Parking fine at Sainsburys superstore

[MyCheekyEagle]

Recently I did a big shop at Sainsburys, which included trying & buying clothes and a big food shop. I ended up over staying by 18 minutes & have a parking fine from Euro car parks.
I sometimes read that people refuse to pay these extortionate parking fines to private companies. Is this true, has anyone ever not paid and got away with it?
I'm really cross that I have been penalised for buying clothes as well as my big shop 😡

I had a local car park fine in 2017 - I didn’t pay as I never got the letter- first letter I got was the first chaser in 2021!
I did contest after reading MSE thoroughly as there were several angles to it to contest and the parking firm was known to push push push with letters and then drop. I did win but it took so many many stressful hours I’d have to be completely being ripped off and the fine be incredibly incorrectly applied to do so again. Plus the chaser was already something like £160 which annoyed me.
I had to get SARs, photos of signage from wayback page, laws around 10 mins and other things (then) grace time etc etc and even do a full (50 page defence with images) as they kept going till due in court and dropped it the day or so before.
MSE has lots of info and were very helpful, and are clear what is worth contesting and why - but even if they did say it is worth contesting be prepared to spend too many hours and worry on it. I think they’re less worth contesting nowadays though as they’ve tightened all bad practices.
Don’t ignore at all - I effectively ignored and 4 years later they followed up, and the fines increased each letter very quickly - it won’t go away whilst they’re owed cash.
Best bet, as above, is to go and explain at Sainsbury’s.
This is not to say these type of fines are right at all - nor any follow up bully tactics - they especially upset vulnerable and/or elderly people. They were going to be looked at a few years ago by the government but it fell through- you can write to your MP and they used to monitor numbers of fines on MSE as well.

@MsJinks the problem is though that if there were no repercussions for parking beyond time limits then there would be chaos and less parking for everyone who wanted to use the shop/pub/hospital/whatever. It is an effective deterrent against people taking the pee

I’m not really saying there can’t be fines, I agree there has to be control of parking, but there is a rip off angle to them in the private parking world that I think needs contesting. Such as 20 mins max in a busy Tesco express or a costa where people think they can sit in - quite likely to get fined here, too likely I think. Also fines for driving in/out but unable to park due to no spaces, or very poor signage - and these shouldn’t be fines but people pay. I also think they’re too expensive. I know private parking fines are more than council ones for example - even double.
Then there’s the exponential raising of the fine if it’s not paid immediately, and pretty aggressive letters.
This won’t be all parking fine companies but the one I contested was known for this - advertising slogans ‘don’t pay or we’ll take it away’ which apparently they weren’t even entitled to use.
I’d prefer council run car parks or direct ownership by relevant pub/shop etc to keep it moderate as well as controlled.
Personally though I wouldn’t ignore, wouldn’t debate, and just pay the initial fine as it was very time consuming and stressful and dragged on and on - though in my case I only got the follow up letter charging £160 so maybe I’d still have to look into that still!

Why? In this context, it's the DVLA registered keeper of the vehicle who is legally liable, not the driver. It's a civil not criminal matter.

It would only change if the vehicle was hired / leased and then liability could be transferred to the hirer. Euro Car Parks are not going to ask the OP for the name and address of the driver!

They do actually.

The car park companies can hold the keeper of the vehicle liable, but they have to do certain things to do so. Often they fail to do that.

Making a false statement about who the driver was is a bad idea.

But the keeper of the vehicle should definitely not confirm who was driving it. If they don't, then one route of appeal could well be whether the car park company complied with the obligations to hold the keeper liable - they often don't.

I had this for overstaying at Tesco one evening. I sent them a photo of my receipt & they dropped it.

If you don’t have a receipt, maybe use the entry from your bank statement to show you were shopping at Sainsbury’s that day? It’s supposed to deter people from using the car park for other purposes not to penalise genuine customers.

Go into the store and show them your bank statement and ask for a reprint of the receipt and talk to the manager but most of the car parks aren’t anything to do with the supermarkets so just pay up. They can and do take you to court if tou don’t and a cheap fine will end up at £370 before you know it