Euro Car Parks - Meadow Retail Chelmsford - Faulty Phone Number

Denzil87

Hi All,

Thanks for having me. I have looked at the newbie thread and I have a slightly out of the ordinary appeal, so could not see anything directly linked to it, but I may have missed something similar in there.

Around a month ago I parked at The Meadows, in Chelmsford as I needed to pop into a shop in the town centre. I tried to pay at three separate ticketing machines however all were not offline and not working.  I then tried to call the telephone number provided on the signage which connected to an automated message, basically a dead number saying if you wish to reinstate this number please get in touch with your provider, then it hangs up.  I noted that I get a free 30 minutes parking, so I went to the shop, returned and left.  Entry at 10:05 and left at 10:45.  

I then receive a postal fine stating I exceeded the free 30 mins provided (photographs on entry and exit).  Naturally I disputed this with Euro Car Parks for the reasons stated and to no surprise they rejected it, giving reasoning that if the machines were down I should have called the phone number and attached a photo of signage with phone number attached to it.  I then try this number again and receive the same message as before, so it's still not in use a month later.  Great, I will use this evidence when I send to POPLA. Regrettably and somewhat stupidly in hindsight, I got no photographic proof on the day of the machines not working but this I guess proves that I did try to call the number as I am still getting the same dead line when I call it.  I put this info in my appeal two days ago, but I have been calling the number each day to make sure it's still not working, as my assumption would be that they had no idea the number was not working and have it reinstated ASAP. Yesterday it was still down but low and behold today, two days after POPLA say they have submitted the appeal to ECP, the line is back up and running.

I have sent an email to POPLA advising them of this and said I hope they tried to call the number themselves before sending it to ECP.  I just know that the parking provider will now dispute this and now there is no proof.

Anyone had anything similar or know where I stand with this?  The ironic thing here, is that had their machines been working or the phone number in use, I would have been and gone within the allocated free 30 minutes provided to me, as I was faffing about for over ten of them trying to get a ticket! 

Redx

Plan A is still your best option

Complain to the retail park management and get a cancellation , ASAP

This should have been done weeks ago

Coupon-mad

POPLA will not have tried to phone any number.

Denzil87

Redx said:

Plan A is still your best option

Complain to the retail park management and get a cancellation , ASAP

This should have been done weeks ago

Thanks, I will do now.  I only found out about this forum yesterday.  I wrongly assumed it would just be cancelled by the parking provider.  Reading this forum I didn't know they were so ruthless.

Redx

Denzil87 said:

Redx said:

Plan A is still your best option

Complain to the retail park management and get a cancellation , ASAP

This should have been done weeks ago

Thanks, I will do now.  I only found out about this forum yesterday.  I wrongly assumed it would just be cancelled by the parking provider.  Reading this forum I didn't know they were so ruthless.

It was bad enough pre covid19 , these days it's worse due to losing revenues during a pandemic

Denzil87

Yep, absolute scam artists.  I've sent customer services at The Meadow and email.  Wished I'd done it sooner, thank you for your advice.  

Thank you for all you're doing within this forum to the mods and contributors.  A thankless task but a superb service.

D_P_Dance

Have you complained to your MP?

Denzil87

D_P_Dance said:

Have you complained to your MP?

I haven't, no.  Chelmsford is not my constituency though, so I am not sure what they could even do?

D_P_Dance

You complain to your own MP.  

Redx

As above , you email your own constituency MP , who can copy in the MP for that area , plus Robert Jenrick MP too

Le_Kirk

Entry at 10:05 and left at 10:45

That is not 30 minutes so be prepared to argue that time on site (10.05 to 10.45) is not the same as time parking, there has to be time to get from entry point to a parking place and vice versa at the end of the parking period.  There also as to be time to read the terms and conditions on the parking sign - hence grace periods.