10-minute overstay in supermarket car park, genuine shopper

leitmotif

Hopefully this will help others in a similar situation. As I said above, I prefer a diplomatic mode of expression, yet still clear and firm.

Dear Mr Härtnagel,


I am writing to express my deep dissatisfaction at the way in which my partner and her elderly mother are being treated by a third-party company acting on Lidl's behalf. Having sought advice and established that your customer service team are generally unsympathetic on this matter, I am writing to you directly as CEO to reinforce the message that loyal customers do not take kindly to being harassed by cowboy parking companies 'legitimized' by kangaroo courts masquerading as accreditation bodies.


On 7th April my partner and her elderly mother visited your Lidl store on London Road in Portsmouth. According to the parking charge notice that we have received (number 0003536704), they entered the car park at 11:23:06. Due to my partner's mother having mobility issues, they required close to the 90-minute parking allowance to do the weekly shopping. The receipt shows that they paid for their shopping at 12:52:59. They then proceeded straight to the car (at the pace allowed by my partner's mother's health), loaded the car, and left.


According to the letter we have received, the vehicle exited the site at 13:03:19, which puts it firmly under 101 minutes. I note that Athena is an operator accredited by the IPC, and is therefore bound by the IPC's code of practice. According to this code of practice as formulated on the date the parking charge notice was officially served (12th April), '[d]rivers must be allowed a minimum period of 10 minutes to leave a site after a pre-paid or permitted period of parking has expired'. Hence by serving this parking charge notice, Athena was clearly breaching the code of practice it has signed up to as part of the conditions of its accreditation. Furthermore, I would like to highlight the inclusion of the word 'minimum' and stress that under the Equality Act 2010, organizations are required to make 'reasonable adjustments' for the disabled.


I trust that Athena will be instructed to cancel the charge.


Thanking you in advance for your attention to this matter.


Yours sincerely,

Umkomaas

Your complaint to CH looks good to me. Do let us know in the next few days when he confirms a cancellation.

To avoid your posts showing all those !!!!8217;s and the like, please switch off your 'Smart Punctuation' on your iPhone/iPad as every apostrophe and some other punctuations convert to exclamation marks and numbers. It's a forum glitch.

Go to 'General' > 'Keyboard' > 'Smart Punctuation' and flick the switch off.

Switching off seems to have no detrimental affect on any other use of the keyboard.

leitmotif

Thanks for the tip. (Incidentally, I was pasting in from a PDF on my PC.)


I will also be alerting my MP to the overnight change in the IPC's code of practice. I think it suggests that the IPC are a sham, and will serve to undermine politicians' confidence in them as an accreditation body.

Umkomaas

Thanks for the tip. (Incidentally, I was pasting in from a PDF on my PC.)

Hmmm. I don't think it fixes copy and pastes. It's been going on for the past few weeks - makes posts (especially lengthy ones with lots of punctuation) very difficult to read.

I will also be alerting my MP to the overnight change in the IPC's code of practice. I think it suggests that the IPC are a sham, and will serve to undermine politicians' confidence in them as an accreditation body.

Good move. Ask him/her to support the Sir Greg Knight Bill as referenced by The Deep in post #4 earlier in the thread.

leitmotif

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. Please note, your comments regarding our parking restrictions have been noted and passed to the relevant department.

Thanks for your help, guys. I will still be writing to my MP about the suspicious change to the IPC's code of practice. It's in my diary to do after the start of May (local elections in a couple of weeks). Evidence of the amendment to the CoP (with date stamps) has been retained.

beamerguy

These supermarkets make me laugh with such letters

"our store car parks are abused to a significant and detrimental extent"

I doubt that ? maybe a few rogue parkers who actually still
might spend money. They have been sold a pup by parking
companies

" So far, this service has proved reliable and effective in reducing car park abuse and in freeing up spaces for our customers."

In reality, parking scammers have made shoppers
go elsewhere

Lidl are still living in the clouds.

Don't trust what Lidl has said, get confirmation from
the parking monkey

leitmotif

It wasn't even me shopping there, but this experience has still put me off shopping there.