Successful complaints about private parking tickets - how to get them cancelled!

Coupon-mad

Home Bargains cancelled a ParkingEye 'inconvenient'(!!) PCN:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5650281

And PE sent a ridiculously smarmy email that their employees should be ashamed of. Do they not realise that they rip off consumers, not 'inconvenience' them, and that there is no possibility of sincere 'KIND REGARDS' to a victim of their disgusting business model?

How can anyone ever work for a PPC?

Why don't people complain every time, to services/landowners/Hospitals/retailers?

Coupon-mad

Farmfoods crushed a UKCPS PCN:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5648241

AlliG

Hi, hope this is in correct location (personal details removed)

Managed to get a Lidl / Athena charge cancelled. I ignored the first letter from Athena, but sent an appeal by email on receiving their second demand. My appeal email was ignored and I received a Final Demand, so following advice on here, sent an email to Christian Haertnagel, Lidl UK CEO which achieved a cancellation. Thanks for the advice on here - I've posted my email and response below in hope that it might help others (noting that this was a genuine reason for challenge).
My email -
Dear Sir,
Athena ANPR Ltd Charge Notice No x xxx xxxx xxx –

I am writing to appeal for your assistance in having the above noted parking charge cancelled.

The parking charge notice has been issued due to an overstay (in excess of the free 90 minutes) in the car park at your xxxx store. The reason for the overstay is that the driver of the vehicle took ill while at xxxx Medical Centre for a pre-arranged appointment, which should have taken no more than 15 minutes. The driver suffered a severe asthma attack and had to be put on a nebuliser to aid recovery, and this resulted in them being rendered unfit to drive for an extended period, thus incurring the overstay charge.
Please note that the car park is adjacent to the medical centre, and has always been regarded as the “Medical Centre car park” in xxxx, long before Lidl moved into the town. There are no notices in the car park which state that it is for the exclusive use of Lidl customers, and while on this occasion the driver was not shopping at lidl, my husband and I are regular customers of your xxxx store, as are our extended families who also live in the town. The store manager has also confirmed that the car park is not exclusively for Lidl customers.

I have tried appealing to Athena and to follow their appeals process but they have now sent me a Final Demand, despite the fact that I have made very clear to them that the overstay was as a result of the driver taking ill.

I am sure you are aware of the power of social media, and are possibly also aware that Jonathan Brocklebank of the Daily Mail is running a bit of a campaign against civil parking charges. I don’t want to get involved in any of that though, and am sure you don’t want to see a headline such as “Lidl charges customer £90 for taking ill while in car park”. I am therefore appealing to you, in view of the circumstances, to instruct Athena to cancel this charge forthwith, and to bring this matter to a close so that we may continue happily shopping at our local Lidl store.

I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours faithfully,

Response from Lidl Customer Service the following day -
Thank you for taking the time to contact our CEO. I have been asked to respond to you on his behalf.
As you are probably aware, Lidl UK GmbH is a national retailer. As such, we have stores in locations with limited parking space and in common with many of our competitors, our store car parks are abused to a significant and detrimental extent. We have therefore judged it necessary to take measures so that our stores parking facilities are available first and foremost to our customers.
In order to ensure that sufficient parking spaces are available at all times to our customers, Lidl employs third party contractors to monitor and control our car parks. So far, this service has proved reliable and effective in reducing car park abuse and in freeing up spaces for our customers.
In light of your comments, on this one occasion, I have contacted Athena and have requested that this charge be cancelled. Please note, your comments regarding our parking restrictions have been noted and passed to the relevant department.
Thank you again for contacting us.

Yours sincerely,
For and on behalf of Lidl UK GmbH
Karyn Meek
Customer Services Management
[T] + 44 (0) 370 444 1234 / 0800 977 7766
[E] customer.services@lidl.co.uk
______________________________________________

I had tried to reason with the local store manager, but she just kept saying "you need to speak to head office", "you need to speak to head office", "you need to speak to head office" - so much for customer service.

Although the charge has now been cancelled, I am not at all happy with the way in which I have been treated by Lidl and Athena......so, let the Campaign of Mischief begin!!! (all completely legal of course).

