Parking stories in the News/media

Jenni_D

There is a lot of Council-maintained on-street parking throughout the UK that uses the RingGo app for parking payments - some in tandem with payment meters, some payment via app only.

What issue(s) do you fundamentally have against the app @prowla?

Ralph-y

The PPC will never / rarely cancel ...... the appeals service's  are in the pocket of the ATA's (IPC BPA)  that support them,  The forum advise allays used to be appeal Popla but not the IAS .... that has now changed somewhat due to poor Polpla decisions ........ A court is often the first chance you get for a unbiased decision . 

prowla

RavingMad said:

prowla said:

Some streets in Reading are being shifted to RingGo only.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3qg3w5p3ko

I don't have, nor want, that app.

But then you can't park anywhere that only accepts RingGo. What do you have against using the app? 

It's a faff.

The first time I found myself in a car park which wanted it I had to download it and then it wouldn't connect, and so-on, so I went and found a multi-storey instead.

I was out yesterday and found myself in a car park which wanted it; I'd changed phone, so it wasn't installed, so I went elsewhere.

Now, you might say i should be prepared and all that, but there's always going to be some sort of gotcha.

What if my phone runs out of charge?

Do I then want them to store my payment details?

They seem to be angling towards keeping funds in a "wallet".

Nellymoser

@RavingMad Court is the only place motorists get a fair hearing but the PP firms will often discontinue the claim before they pay the hearing fees.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6377263/dcb-legal-record-of-private-parking-court-claim-discontinuations#latest

This unregulated PP industry employ a variety of tactics to frightened the less knowledgeable motorists into paying their demands. They waste people's and the court system time in their quest for income.

RavingMad

Totally get the fair hearing bit but there is a thread on here where they haven't paid essentially.  I don't see how a fair hearing let's them off?  That's not an argument in mostly any other situation, like not paying for shopping (sorry for the extreme comparison there).  I didn't post on that thread as I didn't want to scare the poor soul.

Half_way

I can not see any reason as to why they can not offer contactless payment methods as an option.

Cash boxes need to be emptied, plus are a target for thieves, almost everyone will have a card capable of contactless payments, and a lot of people will have a phone capable of google/apple pay .

 The various parking apps add a level of complexity and additional costs that are not consumer friendly, but have plenty of methods to increase revenue - from paid text reminders, data harvesting and making sign up and registration a protracted process that can be prone to errors, which private companies seem to revel in. the BBC article sows a location code of 9462 on some poxy parking app, that could easily be typed in as 9642.

 Swap that out for contactless, add parking time, tap to pay, get ticket, display ticket and you cut out the middle man (app) cut the chances for an error and the tickets themselves can ( and in some cases do) carry adverts for local businesses

RavingMad

prowla said:

RavingMad said:

prowla said:

Some streets in Reading are being shifted to RingGo only.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3qg3w5p3ko

I don't have, nor want, that app.

But then you can't park anywhere that only accepts RingGo. What do you have against using the app? 

It's a faff.

The first time I found myself in a car park which wanted it I had to download it and then it wouldn't connect, and so-on, so I went and found a multi-storey instead.

I was out yesterday and found myself in a car park which wanted it; I'd changed phone, so it wasn't installed, so I went elsewhere.

Now, you might say i should be prepared and all that, but there's always going to be some sort of gotcha.

What if my phone runs out of charge?

Do I then want them to store my payment details?

They seem to be angling towards keeping funds in a "wallet".

I'm guilty of liking the digital wallet.  I no longer carry an actual wallet on most days which means no chance of losing it etc 

I like apps as I can extend the duration if needed and remembered.

I've fallen foul of paying for the wrong car on an app (I have both mine and wife's car details stored) and had to pay twice.

RavingMad

Half_way said:

I can not see any reason as to why they can not offer contactless payment methods as an option.

Cash boxes need to be emptied, plus are a target for thieves, almost everyone will have a card capable of contactless payments, and a lot of people will have a phone capable of google/apple pay .

 The various parking apps add a level of complexity and additional costs that are not consumer friendly, but have plenty of methods to increase revenue - from paid text reminders, data harvesting and making sign up and registration a protracted process that can be prone to errors, which private companies seem to revel in. the BBC article sows a location code of 9462 on some poxy parking app, that could easily be typed in as 9642.

 Swap that out for contactless, add parking time, tap to pay, get ticket, display ticket and you cut out the middle man (app) cut the chances for an error and the tickets themselves can ( and in some cases do) carry adverts for local businesses

Exactly this. But I guess there's a cost for this setup, but could be recouped by advertisement 

alanjuk

Another car park that has recently changed and appears to have purposely made it confusing to make the correct payment.
https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news/stoke-on-trent-news/couple-boycott-lymelight-boulevard-car-10120581

prowla

RavingMad said:

prowla said:

RavingMad said:

prowla said:

Some streets in Reading are being shifted to RingGo only.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3qg3w5p3ko

I don't have, nor want, that app.

But then you can't park anywhere that only accepts RingGo. What do you have against using the app? 

It's a faff.

The first time I found myself in a car park which wanted it I had to download it and then it wouldn't connect, and so-on, so I went and found a multi-storey instead.

I was out yesterday and found myself in a car park which wanted it; I'd changed phone, so it wasn't installed, so I went elsewhere.

Now, you might say i should be prepared and all that, but there's always going to be some sort of gotcha.

What if my phone runs out of charge?

Do I then want them to store my payment details?

They seem to be angling towards keeping funds in a "wallet".

I'm guilty of liking the digital wallet.  I no longer carry an actual wallet on most days which means no chance of losing it etc 

I like apps as I can extend the duration if needed and remembered.

I've fallen foul of paying for the wrong car on an app (I have both mine and wife's car details stored) and had to pay twice.

There are definitely pros and cons.

• The ability to extend is a plus. There's a thread in the forum where someone extended a payment (don't think it was via RingGo) but the PPC is trying it on because it wasn't a single payment, so if RingGo implicitly allows that then it eliminates one of their sneaky gotchas.
• OTOH, accidentally paying for the wrong car is a potential minus (I have three cars, so mistakenly choosing the wrong one at some point would probably be inevitable).