My missus overstayed in a free M&S car park by 10 minutes.
She received a charge of £100.00 in the post, reduced to 70 for immediate payment.
Friends said ignore it and they will give up in the end.
We kept ignoring it but we received a court form this week for £276.00. We paid up.
Im not sure what the moral of this story is but be aware, they dont always give up.
I had similar last year, mine was £100 or pay up within 14 days it’s £60.
Traced the company down who operated the parking control to make sure they were operating within the regs with signage etc, they were. There’s loads of stuff on the internet saying don’t pay, go to court etc etc. On my particular parking charge there was also local councillors getting involved and media to try and prevent these companies from taking money like this from this particular site.
Anyways I contacted the company owning the land the retail park was built on ti get the charge cancelled, didn’t have any reply.
In the end my wife just said pay the £60 and be done with it, if you won’t I will she told me. So I gave in and paid up.
I’d overstayed 12 minutes but some of that time I’d spent trying to get out of the retail park due to failed traffic lights due to roadworks happening in the area. That was my case to appeal, they snapped me leaving and sent me the proof with date/times etc.
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The “offence” was in Exeter and the court was in Northampton.
Excellent way to discourage you from going to court…
Good point about the queue to get out of the car park l
Theres always a queue to get out of this one, so you think you got back to your car in time but no, the queue means you get snapped as overstaying.
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If the original charge had been proportionate, we would have paid but it works out at £600 per hour, so we decided against.
What we ended up paying was £1638 per hour though.
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Queues to get through the checkouts take ages at the moment too, so worth taking your M&S receipt to M&S customer services to see if they can get it cancelled. Works at some Waitrose stores.
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The company who controlled parking in the Chesterfield retail park where based in Leeds. The company who manage the land for the retail park were based in Staffordshire if I remember correctly. There was also a London based company involved. So none of it was actually owned or run from within Derbyshire or by Derbyshire County council. As with most of these sites they are operated for and behalf of outside the city/town they are located.
You can find some info on the internet about parking charges and battles with the operators of such sites but the council it seems let it happen.
Since this incident I have parked in a multi storey car park in the town and paid my parking charge (by card) when leaving but it’s not very MX-5 (lowered) friendly so have to park elsewhere that is pre pay that I can get in and out of ok.
I’ve also not been to Chesterfield that often since, paying a £60 fine has put me off shopping there as often, their loss I spend my money elsewhere.
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These days I pay by Ringo or whatever, whete possible.
No, none of these ticket machines are ever convenient or ergonomic to access from a drivers seat.
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When I had my Caterham 7 I never had a front number plate so cameras aimed at the front end had no chance. It was low enough to drive under the barrier of most car parks too.
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My wife picked up an overstay fine at our local Asda 5 weeks ago. The car park has camera’s on the way in and out with a private company monitoring the car park. Unfortunately she went over to the Boots pharmacy leaving her car at Asda and went over the free parking by about 30 minutes.
We visited the help desk at Asda, produced the receipt for the day and got the charge cancelled.
The week before Christmas she went over the 2hr free parking again this time by 10 or 12 minutes! This time it was the Christmas checkout queue’s to blame.
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Unfortunately, this was a retail park. If it had been just M&S, we would have tried that
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We had an overstay fine at a Tesco car park. We were getting a new phone which entailed a very long wait getting the phone data transferred etc. This took us well over the time limit for the car park. We had informed the salesman that we were approaching the time limit and he told us not to worry about it. A couple of weeks later we got notification of a fine through the post. We went back to Tesco’s Customer Service desk, with our receipt for the phone and the fine notification. They called the store manager who discussed it with us and took note of the fine notification reference number. A few days later we got a letter stating that the fine had been cancelled.
On this type of car park you cannot use a meter to increase your length of stay so
if you have genuine reason for having overstayed it is well worth informing the manager of the store of the issue that made you late and caused you to get a fine notification.
