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

janemcs1973

Hi all,


I recently got a PCN for £90 for parking at Lidl in Rosehill. I was parked for 49 minutes. I had visited other shops in the area and returned to Lidl where I did not find the items I wanted to purchase. I did ask a member of staff what to do but he didn't seem to comprehend that I didn't have a receipt and was fairly useless.

Here's the letter I wrote to Christian Haertnagal, copying in Lidl customer services and Athena:


Dear Mr Haertnagal,

I am writing to you as I am deeply concerned by the letters I have received from Athena ANPR which are causing me a great deal of stress and anxiety.

I visited the Lidl store as a customer on the day in question but did not find the items I wanted to buy and therefore did not have a till receipt in order to validate my parking.
I asked a member of staff in the store what I should do and he was unable to help me. There are no clear instructions on how to proceed in these circumstances.

To clarify , I parked for longer than 10 minutes but less than the 90 minutes allowed for customers. I did not find the items I was looking for and therefore did not have a till receipt. I did endeavour to validate my parking but I could not find a way to do so without making a purchase. It seems unreasonable to me that I should be forced to make an unnecessary purchase in order to validate my parking.

For the reasons stated above I look forward to receiving notification within 28 days that the PCN has been cancelled.

There are a number of factors which I would like to be taken into account:

1) The shop and car park were not busy or full on the day in question. The car park was almost empty for the duration of the time in question.
2) I was a genuine customer of Lidl. I did ask a member of staff how to validate my parking when I did not find the items I was looking for. I explained that I was parked for more than 10 minutes and he was unable to help me.
3) There is no information available on what to do if you exceed 10 minutes without making a purchase other than paying the £90 fine. This is grossly unreasonable and seems unlawful.
4) I would have willingly paid a reasonable sum for my parking but this option was not available to me. Today I parked for a similar time at Centre Court car park in Wimbledon. It was extremely busy at the time and I was required to queue in order to enter the car park, however I paid £2.50 for up to 2 hours parking. This seems like a reasonable sum and I would willingly pay such a similar sum for the 49 minutes I was parked in Lidl Rosehill.

A £90 fine is a grossly unfair amount for 49 minutes and 43 seconds of parking in a near empty car park.

I am willing to pay £2.50 as a gesture of goodwill in order to close the matter.

I look forward to hearing your reply.

Today I received the following reply:

Dear Ms Leahy

Re: Parking Charge
Thank you for contacting us regarding the parking charge which you received whilst parked within our store car park.
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 the Car Park Management Company and have requested that this charge be cancelled. Your comments regarding our parking restrictions have been noted and passed to the relevant department for their information.
Thank you again for contacting us.

Yours sincerely,
For and on behalf of Lidl UK GmbH


Nicola Munro
Customer Services Management

beamerguy

Good for you.

Nicola Munro has sent a bog standard copy and paste reply..

Yes, everyone is aware that Lidl is a national company, what does that have to do with it ???

So are Aldi, Tesco, Sainsbury's ec etc etc and the customer decides where to spend their money and if Lidl goes off the radar for you, who cares, it's there own stupid mistake for employing scammers

janemcs1973

Very good point! You've prompted me to send her this reply:


Dear Nicola


Thank you very much for your e-mail and for cancelling this completely unjustified parking charge. In light of this experience I will not be visiting your store again for fear of receiving further threatening and unreasonable demands from the third party contractors you employ.


Kind regards,


Ms J Leahy

KeithP

Before sending that I would wait for confirmation of the cancellation from the PPC.

But maybe that's just me being over cautious.

KeithP

rockfordstone wrote: »

Having had a PCN from an NCP train station car park today, if i was to complain about the charge to the land owner or rail company, would this invalidate my ability to lodge an appeal with NCP?

Or is it a matter of referring to yourself as the keeper and the driver as seperate entities? without admitting you were driving? at the time?

Those questions would be better asked on your thread that you started earlier today.

