Parking - Only pay in advance unfair practice?

ok_computer

Hello,

I've recently been caught out by one of the pay by phone parking companies, and it started me thinking if there is any way to change a system that seems to be designed to unfairly take advantage of people.

I recently parked at a doctors and used one of the pay by phone parking companies to pay for my ticket in advance. Unlike the traditional way, there is no option to pay once my time was up, I had to somehow know how long I would be there and pay for it in advance. As I was busy, my time overran, so I purchased extra time when I could, but there was no option to pay retrospectively for the 15 minutes I missed and as a result I got a fine (which I will appeal). Also a friend of mine forgot to pay for parking at another location, and despite calling to try and pay it later, they said this was not possible. It seems the system is designed to take advantage of honest mistakes by not allowing people to pay for parking a few days in the past.

I should think it's not in the parking companies interest to change this process, so is there a governing body or similar that I can contact to see if this practice is fair, or something that could be changed?

Sorry if this has been mentioned before, I couldn't find it anywhere else.

beamerguy

We all understand and hopefully this will stop
all the scamming rubbish soon

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2018-07-19/debates/2b90805c-bff8-4707-8bdc-b0bfae5a7ad5/Parking(CodeOfPractice)Bill(FirstSitting

Umkomaas

The Deep will be along shortly to offer sage advice.