Athena ANPR

tooloud

Both my wife and my son who met her To do shopping at Lidl have recieved parking tickets from Athena for overstaying the 10 min free period.
I have received the fines as notice to keeper and am a little confused as to how to react to them.
I do not want to pay these fines as they have been issued because they failed to get a ticket at the machine because they didn't see the notice to do so. We have not got the recipe and cash was paid.
I have spent a huge amount of time looking on the net for a definitive answer on how to proceed but have read conflicting information.
The old style ignore advice seems to have changed and I would like some guidance on what to do, some recommend appealing to the company then ignoring further communications others suggest a full commitment to the appeal process involving the firms governing body.
Could someone tell me what is the best way to avoid having to pay this extortionate fine please

Umkomaas

Write (email) to the MD of Lidl (Christian Haertnagel) and he will cancel. Don’t bother with the local manager (fob-off line likely) or national Customer Services (fob-off template guaranteed), or Athena (who will reject your challenge), you go straight to the organ grinder - not any of his monkeys.

Read this very recent thread and follow advice in it and your parking charge will be cancelled.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5760251

The_Deep

Surely a ten minute limit is an unfair term in a consumer contract.

How can one find a place read the notice, struggle to get a trolley, enyet the shop, find one desired articles, join a queue to pay, wait while they change the till roll, Type in a wet barcode, and exit the car park, all in ten minutes.

https://www.taylorwessing.com/fileadmin/files/docs/CRA15_UnfrairContractTerms.pdf

daveyjp

It will probably be ten minutes to enter, park and register the reg in store. It is still a useless system.

tooloud

umkomass, I have been to the page you recommended and it says You are correct that any appeal to IPC companies is futile.

Just send the template appeal as is then ignore everything except court correspondence or a letter before court action. But this is dated 2005 so assuming not fit for purpose today.
Who is the current MD and what is his email address so I can email him.Open to anyone that knows this information.

KeithP

What exactly is dated 2005?

The thread you were directed towards is dated December 2017.

tooloud

I have managed to find his email address and emailed him asking for the tickets to be cancelled I will inform you once I have a reply (fingers crossed LoL)

tooloud

Kiethp you are correct it is dated 2017 no idea where I got the 2005 from I have looked at so many posts from so many different forums I obviously got confused. Anyway I await the MD,s reply.

Kirchenmaus

The_Deep wrote: »

Surely a ten minute limit is an unfair term in a consumer contract.

How can one find a place read the notice, struggle to get a trolley, enyet the shop, find one desired articles, join a queue to pay, wait while they change the till roll, Type in a wet barcode, and exit the car park, all in ten minutes.

https://www.taylorwessing.com/fileadmin/files/docs/CRA15_UnfrairContractTerms.pdf

I don't know about every Lidl in the country, but the one near me provides for 90 minutes free parking for Lidl customers (who register their vehicles on the in-store terminals). The 10 minutes free parking is for non-customers.

I have had Lidl/Athena PCNs cancelled by using the Customer Services portal on the Lidl website, but I understand that they are now directing people to Athena. I refused to deal with Athena and told Lidl why. They did instruct Athena to cancel, however, as I subsequently received cancellation notices from Athena. I'm not sure Christian Haertnagel will ever see an email regarding a PCN, but if it works, go for it.

(Surely, there is nothing in your link that even suggests that 10 minutes free parking, if clearly disclosed, is "unfair".)

--Kirchenmaus

Umkomaas

I'm not sure Christian Haertnagel will ever see an email regarding a PCN, but if it works, go for it.

I’m absolutely convinced he doesn’t see them, but going in via his email address seems to see the complaint bypass CS. And, from recollection, this approach has always succeeded.

pappa_golf

At one time Lidl contracted one of the larger parking companies to manage their car parks. However, once they learned how much money was being made by the company for overstays, they sacked the company and brought the operation in-house.

They switched to one of the tiny companies, Athena ANPR and just paid them a management fee to operate the car park. The charges for overstays now went to Lidl. It is now possible that in some of the smaller stores, the amount Lidl is raking in for parking is a significant part of the store's profits.

Not content even with this, Lidl have hit on a new wheeze to extract the maximum amount of cash from their own customers. Car parking is now only free for 10 minutes. After that, the customers must be validated at the till for 60 minutes of free parking.
Now customers spending 50 minutes shopping are faced with an unsolvable dilemma if there are queues at the checkout. They cannot just leave, because they have exceeded their 10 minutes free parking. They cannot get out before the 60 minutes because the queues are too large.