A fortnight ago my son (during the very cold snap) was on his way west bound across the Pennines to collect his young daughter for the weekend. His car’s electrics died on the way. He managed to limp it to a nearby McDonald’s. He went inside and bought a coffee while he phoned the breakdown company. He told them that the car would probably need recovery due to failed electrics. They said they were very busy…but would get him recovered asap. My son then explained to the McD’s manager that his car was immobile and might be there for some time. They took a note of his car number plate in case of any “overstay” charges. After a couple of hours the breakdown company sent out a “technician” who told my son what he had told them - his electrics had failed. Four hours later they sent out another “technician” who also told him the same thing. Both said that they didn’t have the means to recover his car and had no idea when a recovery vehicle would arrive. He rang here again to say that he was waiting back with his car, freezing cold, his phone battery was almost gone - and he couldn’t recharge it. At nearly six pm I decided I’d better drive up to him because I was concerned about his well being. As I arrived another manager from McD’s (by then there’d been a shift change) came over and asked why the car was still there. We explained and she again then took the car’s reg number.
So far so good, no overstay ticket so well done and 10/10 for the very helpful McDonald’s staff.
1/10 for the breakdown company - seven hours to turn up with a recovery truck isn’t really acceptable!
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As the defendant you can get it changed to a location that’s convenient for you.
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Remember too that overstaying your limit in a privately owned car park is not a criminal offence and a reference to ‘fine’ is technically incorrect . It doesn’t mean you won’t have to pay it , but its ‘enforcement’ is a civil claim only .
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It is because Northampton has the data processing ability. Most CCJ issues of this type are issued from Northampton.
The moral of the story though, is don’t do nothing. It is people’s job to collect debts, they don’t get bored and give up.
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If you were in a pay and display car park you would make sure you were back in time so in a free shop car park you shouldn’t overstay either. Probably better to buy a watch and note the time you got there. All parks have cameras now.
I suppose you would complain if you got done for speeding or being caught being on your phone while driving that would be someone else’s fault too.
Happy New Year.
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Happy New Year!
I am so sorry to hear of these totally out of proportion, sledgehammer to crack a nut enforcements, I really am.
Very pleased to be rigidly stuck in South Devon and unlikely to be a victim; do not think I could cope with the unfairness of it.
The problem is detachment where commercial companies run the car park facilities and treat minor infringements as an opportunity to enforce draconian rules to financially capitalise.
I would have hoped that a spirited defence would have yielded a reasonable compromise; it seems not. Looking forward to New Year updates where others have had some success.
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A friend of mine got done in Exeter for not having a ticket at let’s say 3pm, hers was bought at 3:05 after parking and walking to machine to buy one. They said she’d been there with no ticket for 5mins as camera on way in!!!
I guess that one was impossible not to get caught at.
Wow, there’s often a queue at these machines, not least because someone is having trouble working out how to use it.
Also, it’s pretty normal to wait for someone else to load their shopping/kids, ao you can then take their space.
This is really sinister.
Anyways if any members are visiting Chesterfield, Derbyshire and park in the Ravenside retail park (re my fine above) just remember…
They have cameras filming you in/out, obviously they are timing you. You have 3 hours free parking, no tickets required.
Two important conditions also to note and its noted on the signage, well one of them is…
You cannot leave the site on foot, you must remain within the retail park, obviously filming any movement on this too. A good deal of shoppers park there and cross the road into the town to shop, if you get caught on camera doing this they send you a parking fee to pay, £60 if you stump up within 14 days.
Also not mentioned and a few have been caught out, there’s a KFC or Costa maybe, well a fast food outlet as you drive in, their small section of car park isn’t park of the main retail car park although it can be mistaken for as being part of the whole retail parks parking.
So why mention this, well if you pop over for a coffee or something to eat its classed as leaving the retail park:-1:
if caught they send you a parking ticket.
Now this last bit is very underhanded, especially if you don’t know the area.
I suggest parking elsewhere if you intend shopping in the town as well as the retail park or just move your car once done in the retail park.