To ask what to do about this parking situation?

[happylittletree]

I am not originally from the UK and I have been shocked to receive tickets several times for things that seem unfair or odd.

Yesterday, I took my daughter to A&E, but mistakenly parked in the wrong lot for probably less than 5 minutes - we approached the building, saw it was wrong, then went back to drive to A&E (where I didn't have to pay for some reason).

They use the RingGo app. I took note of the location and planned to pay later, even though it seems unfair to pay for 3 minutes parked as a mistake. However, it doesn't seem to be possible to pay today for parking yesterday.

Help! Will I be sent a ticket in the post? Obviously there is no phone number provided or other apparent way to sort this out.

Are you sure you didn’t have to pay for A&E? I don’t think there’s much you can do but wait, you usually get the option to reduce the payment by 50% if you pay within x period. I wouldn’t say a parking ticket for that reason would be odd though, it seems fair enough- I understand you were in the wrong place but how are they to know you planned to pay later?

@GoBrookeYourself you don't think that seems odd? Surely there should be a grace period for mistakes?

Also, surely sometimes people must drive in, look for a spot, then drive out? We were there for such a short time.

The guard said we didn't have to pay for the parking at A&E at night. And that machine was broken. Hopefully it's the same rule all through the hospital.

It’s unlikely you’ll get a ticket for 3 minutes in the wrong car park.

It’s quite likely you might get a ticket for A&E as it sounds unusual you didn’t have to pay.

Ringgo app I’d always pay at the time, as is all other parking in the UK. You can’t pay retrospectively anywhere I can think of.

I don't understand why you need a grace period when you also say you planned to pay later?

You have to pay when you arrive for while you are there!!

Some car parks do sometimes allow a short period free e.g. if you take a ticket at the barrier on entry and the car park then turns out to be full, but most car parks these days have signage to say if it's full. At a hospital I imagine a grace period would be carnage with people trying to use it for drop offs and pick ups.

Why didn't you just pay for the short time you were there? Or did you check the car park codes and perhaps the different car parks might all have counted as the same on Ring Go?

Something doesn't add up.

@MaggieFS honestly, it seems stupid to me that I would have to pay at all, but I took a photo of the location last night with the intention of paying later, having been burned by the oddly strict standards here before. I didn't pay RIGHT THEN because my daughter was upset and injured and I wanted to take her to A&E.

Parking works completely differently where I am from. I think it's weird you are saying something doesn't add up. I legitimately don't understand how it works here. There were no barriers or indications of whether there were spaces free. I would prefer that as it would actually make things clear.

And I didn't have the RingGo app. I thought I would be able to download it and pay when we came out. My priority was getting my daughter seen. Other parking garages I have used take a photograph when you enter and you just pay upon leaving. It seems like it works differently literally everywhere

Surely if there was no barrier etc, you would only get a ticket if you were 'caught' by a parking attendant, in which case it would have been left on the car? How else would Ringgo know you had been in the car park for a few minutes?

A&E parking is free at my local hospital

@Tenpintonpin i previously got a ticket for being in a paid parking spot for slightly over the allotted time. I think they used CCTV to check when people were coming in and out.

This is precisely the reason for my question!

UK Parking types:

Pay and Display.
Buy a ticket for the length of your intended stay. Pay on arrival at the car park, when you’ve found a space. Either buy a physical ticket at a machine and put it on your dashboard, or pay via parking app like Ringgo. If you want to stay longer than you’d thought, pay again to extend your stay.

‘Free’ parking (or service-user parking e.g. supermarket)
Time-limited e.g. 2 hours. Cameras capture your number plate on the way in & out and if you’ve overstayed they’ll send you a ticket. Sessions cannot be extended.

Multi-storey or shopping centres
Take a ticket from the barrier as you enter. ‘Validate’ the ticket when you want to leave by paying the appropriate amount depending on how long you were there. Put validated ticket in automatic barrier and it lets you out.

I can’t think of any parking in the UK that isn’t pay at the time of use.

