BOYCOTTING SAINSBURYS-Unfair parking ticket and shoddy customer services from Sainsburys- store manager.

[Lipstickgal]

i am feeling so angry. I will explain this as briefly as possible.
We have restrictions in our Sainsburys car park which is that you are allowed to park for two hours and not return within two hours. Fine.
I do my shop on Thurs, arrive just before 10am and leave 11am. I have my receipt to substantiate this.
I then drive to another supermarket of which I also have a receipt that shows I left there at 11.30am.
I go home, unpack and collect my son from Grammar sch at 1.15pm. It is a 20 min drive away. He then asks if he can pop in to get some stationary bits so I return to the carpark around 2pm after popping home.
Later I find I have been given ticket saying I have parked from 10.15 until 2.10.
Clearly this is not the case so I took myself down to Sainburys with the receipts and explained that I could collaborate my whereabouts and was out of the carpark longer than 2 hours. I am asked by the duty manager to return on Monday as he can't cancel the ticket but the store manager can at his discretion. So back I go this morning only to experience the worst customer service ever.
I was basically made to feel like a liar because he questioned my whereabouts for 10 mins, in an itinerary fashion, and then told me he didn't have the authority to overturn this ticket. He was surly and obnoxious. I rang customer careline when I got home to log a complaint and they told me that he could have recinded this ticket as it was indeed at his discretion. I am not a liar and feel very strongly about how I was mistreated. I said they should look on their CCTV if they wanted to see exactly when I came and left and they would find it to be as I said. I said if the matter wasn't resolved I and my immmediate family would never shop there again. At this point he turned and said that that was up to me!
The liar in this case was the Store Manager.
The person I spoke on the phone asked me what I wanted and I said an apology and the ticket recinded. She then said that 'I have apologised'! I was so shocked I just told her that I would be putting all my concerns in writing and took her name. They don't like that do they?She asked me why I wanted her name and I then had to explain that I still wasn't satisfied with the level of customer care etc. We spend about £6,000 a year in this shop.
WIBU in never shopping at Sainsburys again? I actually feel intimidated because this store manager made a real scene of the situation and belittled me. Anyone else experienced anything like this?

You're obviously very proud and happy about the grammar school, and that's sweet.

I hope you manage to sort the fine out - as I say, I got mine sorted with minimum fuss, so hopefully you won't have to go as far as letters to the paper and so on. Good luck!

Thank -you Malcontent. Great nickname by the way.

All these people who never shop somewhere again - I'm guessing that's a pretty standard response once you get one of these tickets. That being, do you think it's ever worth it for these companies to hire a set of cowboys parking firm?

What a palarva. I hope you do write and also claim back all the extra expensies you've incurred, back and forwards to the shop, your time and energy and writing the letter.

Sounds like they need to get their heads out of their arses to me and get a life! Bloody hell wish supermarkets were so strict on all the nob heads who park in disabled bays without a badge!

What I mean is, do these companies not realise the business they are losing? I just tend not to go to places with these stupid signs up in the first place - I can't be the only one.

Well the companies don't get anything out of it as (as far as I know) they don't get any of the revenue from the cowboy bastards parking gestapo.

The main argument I'm going to go with fighting mine is that the fine is disproportionate to the loss: there's no charge to park there initially so the loss to the company is zero. If the charge was £1.20 for 2 hours it could be argued that was their loss. £50 is somewhat OTT however (£100 as not paid in the first 21 days or whatever their time-frame)

the business get a cut of the fines

NO you can't be musicposy. I know that last year when I went on my shopping spree I spent quite a bit of money and we had a lovely lunchtime/afternoon out including a meal. It would be impossible to do that within the timescale allowed onthe retail park now.

I know some of the shops are annoyed (in that case the parking eye is employed by the retail park owner not the shops themselves.

Ah .......which may go some way in explaining the weird response I had today wakeupandsmellthecoffee. ....

I jsut imagines myself in court (not that this would have happened . ) and the parking company trying to explain to the judge the size of the fine for 2cm over the white line with no other car either side in the photo . lol

Write to Watchdog. They did an article on this ages ago but it's obv still a very big and misleading problem.

Good luck and I hope Sainsburys graciously back down and apologise profusely.

Oh, and for the couple of folks who felt the petty need to comment on the fact that you had mentioned that you picked your DS up from grammar school - grow up. It's pathetic how you pick up on points just for the sheer hell of stirring debate. I'm fairly new to MN but I'm sometimes frankly shocked at how bitchy it can be. On the flip side, I've read some great, supportive and helpful posts, so not all bad eggs.

I parked in Tescos and got a ticket.

They had just introduced a new sensor thingy and they said I had been there for over two hours.

I hadnt. I couldnt have been because I had been at my cleaning job at the time.

So I complained. The security guy said it was impossible for there to be any mistake. He wouldnt have it.