Lula2046

I visited Asda Bedminster, Bristol, twice on one day, no receipts to prove my visit by the time the fine showed up, for staying what appeared to be 40mins over time.

My argument was that whilst I was aware of the time restrictions for the car park, I never realised we were not allowed to leave and re-enter the store for a second visit without incurring a fine of £70

Asda cancelled this fine within less than 48hrs.

Here are the full details:


I emailed the following to Asda Bedminster customer services, as well as Asda CEO and to Asda Twitter in a DM (I did not contact Parking eye)

My visits were on the 9th, the issue date for charge was 16th (hence no receipts), I contacted Asda on 23rd (Black Friday so it was email bedlam out there)

My first contact:
'I've not shopped in Asda before, but last week my Waitrose delivery let me down and I needed garlic paste and fresh coriander, since I was heading past your entrance I thought I may as well pop in - your store was so huge I thought you were bound to have it.
And you did! It was brilliant! You even had a wider range of some things I use - Heck chicken sausages in chorizo flavour for example - and this was possibly where my problem began.
Since I was on my way to visit my friend at xxxs, I didn't want to buy sausages and have them hanging about in my bag for an hour or so, so I grabbed my garlic paste and coriander and left.
On the way home from xxxs, I quickly popped back in and bought the Heck Chorizo sausages as well as some cases of BrewDog that I'd never seen before.
I was utterly over the moon, you were much better than Waitrose.
Next day I signed up for online delivery, paid upfront for a year and received my first delivery on Monday this week
'Hello xxxx Customer ID number: xxxxxxx
Thanks for doing your first online shop with Asda. By now, you’ve discovered just how quick and simple it is to order your shopping online and you’re ready to go again. '

Then on Tuesday I got a parking fine of £70 from your Agent Parking Eye showing my time in the car park on 9 November as 3 hs 10mins.
This is simply not true as I was in the car park twice, I left and had coffee in between. But Parking Eye have chosen the first entrance and the last exit.
The Ref number for Parking Eye is vvvvv the vehicle is a ccccccc

Why on earth would you charge someone £70 because they came in twice?

As I have said, this has to be the worst customer service I have ever received anywhere, I'm hoping that you will get this fine cancelled immediately, however if you believe it is right and fair that I get charged £70 for coming into your shop twice on the same afternoon, then you will have lost me as a customer forever.

I look forward to hearing from you


I heard back from Asda via Twitter and email on 25th




Asda reply:

Hi xxx,

Thanks for letting me know about your recent experience whilst parking at our Bedminster store. I understand that when you first visited the store you noticed items that you wanted to purchase but did not want to leave these in your car whilst you met a friend. I understand that you therefore later returned to the store pleased with the offer in store and even signed up for online delivery.

I'm sorry to hear that you then received a parking charge. As a car driver myself, I can fully appreciate why you would be angry and disappointed by this, especially if you were unaware of the time restrictions for the car park. We would never wish to upset or lose your custom as a result of this fine.

If you have received a fine from Asda, this will only be from Parking Eye or Horizon as these are the only companies we use to issue parking charges. If your notice is not from either of these companies you will need to contact the company directly as Asda will have no affiliation with the company.

I can advise that we use these companies to ensure the fair monitoring of our car parks for our customers and I'm sorry that the ANPR cameras have not recorded accurate times of you entering and leaving the store.

I would be happy to look into this further for you if you could please reply with a full image of your parking charge notification received on this occasion and please let me know if you have paid this or appealed this. Please also include an image of your receipt from the purchase made in store on this day.

Thanks for getting in touch and if you need to contact us further you're welcome to reply to this email or call us



I responded on 26th at lunchtime,


My response (along with a scan of the Parking Eye Charge):
Hi xxxx,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.


I wasn't unaware of the time restrictions for the car park, but I never realised we were not allowed to re-enter the store for a second visit without incurring a fine.

The fine I received from you is from Parking Eye.

