have to be put in place.

I honestly don't think a 3 hour limit is going to catch out any genuine customer, maybe I'm wrong. I'm not the person that someone comes to and I'll say "tough, you have to pay". Because honestly I don't think it's right. I've been caught out by these people too - I live in a block of flats and the management company decided to bring in parking managers. They don't issue fines, they clamp and remove vehicles. And there's really no way out of that one, enforceable or not I can't afford to lose my car, and destroying the clamp, which would be plenty easy to do for me, is criminal damage. Unfortunately for me my parking slip flew off my dashboard without me noticing one night, come 6am my car is clamped. That's £130 down the drain.

I don't know how the parking management company for my work place's car park operates past two warnings and then a fairly official type letter informing the recipient that the PMC is charging you money, you can view photographic evidence etc.

I haven't, in all honesty seen anything that goes beyond that. I've phoned them up a few times to query them and they've been absolutely fine.

peter_the_piper seems to be taking particular offence to this, all I can say is - if you were disabled and you came into our car park which has specific disabled bays which were twice as wide to allow wheelchair access and some teenage gits in corsa's were taking them all up, you would come into our store and have our heads off for not dealing with the problem.

So this is, for now, the method that has been chosen to combat the problem. It's not perfect, but we're responding to our local customers feedback, and we take that into consideration on a regular basis, which is why we're now trying to sort out the disabled spaces, parent and child spaces will no doubt be next.

Measures do have to be put in place,BUT not any old measures..
Which parking company is this? Martin lewis says that unjust tickets are ridiculously common.Clear signage is not the answer to making these private parking companies appear legitimate.

Driver8

PRIVATE PARKING TICKETS - DON'T PAY!
IT IS NOT A FINE! YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING ILLEGAL!

This is an information page for the thousands of people who receive "tickets" from private companies in the UK ever day at supermarkets, retail parks, and in any other privately-owned carpark.

We are NOT encouraging anybody to openly flout parking restrictions on private land, or to refuse to pay reasonable charges for parking. Landowners have a right to make reasonable charges for the use of their land.

For advice specific to your case, you should visit the forums at http://forums.pepipoo.com or http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/parking-traffic-offences.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=163

1. What you should know about these companies

It is important to remember that private parking companies (or PPCs as they are often called) have NO OFFICIAL POWERS - that's right, none at all! They give out their "tickets" on the basis that you have seen the signs in their car park and that you have therefore agreed to a contract obliging you to pay a certain sum of money.


2. What happens to people who don't pay?

In 99.9% of cases, absolutely NOTHING! The company pays the DVLA £2.50 to get your address, and then sends lots of threatening letters. In the main, these letters can be safely IGNORED. The only way the company can actually force you to pay is by taking you to the small claims court, which costs them even more money. And they are by no means guaranteed to win! And they practically never do.

The two main reasons for this (among others) are the following:

- Only the person DRIVING the car could ever have agreed to any such parking contract. The company can only get the Registered Keeper's address from the DVLA: you don't have to tell them who was driving.

-Many of these charges are so extortionately high that they constitute a penalty, which is unenforceable in a consumer contract.


3. Can they affect my credit rating?

NO! The only way your credit rating could be affected by ignoring private parking companies is if you were taken to court, lost, and then still refused to pay. But they will not take you to court.


IN SHORT

The vast majority of the time, you can safely IGNORE tickets from private parking companies, they are not official fines.

The vast majority of the time, you can safely IGNORE the threatening letters, including those from debt collection agencies.

You DO NOT have to pay a penny of your hard-earned money to these companies. Remember that the chances of being taken to court are very slim indeed.

DO NOT IGNORE COURT PAPERS!
If you receive real court papers from a private parking company (very rare) then you should go to http://forums.pepipoo.com or http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/parking-traffic-offences for help defending the claim. Do not be afraid to sign up and ask questions regarding any paperwork you are not sure about.



Don’t believe the above? Watch a solicitor on Watchdog advising you what to do with the scam invoices.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAIcdi9niHA

THEY ARE NOT FINES

Only the Police, Courts or Council’s can fine you. NOT a private company, please remember that.