@NoSquirrels that's helpful, thanks

Our hospitals have cameras as you go in the car park and when you have finished you put your registration in the machine by the entrance of the hospital and pay for however long you have been there, the cameras are also on the exit, so they know when you have left.

You can also pay on line after, check your hospitals website for the parking information and if you can pay online.

Multi-storey or shopping centres
Take a ticket from the barrier as you enter. ‘Validate’ the ticket when you want to leave by paying the appropriate amount depending on how long you were there. Put validated ticket in automatic barrier and it lets you out.

Just to note our local ones are ticketless and you put your registration into the machine just before you leave and it tells you how much to pay.

Quite often hospitals allow the first 20 minutes free for dropping off. So you may be OK, I'd suggest look on their website or ask locally
for details of parking

Ringgo are awful in my experience. There is a local Country park that has just switched over to Ringgo only. I tried to use the App but it wouldn't load (I had phone signal) so I tried to phone, but just got an automated message saying my account was suspended and I had to use the app. When I got home I tried finding someone to call but they just have a useless chatbot on their site that sends you round in circles.
If they are going to only accept Ringgo then Ringgo needs to make some kind of customer service avaialble - not just say "use the app" when you can't.

It's very unlikely that you would be charged anything for five minutes, those sorts of automated systems have a certain grace period to allow for cars that enter but have to leave because there are no spaces.

[quote happylittletree]@GoBrookeYourself you don't think that seems odd? Surely there should be a grace period for mistakes?[/quote]
Yep, I do agree with you that there should be a grace period and I don’t think in this instance you’ll get a ticket, but I also know how awful ticket companies can be so it wouldn’t surprise me! I hope you manage to avoid it.

[quote happylittletree]@MaggieFS honestly, it seems stupid to me that I would have to pay at all, but I took a photo of the location last night with the intention of paying later, having been burned by the oddly strict standards here before. I didn't pay RIGHT THEN because my daughter was upset and injured and I wanted to take her to A&E.

Parking works completely differently where I am from. I think it's weird you are saying something doesn't add up. I legitimately don't understand how it works here. There were no barriers or indications of whether there were spaces free. I would prefer that as it would actually make things clear.[/quote]
If you don't understand how it works you could start by reading the signs that will tell you.

@icelolly12 the signs didn't help. Obviously. Otherwise I would not be asking.

Our main hospital has a stupid parking app thingy. If you read the hospital website about parking, they tell you that you can use the app to pay up to 24hrs afterwards. They don’t tell you that you need to register with the app BEFORE you go there. I ended up with a parking fine as I assumed I could pay once home and calm etc. Made me even more annoyed that when you registered for the app they say that you get your first parking free! The swines refused to cancel the ticket even though, they wouldn’t actually have got any payment from me if I’d followed their “rules” as it would have been my first lot of parking with them. Instead they made £45 off me. You have my sympathies!

@NoSquirrels

UK Parking types:

Pay and Display.
Buy a ticket for the length of your intended stay. Pay on arrival at the car park, when you’ve found a space. Either buy a physical ticket at a machine and put it on your dashboard, or pay via parking app like Ringgo. If you want to stay longer than you’d thought, pay again to extend your stay.

‘Free’ parking (or service-user parking e.g. supermarket)
Time-limited e.g. 2 hours. Cameras capture your number plate on the way in & out and if you’ve overstayed they’ll send you a ticket. Sessions cannot be extended.

Multi-storey or shopping centres
Take a ticket from the barrier as you enter. ‘Validate’ the ticket when you want to leave by paying the appropriate amount depending on how long you were there. Put validated ticket in automatic barrier and it lets you out.

I can’t think of any parking in the UK that isn’t pay at the time of use.

My local hospital has a system where you can pay for a set period when you arrive, or pay when (or after) you leave for the time you stayed. It uses ANPR to identify the car. You can pay up to midnight on the day you park, via the website. This system is run by an independent company and I have used it for their locations too.

Thanks to those who have given advice and who unfortunately also have gotten caught up in bad/confusing parking policies (@Twitchynose!). I feel better prepared to deal with frightening parking policies next time I have to go somewhere.