I repeated the day I had been ticketed. A very dim lightbulb appeared to go off above his head and he said he would 'let me off just this once'
Wanker, he had obviously remembered the bloody sensors had been faulty on that day but didnt want to back down.

I am amazed at how upset I get about parking tickets!

Also check out www.honestjohn.co.uk

He has a weekly column in the saturday telegraph motoring section and his own website and is very into standing up for the motorist - he has advice sheets on what to do in these sort of situations. However he might like yours as it is a bit of a twist from the normal overstaying scenario.

But like Martin Lewis he also advises not paying

I'd also be tempted to ask for a copy of the CCTV footage that shows you parked in the car park for the time you weren't there and say that you will be happy to pay once they can show you actually parked (and not entering or leaving) during those times :o

I went to a local Sainsburys last week, and as dd2 had just fallen asleep in her seat as we arrived and I wasn't in a particular hurry anyway, decided to sit in the car & read the paper/fiddle with my phone for a while until she woke up. We were there for about an hour. In that time I saw 2 parking inspectors prowling about, taking note of reg numbers etc. Had I then dawdled over the shopping & gone into the cafe, I might easily have fallen foul of the parking regs. I've never, ever noticed them at sainsburys before in all the years I've shopped there so am wondering whether this is a new money spinner for the company? I was parked there during a very quiet time (car park virtually empty) so one does question their motivation...

Doh. That will teach me to not post something an hour after starting and then getting interrupted. Nobody had mentioned honest John when I started but they have in the interim.

Definitely worth checking him out and sending human email though!

I have had very rude service twice from Sainsburys customer service (one along the lines of 'how do we know you bought x item we think you are lying even though you have bought your bank statement in.

Today B/F was called 'baldy' by the checkout operator

Oldraver - some of their staff could really do with some customer service training. As for calling B/F baldy - how rude. You must be really annoyed.

I had a similar situation from parking at Homebase. Received a 'ticket' from private company G4. Ignored about 5 letters over about 9 months and it did go away. Please do the same or google if you are still unsure. The invoice was for £95 for overstaying for 3 mins or something. Bloody robbery!

Write to Sainsbury's though and definitely address it Justin. He's a lovely bloke but it is a bloody scandal they are using fraudster parking agencies.

We were both a bit gobsmacked honestly. I really dont think he realised something that could be construed as offensive.

It doesnt help that DS cut B/F's fringe on Saturday so he had to shave it more than he would normally

Oh and also the ticket is for the driver of the vehicle and there is no proof you were the driver. They get the details from the DVLA - also scandalous. They sell the details for £2.50 each according to da Internet.

There are some people on forums that are actually parking in these sorts of places on purpose and then ignoring the invoices for fun apparently !

I think supermarkets use these tactics not so much to make money, but to ensure there are parking spaces for shoppers rather than spaces being taken by commuters and workers. They are much more prevalent in town centres than retail parks.

see Justin's car parked on double yellows some mornings - never seen him get a ticket....

Euro Car Parks have been chasing me for a car parking 'fine' since February. They have now got a debt collection agency chasing me too. Basically, they say I parked in the car park of a shopping centre and then went elsewhere. I know I went to Mothercare and Toys R Us to compare the prices of some bits for DD1s birthday and then to the Aldi on the site, where I paid in cash.
I didnt keep the receipt as I'd paid in cash and the DC had eaten the bits I bought before we got home. So, they cant prove I didnt shop there and I cant prove I did.

Latest is that the debt collection agency said they would take me to court. I pointed out that they cant take me to court as it's not their debt. Woman on phone got very arsey and asked if I was a solicitor. I replied that they would soon find out if they took me to court illegally...not heard anything since (8 weeks ago). Fingers xd they've gone bankrupt, I dout it though as so many people get scared when they get threatened with court and bailiffs.

For information, no record can be made with credit reference agencies, as you have not entered into a contract. The 'parking management company' can take you to court, but they wont as the burden of proof is with them - and they wont have it.

Do nothing. They cannot be enforced. Look online and you will find lots of stories of people with similar experiences - unless it is a council run car park in which case it's different.
Who are the company that run the car park for Sainsburys?

Hmm, I'd rather take a bad credit score and have them try and use bailiffs before paying a penny to these scumbags.

I'd also be in contact with Watchdog and other consumer rights groups, after filing the appropriate complaint letters/etc - however, I suspect that a good dose of bad PR will do a thousand times more than being polite and following a compalints process.

Show them up, and highlight what's happened in your case - how many other residents shopping in the same Sainsbury's have had similar experiences? How many of them have been bullied into paying when they weren't in the wrong?

We have had a similar thing crop up (not exactly - it wasn't a store car park) recently with MIL, she could prove the ticket was invalid, but she didn't want to fight it, and was genuinely scared something would get put against her name officially (credit score, etc), she paid it by the time she told DH and I what had happened Basically they work through intimidation, and if even 10% of the people who get accused wrongly pay up, where's the incentive to top? Hence bad PR is your best bet.

Good luck!