Money Moral Dilemma: Is it OK to use other people's leftover parking time?

debra.campbell

It clearly states on the car park i use on the paying station that anyone caught transferring tickets will be fined.I used to pass on my tickets,but after i noticed the warning sign,i stopped and looked at it from their point of view.The parking charges are very reasonable anyway and if everyone shared tickets they wouldn't make an money and so would probably have to raise prices or close it down

Cookie1986

The operator of the car park is paid for X number of hours and a vehicle is parked there for the same number of hours (or less) I personally do not see any issues

rob_s0

I rarely use car parks like this I must admit - I either park in supermarkets (as I'm going there anyway usually), or the car parks I use are the ANPR ones.

However, on the occasion when I've had time left over (to be honest it's rare as I usually plan pretty well) I've handed my ticket on to someone. Someone's only given me their ticket once, and honestly it made my day!

I'd absolutely not have a problem with it - councils are raking it in from those car parks anyway.

quidsy

Perfectly normal & pretty much everyone does it.

To give an analogy: your friend has a ticket to a top rated band but can't go, he offers it to you for free but you refuse & say you will purchase your own. Your friends ticket has already been bought & paid for so you aren't stealing from the band, why would you refuse?

billshep

esmerobbo wrote: »

OK can we open it up, I have both passed on and used tickets with time left on in the past and will no doubt do in the future.

However lets look at it from another angle. If you owned a restaurant and someone came in for a meal, and as they did someone left after eating only half their steak and chips, would you find it acceptable for the person coming in to sit and eat the food left without making a purchase? If you owned a pub would it be OK for someone to come in and drink up all the left over slops without buying a drink? If you ran a bus would it be OK for someone to pass a ticket as they got off to someone getting on?

After all the food, beer and ticket have all been paid for!

Just asking!

I'd be fine with all of these - as you say, they've already been paid for, throwing the food/drink away is wasteful! If it was a restaurant the person might be taking up a table that others could use, so maybe this would cost them revenue, so maybe you should leave a tip! As for the bus ticket, that's fine too - if it's a valid ticket, why not?

SandraDJ

I've accepted tickets if I'm not likely to overstay the length of time left, and passed tickets on if there's spare time on mine. I would only do this is I was sure that it wasn't ANPR.

birtles1010

I always pass my ticket on - and have been passed tickets as well. I'd stick it on the pay machine if I didn't see anyone around

stork_2

billshep wrote: »

I'd be fine with all of these - as you say, they've already been paid for, throwing the food/drink away is wasteful! If it was a restaurant the person might be taking up a table that others could use, so maybe this would cost them revenue, so maybe you should leave a tip! As for the bus ticket, that's fine too - if it's a valid ticket, why not?

But the question was whether, as the owner of the restaurant, bus company etc., you'd still be fine with that.

In general, it's perfectly legitimate for a business as part of its business model to state that unused portions of service are not transferable to someone else. If you breach this requirement, you're in breach of contract. If you buy a service knowing that this is what you intend to do, you may be committing fraud.

If a business's prices and level of service are based on (a) a reasonable assumption that not everyone will use the maximum amount of service available, and (b) that every new customer will deal directly with them as a new customer, and therefore generate revenue, then customers who try to circumvent those assumptions will ultimately damage the business (leading to higher prices or reduced service for everyone).

Of course different businesses enforce these terms in different ways, and more or less strictly. Rail companies quite often will enforce restrictions connected with cheap advance purchase tickets, and broadband/telecom providers will enforce 'fair use' restrictions, but transferability rules are often quite hard to police. But just because you can get away with something, it does not follow that it's OK to do it.

If I posted my Spotify username and password here, and said that any of you can use them whenever I'm not using them, is that OK? Or if I get fibre broadband and share it with half a dozen neighbours?

simonne15_2

Absolutely no doubt whatsoever........the parking fee has been paid, no matter who is using it!
Similarly travel tickets: there's no dishonesty in using a ticket that's still valid whoever has paid for it. I spent some time recently trying to give away 24hr travel tickets in Amsterdam station because we had finished using them. Its merely being community spirited! :T

tindella

I've done this many times. I've also handed my ticket over to other people so they can use it. Why not? the space has been paid for for a set time so there's nothing illegal here.