smart parking at Asda

LillyCat

Hello everybody,

This morning I received a PCN from Smart Parking as I overstayed.
I read quite a lot of the threads on this forum, and this made my day so much better to know that I do not have to pay (as long as I am ready to fight). Unfortunately I am not a good fighter, but cannot afford to pay, so I am ready to try.
Previous threads mention that the parking sign may not be right due to Smart Parking changing their name, but the signs are all OK. However, there is no parking signs in the area where I usually park. So I am planning on mentioning this to the store manager.
Now I have three problems:
- I do not have a receipt from the shop for that day despite being a customer there (who keeps supermarket receipt?? I don't) and my bank statement does not show that date, but the following day, so not sure I can use this as a proof that I was a customer.
- The asda shop is tiny, with no cafe, so I cannot justify staying in the shop more than one hour .... I went somewhere else before doing my shopping.
- Also, I am expecting another PCN from the same place. A few days ago, I went to the doctor with my little ones after going shopping to Asda, and there was a bit of a wait. The GP is just accross the road, it is silly to take the car just to cross the road!.

Not sure what to say to the asda store manager apart about the signs not being visible enough. Can anyone help ?
Should I appeal these two tickets independently?
Thank you.

Umkomaas

Smart Parking are easy meat if you follow the NEWBIES sticky. Start by sending them the initial appeal template in post #1 from it. That often does the trick.

The signage issue re change of names is over a year old, and, unless you live in the back of beyond where they've yet to get round to changing their signs, is old news now, so don't waste time on this.

Your bank statement showing a transaction 24 hours after the actual spend is quite normal, so get down to see the store manager (not the customer services frump) and demand, firmly and assertively, that he intervenes on behalf of a regular customer - show your bank statement(s) as proof (especially if there is a pattern of spend over a period of time).

If he tries to fob you off with 'we don't own the car park, the council do', ask him for his name and contact details, tell him you are going to approach the council to check the veracity of his statement, and if he's proved to have given you false information, and should Smart pursue you to court (which they most definitely won't, so don't worry about that), then you will apply to have him called to be cross-examined and give such evidence.

All bluff of course, but it will certainly concentrate his mind in sorting this out before he risks this.

Dee140157

And yes appeal them individually. They are different PCNs.

Coupon-mad

As usual, your next steps are covered in the sticky thread at the top of this parking forum. Smart almost always just cancel when they get sent the appeal template from the NEWBIES thread, and if not then the sticky tells you how to win at POPLA and explains what that is...

Just two emails/online appeals needed for now (one for each postal PCN, so obviously the second one only if you get another PCN) and they should be cancelled without any need for POPLA.

atilla

You'll do well finding any manager in store now, they've got rid of most of them.

Just send the appeal as CM says. I've just fired off another 4 myself. It's probably a forlorn hope but they might send me a popla code.
They just roll over though.

LillyCat

Thanks all,
I will let you know how I am getting on.

mmmmm, just tried to do the appeal on line, and when clicking on the appeal part of the website, this what I got:

The site's security certificate has expired!
You attempted to reach payments.townandcityparking.co.uk, but the server presented an expired certificate. No information is available to indicate whether that certificate has been compromised since its expiration. This means Google Chrome cannot guarantee that you are communicating with payments.townandcityparking.co.uk and not an attacker. Your computer's clock is currently set to Sunday, August 3, 2014 9:18:03 PM. Does that look right? If not, you should correct the error and refresh this page.
You should not proceed, especially if you have never seen this warning before for this site.

I believe Id better do this by post then.

Umkomaas

It may be your browser causing the problem - POPLA website also plays up when using certain browsers. You might want to give it a try via Internet Explorer?

atilla

LillyCat wrote: »

Thanks all,
I will let you know how I am getting on.

mmmmm, just tried to do the appeal on line, and when clicking on the appeal part of the website, this what I got:

The site's security certificate has expired!
You attempted to reach payments.townandcityparking.co.uk, but the server presented an expired certificate. No information is available to indicate whether that certificate has been compromised since its expiration. This means Google Chrome cannot guarantee that you are communicating with payments.townandcityparking.co.uk and not an attacker. Your computer's clock is currently set to Sunday, August 3, 2014 9:18:03 PM. Does that look right? If not, you should correct the error and refresh this page.
You should not proceed, especially if you have never seen this warning before for this site.

I believe Id better do this by post then.

I too had that last night.
It happened because i clicked on a shortcut/link that took me straight to the ppeals page.
Sorted itself when i went via their front page.

LillyCat

Hello,

I thought I d update you on this one. As expected I received a second ticket. I sent the appeal letter (copy and paste from your link) twice. Today I received the second letter saying that my fine has been cancelled, so nothing to pay. many many thanks for this.

Redx

I bet the INVOICE was cancelled too