Ticketing method I've not seen before

going2bits

Hello,

I've received a parking charge from BaySentry for an infringement when parked in a car park in Perivale, West London.

No ticket was required printed on our arrival. When we returned I went to pay at the machine. This  required me to input the car reg number, but the machine couldn't find the car. Therefore it was left for me to estimate my stay and I paid what i thought was the duration.

They now have sent the details with ANPR pics of the car/time in and out which obviously differs and has apparently triggered a fine.

My issues are;

1/ The machine not finding my car is a fault in their systems

2/ Is this legit that the machine would allow me to input my stay duration. Should it not calculate this for me and tell me what i need to pay?

3/ I cannot decipher from the issued charge ticket if I have failed to pay (i.e. my payment remained unallocated as it couldn't find the car) or I didn't pay for the full duration?

Can i dispute this and on what grounds?

Thanks
SK

Gr1pr

BAY Sentry,  private parking company,  IPC AOS members,  in an unregulated industry,  cowboy country , it's an invoice,  not a fine 

We would need to see pictures of the signage on that private property and redacted pictures of both sides of the NTK PCN letter,  leaving dates and times etc showing 

It would also be helpful to mention how much was paid and how long was paid for 

Whilst any private pcn can be disputed, ultimately it's up to a judge in civil court to decide the outcome based on the facts presented to the court.   ( if it gets that far   )

Nobody likes the current unregulated system,  apart from those who profit from it

Please read the 5th post and then the 1st post in the newbies sticky thread in announcements near the top of the forum by coupon mad for current advice 

Kaizen2024

This is one of the potential issues with Pay on Exit (that many regulars on here desire).

If the plate is not found at the time of payment (be it due to a temp network issue or the user entering the incorrect Reg), the user has to guess their time of arrival; which may not be correct. 

Better to pay on arrival so no guesswork required, other than when think you may leave; which is easy to stick to or top-up.

Nellymoser

Kaizen2024 said:

This is one of the potential issues with Pay on Exit (that many regulars on here desire).
If the plate is not found at the time of payment (be it due to a temp network issue or the user entering the incorrect Reg), the user has to guess their time of arrival; which may not be correct. 

Better to pay on arrival so no guesswork required, other than when think you may leave; which is easy to stick to or top-up.

O come on 'the temp network issue' has been proven to occur when paying on arrival too as has operators payment machines creating and printing reg characters the motorist didn't input. The fact you are unaware of this OR refuse to acknowledge it is extremely concerning.

Car1980

If the plate is not found at the time of payment (be it due to a temp network issue or the user entering the incorrect Reg), the user has to guess their time of arrival; which may not be correct. 

Better to pay on arrival so no guesswork required, other than when think you may leave; which is easy to stick to or top-up.

Interestingly, this exactly how Parkmaven operate some of their car parks.

Pay on exit via the app is the ONLY option, and you have to narrow down the time of entry (which could be many hours prior) to a 15 minute slot on the fruit machine wheel on the phone.

No link to ANPR, so an easy trap.

Half_way

Kaizen2024 said:

This is one of the potential issues with Pay on Exit (that many regulars on here desire).

If the plate is not found at the time of payment (be it due to a temp network issue or the user entering the incorrect Reg), the user has to guess their time of arrival; which may not be correct. 

Better to pay on arrival so no guesswork required, other than when think you may leave; which is easy to stick to or top-up.

Pay on exit is simple, ive used pay on exit car parks recently and had no issue, they have all worked as follows

Step 1 arrive at car park, take ticket barrier opens
step 2, park
step 3 return to car park, pay at pay machine inserting or scanning ticket, then making payment
step 4 leave and put ticket in barrier, barrier goes up, leave car park, keep ticket as receipt.

no hassle, no try ng to remember reg plates, trying to type them in correctly or trying to remember entry times, and the pay machines accept contactless so no fumbling for change or trying to register for some crappy app that takes forever and a day

kryten3000

Kaizen2024 said:

This is one of the potential issues with Pay on Exit (that many regulars on here desire).

If the plate is not found at the time of payment (be it due to a temp network issue or the user entering the incorrect Reg), the user has to guess their time of arrival; which may not be correct. 

Or most often because the payment terminal and cameras aren't linked up and because the cameras record the time of entry/exit not the actual period parked.  

Then there's the machines that default to the minimum tariff and make it non-obvious how to increase the amount to match the length of stay.

When you stop blaming the motorist for every little failing, we might stop blaming the industry for perpetuating the outrageous scam.  

Coupon-mad

Kaizen2024 said:

This is one of the potential issues with Pay on Exit (that many regulars on here desire).

No we don't. I've never said that.

LoneStarState

Kaizen2024 said:

This is one of the potential issues with Pay on Exit (that many regulars on here desire).

If the plate is not found at the time of payment (be it due to a temp network issue or the user entering the incorrect Reg), the user has to guess their time of arrival; which may not be correct. 

Better to pay on arrival so no guesswork required, other than when think you may leave; which is easy to stick to or top-up.

My local council has a pay on exit only system with ANPR to determine tariff owed (not allowed for enforcement of course).  Sometimes as I'm sure you are aware, ANPR misreads/cannot read a plate, and/or a system issue means the tariff owed is not known by the system on exit.  Motorists then are asked to estimate their time. The council mitigate potential misestimations of time that lead to shortfall of the actual tariff owed (accidental or deliberate) by setting a tariff schedule that starts off fairly high for short stays and only increments by small amounts for subsequent longer stay periods.

In any case, such "network issues" would be logged and accordingly the system know that there was an issue because the system accepted a tariff for a VRM that subsequently did not match the ANPR time record.  Or of course, a competently trained human would note the system issue and not allow a PNC to be issued in such an instance.  If something is to be issued, it should either be a warning notice, or a polite request for the correct tariff to be paid and nothing more. No money/consumer benefit in that though.

As private operators base their model purely on charge revenue I guess they'd have no interest in such an implementation or just accepting misreads/other system failures should be an expected operational cost of business and should not be recouped from motorists.  If a subsequent code banned that, imagine the pace at which industry standards would actually be driven up.

Do you mean pay on arrival car parks with hidden ANPR where the machines are not synced with the ANPR system and motorists are under the false belief their parking period started at the time they pushed the button for a ticket/started a session on pay by phone/app?  A highly robust system where no motorist has ever received a spurious PCN.

The excuses are just so odd. Working in a highly regulated industry where error prevention for the user is a core tenet of how we operate when we develop a product it just genuinely boggles my mind how your industry behaves.  Maybe you can be the driver of change (long overdue) and start encouraging and implementing the poka-yoke (term of Japanese origin - genuinely worth looking up) concept in the industry.