Tweet
Hi!
I've never looked for this (very useful!) sort of site before...until today, when I received a PCN from Smart Parking Ltd (smartparking.com) regarding a visit a driver of one of my cars made to one of their car parks in Inverness on 19th December 2015.
First of all - "If payment of £60.00 is not received within 14 days of the date of this notice the discount period expires leaving £100.00 to be paid." The date of notice is 25/12/2015, so they calculate this as 07/01/2016. Of course, they have NOT given me 14 days, as the notice only just arrived.
The facts; the driver parked in their car park on the evening of 19th December, to meet my son coming from a coach. We have visited this car park many times before with no problems. If the driver was going to stay a while, the driver would buy a ticket. If the driver was just picking up or dropping off my son, they wouldn't. This particular evening, with adjacent shops closed (20:25:42 to 20:47:59, they state, with pictures), the driver arrived a little early and just stayed with the car, engine running, waiting for my son. The driver never noticed anything unusual or different about the car park.
It's only after receiving the PCN today, and while dropping off my son (I parked in a different car park today!) that I noticed, on walking to the car park, it has been taken over by Smart Parking and there is a totally new machine into which you have to enter your reg. The last time I'd used the car park it was like any other car park where you just pop in the appropriate amount of money for the time you wish to stay - and you get a ticket.
On the evening of 19th December, there seemed nothing different - no clearly visible new signs and although the driver drove past the new machine and sign, they are a little way off to the left while driving round the car park and the driver didn't notice anything new.
I've attached a pic of the notice next to the new machine - as you can see, it's only 50p per hour which, IIRC, is actually *LESS* than it used to cost! If the driver had seen the notice, then it's a no-brainer to pay the charge.
So - what do you reckon is my best course of action? At first, I thought "it's a fair cop, guv", but the more I think about it, the more it seems like purely a way to scam motorists into paying a totally disproportionate charge - especially when stores are shut, so there's no way anyone could be making money from the car park (apart from Smart Parking, of course...).
Cheers and TIA
I've never looked for this (very useful!) sort of site before...until today, when I received a PCN from Smart Parking Ltd (smartparking.com) regarding a visit a driver of one of my cars made to one of their car parks in Inverness on 19th December 2015.
First of all - "If payment of £60.00 is not received within 14 days of the date of this notice the discount period expires leaving £100.00 to be paid." The date of notice is 25/12/2015, so they calculate this as 07/01/2016. Of course, they have NOT given me 14 days, as the notice only just arrived.
The facts; the driver parked in their car park on the evening of 19th December, to meet my son coming from a coach. We have visited this car park many times before with no problems. If the driver was going to stay a while, the driver would buy a ticket. If the driver was just picking up or dropping off my son, they wouldn't. This particular evening, with adjacent shops closed (20:25:42 to 20:47:59, they state, with pictures), the driver arrived a little early and just stayed with the car, engine running, waiting for my son. The driver never noticed anything unusual or different about the car park.
It's only after receiving the PCN today, and while dropping off my son (I parked in a different car park today!) that I noticed, on walking to the car park, it has been taken over by Smart Parking and there is a totally new machine into which you have to enter your reg. The last time I'd used the car park it was like any other car park where you just pop in the appropriate amount of money for the time you wish to stay - and you get a ticket.
On the evening of 19th December, there seemed nothing different - no clearly visible new signs and although the driver drove past the new machine and sign, they are a little way off to the left while driving round the car park and the driver didn't notice anything new.
I've attached a pic of the notice next to the new machine - as you can see, it's only 50p per hour which, IIRC, is actually *LESS* than it used to cost! If the driver had seen the notice, then it's a no-brainer to pay the charge.
So - what do you reckon is my best course of action? At first, I thought "it's a fair cop, guv", but the more I think about it, the more it seems like purely a way to scam motorists into paying a totally disproportionate charge - especially when stores are shut, so there's no way anyone could be making money from the car park (apart from Smart Parking, of course...).
Cheers and TIA
Attached Files
Comment