Parking Fine at Tesco Berkhamstead

ollietheboat

Hi
Hoping you can help me...my mother who is 82 and disabled recieved a "charge notice" in tesco car park in Berkhamstead. She overstayed by 3 minutes. She received the notice from Highview Parking and also a letter from Tesco. The letter from Tesco said she had overstayed a month earlier and they let her off. The notice had photos of her car entering and leaving the car park but the Tesco letter said that they noted she was disabled (she has a disabled badge and was parked in a disabled bay) and invited her to come in and get an extended time period from them.
My first question isa obviously how do I go about getting rid of this penalty which is for £70:00 and my seocnd question is, how do they know she is disabled when the pictures just show her car entering and leaving the car park?
I am very annoyed, she shops in their supermarket regularly and was over by a couple of minutes both times and they seem to have information about her to top it all off.
I hope you can help
Thanks

pogofish

Your using the word "fine" suggests you badly need to read the Newbies Sticky to inform yourself properly before doing anything else!

Then have a look at other recent Highview threads to see just how easy it is to get-shot of them.

Coupon-mad

My first question...

No need for any question or even any threads about Highview. Easy peasy!

Search the forum for Highview. You will see why you didn't need to query it.

Read the NEWBIES thread and use the blue writing appeal online, and DO NOT choose the online appeal option tickbox that says 'I was the driver and'!

ollietheboat

Thanks for that, I have completed online appeal and stuck to the instructions given so fingers crossed I will let you know how it goes.
Thanks again.

Guys_Dad

I take it that you referred them to the Grace Periods in their Trade Association Code of Practice and how that is 10 minutes, not 3 !

beamerguy

As Coupon-mad says .... Highview ... easy peasy:T

The problem here is TESCO ?

Tesco is now playing hard ball with their customers.
They simply have no respect for their customers and
their CEO customer service have become so rude and
arrogant .... why would anyone want to spend money
with them

Yes they are the biggest supermarket but that's because
they have the most branches but in any given area,
I suspect that the likes of Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Lidl
and Aldi have the biggest sales

There are many reasons why you should not shop
at Tesco's, and their sheer arrogance and disrespect
for customers must be number one

They allow Highview to behave badly yet back them 100%

And, for them to retain data about your last visit in the car
park, then send you a letter ticking you off is treating
customers like a spoilt child.

So, spoilt children with very little money to spend can
continue with Tesco and the adults who have the money
should go and shop elsewhere

onlyfoolsandparking

beamerguy wrote: »

As Coupon-mad says .... Highview ... easy peasy:T

The problem here is TESCO ?

Tesco is now playing hard ball with their customers.
They simply have no respect for their customers and
their CEO customer service have become so rude and
arrogant .... why would anyone want to spend money
with them

Yes they are the biggest supermarket but that's because
they have the most branches but in any given area,
I suspect that the likes of Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Lidl
and Aldi have the biggest sales

There are many reasons why you should not shop
at Tesco's, and their sheer arrogance and disrespect
for customers must be number one

They allow Highview to behave badly yet back them 100%

And, for them to retain data about your last visit in the car
park, then send you a letter ticking you off is treating
customers like a spoilt child.

So, spoilt children with very little money to spend can
continue with Tesco and the adults who have the money
should go and shop elsewhere

Great post, I stopped shopping in Tesco years ago and have never been back, there were many reasons, I don't like their aggressive stance with suppliers and their bully boy tactics at senior management level to name but a couple.


It doesn't surprise me in the least they support the parking scammers, they only care about what customers are putting in the tills, a quite disgusting company in reality!

The_Slithy_Tove

Go back to Tesco, get to see the manager. They have accepted that she is disabled, and needs more time, so INSIST they THEY get this cancelled, and mention that they wouldn't want to be on the wrong end of an Equality Act case, would they?

Also, was it really 3 minutes? Don't "grace periods" mean anything? I'm sure it takes an 82 year old more than that to find a space and park, and subsequently to leave, meaning she was never parked for too long anyway.

The_Deep

I have several thousand shares in Tesco and this sort of thing damages my wallet.

Take this to your local paper and the Daily Mail. Also write it up on Facebook, and complain to your MP. It is time Tesco stopped annoying their customers thusly, and bid a soldier's farewell to these scammers.

Read this

This is an entirely unregulated industry which is scamming the public with inflated claims for minor breaches of contracts for alleged parking offences, aided and abetted by a handful of low-rent solicitors.

Parking Eye, CPM, Smart, and another company have already been named and shamed, as has Gladstones Solicitors, and BW Legal, (these two law firms take hundreds of these cases to court each year). They lose most of them, and have been reported to the regulatory authority by an M.P.
for unprofessional conduct

Hospital car parks and residential complex tickets have been especially mentioned.

The problem has become so rampant that MPs have agreed to enact a Bill to regulate these scammers. Watch the video of the Second Reading in the House of Commons recently

http://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2f0384f2-eba5-4fff-ab07-cf24b6a22918?in=12:49:41 recently.

and complain in the most robust terms to your MP. With a fair wind they will be out of business by Christmas.

ollietheboat

Actually I did not I just used the template for the appeal, My mum got a response saying it is now "on hold" but due to vast volumes of appeals it may take some time. Its been over a week since acknowledgement of her appeal was sent back, so hopefully not putting the fact that it was 3 minutes over wont matter?

ollietheboat

Yes it really was 3 minutes over the 2 hours. She really is 82 and disabled, and they really had that information to write personally to her to offer her the grace period which concerns me. She is going to go in and get her grace period however long that is but I have told her to wait until we see what the appeal says first. I am hoping this works at this point and that is the end of it but they have taken a a week now since they put the charge "on hold" pending investigation. So we haven't been as lucky as some people who I have read on this forum who got the job done in as little as 2 hours!