Here is the full image of your parking charge notification and I have neither paid this or appealed this.
I'm really sorry but I don't an image of either receipts from the two trips made in store on the 9th - we ate everything pretty much straight away, at which point I binned the receipts.



and within 40mins of receipt, Asda had cancelled the fine with Parking Eye, as follows.

Hi xxx,

Thanks for your response on this and for providing an image of the parking charge.

I can advise that our some of our car parks use automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) and if a vehicle is too close to another vehicle, the cameras may not fully read a number plate.

However, as this is the first time you have received a parking charge, I am happy to process a cancellation on this for you and I have therefore submitted a cancellation request. I can advise therefore that no payment is due. If you do receive any letters in the future, these may be a crossover, however you're welcome to get in touch if you do have any further concerns.

Please accept my apologies for any distress caused and if you need to contact us further please don’t hesitate to reply to this email or call us

beamerguy

Well done

BUT ......
"However, as this is the first time you have received a parking charge,"

How would Asda know this unless they hold on to data ???

Coupon-mad

Well done!

ALL instances of ANPR failure need to be reported to the Information Commissioner, explaining that although the charge was cancelled when you pointed out to Asda about the double visit, you have SIGNIFICANT CONCERNS about ParkingEye's ANPR defaulting to 'first in, last out' images as is a known flaw, published in this BPA Article:

https://www.britishparking.co.uk/ANPR

As with all new technology, there are issues associated with its use:

a) Repeat users of a car park inside a 24 hour period sometimes find that their first entry is paired with their last exit, resulting in an ‘overstay’. Operators are becoming aware of this and should now be checking all ANPR transactions to ensure that this does not occur.

and yours is one of hundreds recorded on online forums such as this list, where ParkingEye are the main offenders:

http://notomob.co.uk/discussions/index.php?topic=5768.0

and you see that the ICO's own staff have known about this flaw since at least 2015:

http://parking-prankster.blogspot.com/2015/10/parkingeye-subject-to-data-protection.html

So you want the ICO to investigate and do some test 'double visits' to ParkingEye car parks without telling them in advance, and the ICO need to be aware, they WILL find PCNs arriving every time. NO CHECKS appear to be made to eliminate this possibility, and people often return to shops the same day!


State that this is unacceptable data abuse and in your opinion, tantamount to fraud or deception - with P/Eye collecting £100 from scared people who have done nothing wrong.

And add a second concern, that Asda appear to have been talking to ParkingEye who have told them:

this is the first time you have received a parking charge

which suggests ParkingEye retain ANPR records excessively, and share info with Asda, none of which is relevant or justified. A person could do a double visit every day, and STILL never be liable for any parking charge (but they would get one, every time).

Show your evidence attached to your complaint, here:

https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/your-personal-information-concerns/

Please do that - every victim of a double dip ANPR scam needs to do that, otherwise the common occurrence gets swept under the carpet by the PPCs, and the ICO are clueless as to how prevalent it really is.

Knapper

Another SUCCESS story to chalk up here


Operator: EURO CAR PARKING


Venue: ST JAMES RETAIL PARK, SHEFFIELD




Details:


Overstayed the 3hr max limit completely innocently at this new Retail Park. I didn't register any signage on the way in (there was almost nothing at the entrance which is pretty poor).


Received the standard NTK, PCN for £90/£50 shortly afterward.


Sought out who the owners of the Retail Park were with a simple Google and it turned out to be SAVILLS.


A quick email to the representative at SAVILLS to explain my visit and that there were 100s of car park spaces before and after my visit and that I'd been in Costco most of the time meeting up with an old friend, and same day the rep emailed back to say he had gotten the ticket cancelled.


That's great service and understanding from SAVILLS and proof positive that Christmas Spirit hasn't died a death just yet !


Cheers!

KeithP

securitymatters, please delete your post from this thread.

It is not relevant to the thread's subject matter.

Thanks.