AIBU to appeal a private car park fine for leaving site?

There's a retail park near us where they have a number of big shops - including furniture, white goods and other 'big ticket' purchases that most people take their time deciding and for which they may need to arrange finance in-store.

They have a 2-hour limit - but only visible in very tiny letters on a couple of high up signs. A family member got caught out by this and fined - even though he had spent the whole time parked there in the shops (indeed you'd have no need or desire whatsoever to ever park there for any other purpose).

Maybe this is just shops' way of telling us that they do not want our custom - that they are desperate to close down and see everybody just go online to buy everything instead. They might be chuckling with glee over getting a one-time fine, but if people then refuse to ever come back and use those shops again... it's not the wisest long-term business decision.

Even if people do return - this time fully aware of the trap - imagine working hard to close the deal on a three-piece suite, a dining table, 6 chairs and a couple of beds, and then the customer abandoning the whole purchase just before completion as they have to leave the car park. Madness.

There's a case study on Euro Parking Services website regarding this specific car park. The explicit reason the parking enforcement was set up at this site, was because 40% of people parking there weren't using the shops it served, but parking and going elsewhere. That makes it sound very much like it will be very difficult to appeal it.

Is there a public toilet nearby? If so, say you were going there.

Don't pay. Make them earn the money by taking you to court. Most will cave before the court date but even if they don't, it will cost them far more than £60 to send someone and they cannot claim back their costs in the small claims court.

Yet it is frequently the exact excuse that companies and councils give when trying to justify rinsing you for £100 for something that had no effect on them or anybody else and which they wouldn't even have been aware of if there hadn't been a camera there.

The sign does say, 'Patrons Parking whilst on the premises Only' which is pretty clear that you can't park and leave the premises. I would try the shop say you had to use the ATM in order to do your shopping, say the same if you appeal. It does seem a bit unreasonable, but they may have people buying a packet of crisps and staying three hours in the car park to do the rest of their shopping elsewhere.

Approach the store first, they can often get them written off, Lidl here does it often when people overstay by the few minutes (usually due to the electric chargers) if no luck you can contest on the grounds that you were a customer and the extra minutes spent there had no economic impact on the store, likely to be thrown out because they wouldn’t want to spend money fighting it

I don’t know what the norm is but there is one near me that is very clear that it’s not enough to just use the shops that are there, you must stay on the premises the entire time. It’s a free car park in the town centre so I guess they don’t want people parking there, buying one small thing, then buggering off into town.

This happened to me recently. I apparently overstayed, but I was in the shop for 4/5 of the time (and having a whale of a time as it was a discount store). They said I could park for 3 hours max and I think I may have been there for 2, and I went to a nearby shop off the premise but had a toddler with me who slowed me down both popping out for 15 mins and in store.

These places complain that nobody visits anymore or the high street is dead, but if a car is the best way to travel there with family and there arnt any appropriate car parks, why bother going? I used to go to this highstreet all the time, but the increased roadworks (which double my bus travel time) and poor train connections, and removal of free parking for customers has meant I only go if I’ve ran out of options or I’m there for another reason. I prefer to take a short train trip or bus ride to a centre nearby.

The shops along that car park I was at have all closed down, leaving only 1 store out of 4 left, and they are a stone throw from the main centre and if you need to take out cash or something.

Businesses are killing themselves by driving away customers, giving away their parking land to ruthless private owners.

I did appeal, and I did win because they had an objection for genuine customers, which I could prove with a receipt. If I had lost I don’t think I would return. And the store I went to is constantly in local news for having closing down sales… so soon they will have a car park with no shop attached to it. Seems like that’s what they want.

Besides,
The whole carpark was empty at that time and I didn't stop any other shoppers from not being able to park there.

This is irrelevant.

I would ask Farmfoods if they can do anything first. Some managers will cancel fines and some will have nothing to do with the car park. You lose nothing in asking or appealing.

Do their terms and conditions say that you can't go into other shops at all during your stay? Normally they say you must be a customer of that particular shop, cinema etc but it doesn't preclude you from going elsewhere as long as you adhere to the overall time conditions.

In that case, I don’t think a receipt from the shop will help you unfortunately.

I always think it's interesting how, if some random parked on your own private drive and left it there for months, you legally can't do a single thing about it... yet if you overstay your time by a few minutes in a shop, public or council car park, or your ticket blows off the dashboard when you close the door, or maybe you were being cheeky and parking there for a few minutes when you shouldn't have, they come at you for a huge amount, with the full force of the law and threaten court and bailiffs etc.

Never even for the actual stated cost of the parking that you should have paid, or maybe double or triple to take account of your error and their admin time (although likely all triggered automatically)... but tens or even hundreds of pounds?! You'd think that they would be deeply embarrassed to pursue you for £100 for parking in the corner of a deserted car park for an hour, but they have no shame whatsoever.

I thought there was a law that stipulated that fines and penalties have to be proportionate to the actual loss that they suffered as a result of your actions; but I must have been very mistaken.

This is why you should always insist on a receipt, even if you've only bought a pint of milk. It's all well and good to save wasting paper and help the environment; but when we live in a world of corporations and councils who frequently build their business models around catching you out, you have to do whatever you can to protect yourself.

A lot of modern life just leaves me so cynical and cold, when businesses and authorities work (effectively imho) conning people and taking advantage of confusion into their profit predictions.

i get that there needs to be a mechanism to stop and punish wilful offenders; but - even as we've seen on this thread and countless others - they know that they can bully and gaslight people, obstinately send them around in circles and wear them down to the point that they just pay up rather than persist in fighting it. They clearly don't care about honour, integrity, goodwill or even returning custom - gerting as much money as they possibly can is their only driving force.

It makes me think of the credit card providers who send patronising letters to tell people off when they incur fines for late payment or going a little over the limit, as if they don't want to profit from your disorganisation or other issues, when in fact you're their ideal customer! Same with the gambling companies who keep pretending that they actively do not want the problem gamblers who make them so much of their profit! At least the tobacco companies are honest about it - that their profit is infinitely more important to them than your life - and don't pretend that they want you to stop!

Why don't you just park in accordance with the rules, seems like a waste of life to be spend time on court appearances for something unavoidable

Before you pay, check out the advice on Martin's MSE. There's also a FB group where a guy called Tony appeals them on your behalf for about a tenner. He has a phenomenal success rate

If this is the one in a west used town that’s also for a farm foods and had this problem our MP got them to cancel all the tickets and change the t and c’s!