Parking ticket

vincent_hogan

Today June 27th at 14.05 hrs my wife parked in the Asda car park in Worcester town centre and paid £1 for three hours. At 14.15 hrs the parking the attendant from 'Smart Parking' issued a parking charge notice claiming 'no valid ticket' showing a charge of £70 and if paid within 14 days the charge would be discounted to £40.
At this Asda, the parking charge is refunded in the store, when making a purchase of £5 or more on presenting to the cashier the tear off portion of the parking machine ticket, which my wife did, and the fee was refunded and is shown on the till receipt as refunded. We have the receipt.
My wife displayed the the ticket on the car dashboard when she left the car to do her shopping and when she returned to the car the display portion of the ticket had slipped into the well on the dashboard.
We have the parking machine ticket, we have the till receipt. What action need I take.

Coupon-mad

First port of call is back to Asda to complain to the Store Manager (NOT to the teenager on the CS desk, the STORE MANAGER). Asda can cancel these fake PCNs if customers complain quickly. That's the easiest approach first - especially if you wave a pile of receipts & get really assertive about the scam fake fine.

Just COMPLAIN and ask for it to be cancelled as you are regular customers. Do NOT Listen to any staff member who tries to tell you that Asda don't own the car park. They are lying. If you got a fake fine from Smart Parking then it's Asda's fault, Asda's own car park; Smart are Asda's own agents and we know Asda staff haven't a clue and are fed a lie about not owning the car park. Store Managers know better and they CAN cancel the scam.

If not, if having to appeal, you just need to send a short challenge to the scammers like on this thread:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?...st=20&start=20

Or like the ones Parking Prankster used recently to seriously annoy and then to defeat Highview (Tesco's agent); have a laugh! A must-read for anyone with a Supermarket fake PCN!

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co...immediate.html

and

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co...-of-wrong.html


After the first challenge there's a second stage (when Smart Parking and un-smart enough to reject your appeal) you send a strong appeal to POPLA if rejected.

Parking Prankster has done so lots of times against various fake parking tickets (including Smart Parking) and has also blogged about Smart Parking:

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/smart-parking-telling-porkies-about.html

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/victory-for-prankster-smart-parking.html

You should try a short/funny appeal first then a seriously strong one to POPLA (we can guide you to the right strong POPLA stage wording). If the funny versions don't appeal use one from the examples I first linked.

You won't be paying this so have some fun with it if Tesco don't cancel it. Even if it's another PPC (Euro Car Parks or whoever, all the same!).

vincent_hogan

Hi Coupon-mad,
Many thanks for your reply and advice. I called in at Asda and the manager, after hearing the full story cancelled the parking charge ticket.

Stroma

Well done to you complaining to the retailer should always be done.

spacey2012

Now shop elsewhere where they dont try to scam customers with fake parking tickets

Guys_Dad

spacey2012 wrote: »

Now shop elsewhere where they dont try to scam customers with fake parking tickets

Such as Aldi, Tesco, Morrison perhaps?

bazster

Waitrose. In my three local ones:

The closest one has no restrictions or enforcement of any kind in its car park, despite being close to a popular local beauty spot.

The next nearest is right in a town centre and theoretically charges non-customers a (modest) fee for using the car park. There's an entry barrier where you take a ticket; customers get the ticket stamped at the checkout and show it at the (manned) exit barrier; non-customers pay their couple of quid at the exit barrier. BUT they only bother to man the exit barrier at busy times (e.g. Saturdays), otherwise the barrier is left open and the car park is effectively free to all.

The next nearest again is also right in a town centre, and also charges non-shoppers. No barriers, the car park is operated by a fella with a ticket machine.

So it can be done.

Guys_Dad

Waitrose generally have smaller stores, less choice, more expensive and not the same geographic penetration as the big supermarkets and only 4.9% of the food market. They also don't stock the range of non-food items that Tesco and Asda do, using their John Lewis stores for TVs, washing m/cs etc. And a number of John Lewis stores operate in towns using car parks controlled by either PPCs or council wardens.

But, anyone who wants to restrict their weekly shopping to that Waitrose only has the absolute right to do that.

bazster

Guys_Dad wrote: »

Waitrose generally have smaller stores, less choice, more expensive and not the same geographic penetration as the big supermarkets and only 4.9% of the food market. They also don't stock the range of non-food items that Tesco and Asda do, using their John Lewis stores for TVs, washing m/cs etc. And a number of John Lewis stores operate in towns using car parks controlled by either PPCs or council wardens.

But, anyone who wants to restrict their weekly shopping to that Waitrose only has the absolute right to do that.

Geez man, talk about moving the goalposts. You wanted an alternative supermarket to those which use PPC's, I gave you one.

As regards food I can assure you that Waitrose has just as much choice as the other lot, and often more, and better quality. I know this because I shop often in Waitrose, fairly often in Morrisons, and occasionally in Sainsbury's, and completing my shopping list is invariably easier in Waitrose.

It's often quoted that Waitrose is expensive; I suspect this may be an urban myth, but I don't actually know because IMO life is too short to worry about the price of a pint of milk in half-a-dozen different supermarkets.

Geographic penetration is irrelevant if you happen to have one or more Waitrose stores in your locality. I'm not going to decline to go to my local branch of Waitrose on the grounds that they don't have a branch in a town 500 miles away!

For similar reasons their market share is irrelevant.

Non-food items are are also irrelevant. Unlike food, you can buy those items in loads of places, you don't have to go to a PPC-infested supermarket.

Don't see the relevance of John Lewis to supermarkets either, but since you brought them up, I don't recall ever going to a branch of John Lewis that had its own car park. Certainly none of my local branches do (Brent Cross, Welwyn, Watford).

But it is gracious of you to confirm my right to shop in Waitrose, I'm relieved that I will not now have to desist.