Plan A - on Monday, drive into Lidl car park, do some shopping, then carefully reverse out of the entrance (assume the ANPR cameras don't detect direction of travel?). On Tuesday take the car to a separate location where evidence of presence can be obtained (another Athena car park???). On Wednesday, reverse into lidl car park via the exit, then leave by the same exit after a short while. Sit back and look forward to Athena's charge for 48 hour overstay.
plan B - next time we are away for the weekend in the caravan, when we return on Sunday afternoon, attempt to enter lidl car park with the Land Rover and caravan in tow - there is no height barrier, but the entrance has a fairly tight turn. I doubt we will manage to get fully into the car park so will have to reverse back out. If I make a big enough mess of reversing, it could take perhaps half an hour of manoeuvring to get the caravan out and unblock the car park entrance.
plan C - with help from a friend. Drive into car park with 1 car following the first very closely - only the first registration will be captured. Leave car park similarly closely - only the second registration will be captured on departure. Athena's system will have one car that has entered the car park and is there indefinitely, and another car has left the car park but hasn't entered it.
There are a few other ideas for messing with the ANPR system - to follow.

There was an interesting post from another aggrieved customer (not sure if it was on here) - they filled their trolley with shopping, then advised an assistant that their free parking period was about to expire so they didn't have time to wait in the queue - the full trolley was abandoned as they ran out of the store to move their car to comply with Athena's requirements. Hmm!!!

Mischief Maker

beamerguy

"There was an interesting post from another aggrieved customer (not sure if it was on here) - they filled their trolley with shopping, then advised an assistant that their free parking period was about to expire so they didn't have time to wait in the queue - the full trolley was abandoned as they ran out of the store to move their car to comply with Athena's requirements. Hmm!!!"

No doubt this will happen with more customers obeying the restrictive signs in the car parks

Tough for Lidl trying to scam customers

Fruitcake

AlliG, I don't know whether direction of travel will make any difference to triggering the unfit for purpose ANPR cameras so I'm not sure how effective your planned mischief will be.

Personally I wouldn't want to get a vehicle stuck and stop others getting in if that's what happens, especially if someone is trying to get to the medical centre.

I think just double dipping where you have proof the vehicle was elsewhere and therefore must have left and returned is the best idea. I have thought myself about doing this with two car parks mismanaged by the same parking scammers so you can simply say, if you check for images of my car you will see that it left and returned. If it worked you would have two PCNs where images from one car park proved the vehicle must have left the other one, and versa vice.
It would only work if the scammers system failed to record two visits at each location, so you would need corroborative evidence of this such as receipts or better continuous time stamped dash-cam footage.

Barry Beavis apparently markets a drop down number plate system. At the flick of a switch, the real number plate drops down revealing a false plate that reads, Up Yours ANPR. Something like this could be utilised but corroborative evidence would also be needed.
Alas it is not cheap. I think it's about £50, but covering the plate until past the cameras might work, but you would have to time it so you didn't cause a hold up whilst the plate was uncovered again, and this of course would have to be precisely positioned so it was done before regaining the public highway and after the camera trap.

Coupon-mad

The trolley guy was Lynnzer, who posts on here and on pepipoo.

LaurenceD18

Hello Margaret5

I was delighted to see your post regarding your experience with Indigo as I too, just yesterday, experienced the same in a Southern Train car park. Ticket purchased, unmarked space, not in anyone's way with no "No Parking" sign. £100 or £60 for early payment just about got to me!

I have a question, if I may, when you said " copied the advised text for a BPA member ", what do you mean by this? I want to go through the process using your example as a template.but am unsure what this means.

Best wishes,
Laurence

pogofish

LaurenceD18 wrote: »

Hello Margaret5

I was delighted to see your post regarding your experience with Indigo as I too, just yesterday, experienced the same in a Southern Train car park. Ticket purchased, unmarked space, not in anyone's way with no "No Parking" sign. £100 or £60 for early payment just about got to me!

I have a question, if I may, when you said " copied the advised text for a BPA member ", what do you mean by this? I want to go through the process using your example as a template.but am unsure what this means.

Best wishes,
Laurence

Why would you be submitting an appeal if you just had a cancellation..? Which is what this thread is all about.

Please start by reading the Newbies Sticky at the top of this forum properly, then start your own thread. Hijacking an irrelevant thread will not get you the best help and advice!

Coupon-mad

Strawberries1 contacted PALS to complain about a Hospital PCN:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5667366

Cancelled almost straight away.

luv2spend

I received an Athena PCN at Lidl for overstaying by 15 mins and thanks to the advice on the MSE forums, I emailed Lidl's CEO and received a reply from their Customer Services team confirming that my PCN would be cancelled. Thank you ☺