For years I've parked at Lidl in Uttoxeter. I've done my shopping in town and returned to shop in Lidl; fair enough I have used their car park. This morning I returned to find a £90 parking ticket issued by UKPC issued the minute I left Lidl's car park.
There is a sign which says in BIG letters that parking is restricted to
2 hours and below this, in much smaller letters, that you must not leave the site. It appears they employ somebody to watch you leave and issue a ticket (but not to warn you that you're in danger of a ticket). They don't care if you shop at Lidl or not.
From now on I won't be shopping at Lidl or anywhere else that employs UKPC.
Another Dave wibbled on Thursday 15 July 2010 12:02
Stupid way to do it IMO.
The "right" way is to have a Pay and Display machine and refund the cost of the ticket if you buy more than £5, £10, whatever's worth of shopping in Lidl (they make tickets with tear off stubs for this, used in Sainsburies' car park in Tonbridge).
I often do something like you - stupid to keep moving the car contributing to town congestion.
So ignore it, and when (if) they write to the registered keeper of the car, point out that they have written to the registered keeper, and suggest they might want to persue the driver of the vehicle at the time (Which you don't have to tell them who was)
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Another Dave saying something like:
Fuck'em, they're a bunch of robbing bastards who just love to shaft people. I was watching 'V' last night - some good stuff in that. If enough people complain about it, Lidl might do something - pissing off their customers isn't a good move.
The right way to do it is either not to charge at all, unless you exceed say 5 hours, or have a barrier and charge unless you can show aq vlid invoice for goods ijn excess of some serious money.
Waitrose does both: They do not mind being used as a town center car park provided you still do the weekly shopping there.
Its only whne you hand parking over to a company that has to make a profit out of it that you start getting jobsworths whose jobs depend on issuing lots of swingeing fines, that people get pissed off with the whole affair.
There are whole towns run like that that I simply don't go to any more.
Whilst I can't agree with Lidl's use of UKPC, I hardly think you've got any right to feel aggrieved about it. By your own admission you've been doing this and getting away with it for years and yet now you've been caught you're whingeing about it on here??
There's a retail park around here that's always difficult to find a parking space on - no wonder if the car park is full of cars belonging to tossers like you who are somewhere else. This is exactly WHY retail parks are introducing these schemes.
Common courtesy and consideration for others obviously mean nothing to you do they? Just why, exactly, do you think it's acceptable to park up in one shopping place and then go do your shopping elsewhere?
Exactly the same scam is operating in the local retail park. First exposed in the local rag when a pensioner left the car park to use the public toilets opposite (no toilets on retail park).
He was shopping in the B&Q and had the till reciepts. Made page 2 with pictures of him outside B&Q. Ticket cancelled.
Local Wickes has a similar thing, maximum 1 hour stay. I went in to price up some stuff, then had a bacon roll at the stall in the car park & made a few calls, so I overstayed the hour.
Wrote to Wickes & the parking company on two fronts; reminding Wickes of the £5K I spent with them last year and also claiming that under The Unfair Contract Terms Act fines or charges cannot be punative, but must reflect any loss suffered. I said that if they could prove Wickes lost £90 because I was in a space for over an hour I would pay up, or they could take me to court.
Surprise surprise the both fell over & appologised.
Setting aside that you did break the rules, ignore the 'ticket'. Do not enter any communication with them at all. They will write to you several times over a period of months making threats about legal action but ultimately nothing will come of it.
I have today heard from Control Account plc acting on behalf of Euro Car Parks who claimed that I parked in a car park I don't even know the location of more than100 miles from where I live last November. In December, when they first wrote to me, they wanted £50. In March, in a notice before action, they wanted £79.38. Now they will settle for £50 to avoid the initial expense of litigation. In my case they've made a mistake but if you keep your nerve you'll be OK.
I hate those pay and displays. Firstly I've frequently not got any change in my pocket - if I do, it gets used up in the drinks machine at work or dropped into the charity box next to it (and I can't keep change in the car, 'cos with young kids, they always "find" it!) Secondly, I always forget to claim the parking back when I pay for my shopping and with three kids fussing around, I'm not going back to customer services to do it!
Why does everywhere expect you to have change on you? Quite often in large amounts - one car park I decided not to use charged £9 and only took coins.
Our local hospital has just declared (finally) that it will stop charging for parking in September - just what idiot decided to charge for parking at a hospital with A&E and a maternity unit? Who's in any condition to find money under those circumstances? A friend of mine was told hard luck and he may get clamped when he drove there with two broken fingers when his only change was in a tight jeans pocket on the side with the broken fingers! I could understand if it was in a town centre and people might park there all day while they work, but there is nothing else around to park there for - and the council kindly made the parking on the road outside 30 minutes only.
A hospital in NZ has a chapel on the grounds. A parking warden tried to wheel clamp a hearse parked outside the chapel. The funeral was for a gang member, and all his scary friends forcibly restrained the warden from clamping.
Yes, a mutually beneficial arrangement under a different set of terms.
There's absolutely zero probability of that.
Why and there was I thinking the car park operator had been offered a cut of the proceeds. I must be stupid.
All the major supermarkets around here (We've all except Waitrose) within 3 Km plus the White Rose shopping centre offer free uncontrolled parking and have done so for years, and I certainly owe no duty of consideration to Reggie Kray (Successors Ltd) trading as Shyster, Flywheel and Shyster car parking controls.
They offer car parking, I gratefully accept. The establishments "Elsewhere"might well recprocate by offering parking of their own.
Should they so choose It would be perfectly easy for them to make a 2 quid (say) charge and offer a refund at the till against a £5.00 (or whatever) purchase. Many do.
Are you trying to tell us you move the car to a new parking space every time you go from the supermarket to the bank, to the post office, building society etc ?
Whatever, there is no legal basis for imposing a £90.00 charge. In England a private company cannot impose penalties of their own (whatever next?), they can only make a charge for carrying out a service they deliver under a freely negotiated contract, but no such contract exists. A contract is not established merely by one party sticking a notice up on a lamp post..
Indeed if he has been parking there for years there would be an argument to say that the operative set of rules are those established by custom and practice over many years. IE free unmetered parking.
If Lidll have a problem with lack of space in their car park the thing to do is to reduce the parking time from 2hrs to something less than one hour. How long does it take to shop in Lidls ? half an hour is probably enough, add another say 15 mins for the slow coaches, surely that's the sensible approach. Don
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