Car parks - 'no change given' scam!
 

Sometimes you have no choice but to 'pay and display' it. But it really is a ripp-off when, say, you want to pay £1.50 for 2 hours, you only have a £2 coin and it gives no change. Does it give you the extra n50p pro-rata? Does it heck! It just keeps it. Money for nothing. Anyone else agree? And is this actually legal? As basically it's theft in my book .....

Bl**dy annoying :mad:

Dave

its just another scam from the government, in this day and age it wouldent be hard to come up with a machine to give change back

I don't think you can just blame this on the government tbh. The car park beside my work is pay and display, but has the same machines, which don't give out change. It's a privately run car park, absolutely nothing to do with the council/government.

Parking is a scam be it private or government run.

Look at the NCP man and his millions/billions - all for building the most minging strutures in Britain that blight every major town.

i thought all of these pay and display car parks were government owned/run?

Not as far as I know, ours isn't. Apcoa look after it, but don't own it so far as I'm aware. However I'm 99% sure the government have fook all to do with it. I remember a while back we had some people in work, discussing how to make more money, but also offer better value for people regarding the parking charges, they definitely didn't work for the council, I am fairly sure they were something to do with our company (a shop btw).

Most car parks are either privately or local authority owned.

The excess money recovered from overpaying for your ticket goes directly to their coffers :(

As will the proposed fines that several local authorities are currently attempting to introduce, to be levied against those criminals amongst us who dare to pass tickets on that still have time left on them :mad:

Morally wrong of course!

Les :(

Tbh, I agree it's all about the money, but sometimes you need to charge for parking, otherwise, they would be abused by some. At my work, the car park is there obviously to give shoppers (mainly) somewhere to park close by. If we didn't charge, then I'd bet it would be over run with commuters using it and then getting the metro into the neighboring city, thus leaving little or no space for shoppers, which would be a little unfair.

In some city centres its cheaper to rent a flat with allocated parking!

(actually amazed some people don't do that, with the current surplus of houses on the market ;) )

Lisa, I don't think the issue here is charging for parking, it's the machines that require exact change for no good reason in this day and age.

The morals of this country were shot to bits a long time ago. :(

I'm listening to a phone in on LBC, the presenter has started a discussion saying that the new 50% tax on income over £150k is justified. Right or wrong, I don't care, but he's putting up a good argument and the phones are ringing! Anyway a woman phoned in saying she earns more than £150k per annum and is sick to death of "being taxed into oblivion"
When asked to name the taxes she objects to she could only think of the TV licence :cuckoo: and insurance tax! ( A real killer that one! :freak3: )

She then went onto say that "the working class are all lazy shysters" and it was only right they should pay more tax then her as they were the one's claiming all the benefits. :nono:

Had to visit my mate in hospital ( bike accident ) drove in multistorey car park, 20 mins later still could not find a place to park drove out £2 charge, pissed off methinks !

this is the same as my thing against 2+ lanes and bus lanes etc.

we all pay road tax

we all go to work..

why cant i use that lane? because others will get tow ork late? whatabout me?

a friend of mine that works with me doesnt abide by them, been pulled for going in bus lane and 2+ lanes and simply tells the copper, look im working, ive got places to go. you can give me the fine because ill just add the fine into the cost for the customer, doesnt make a difference to me..

police man usually tell him not to do it again.. strange, when its me, i get a fine slapped on me lol

I had a rant about this the other day to the OH, not that she cared :lol1:

Drives me mad. Especially the machines that want 70p or 90p an hour; they know that people don't carry pockets full of change so they gladly take the extra. My maths isn't the best sometimes either, so working out how much to put in the machine is always a gamble :D They must make a small fortune from this scam.

typical toffee nose stuck up b1tch!

Yes, sorry, got carried away there.

I do agree it sucks when machines do this, and I don't see why they can't have machines that give change either. I'm sure they could afford to install one with all the free money they've taken.

Ours is one of the offending machines too, charges 55p for an hour, not sure about the rest, as it goes up in funny amounts for longer, but never a round number.

There is no reason for them not to give change, though you could argue that with a change mechanism they'd be out of action more often etc etc. However, I'd like it to be a legal requirement that if they didn't get change then they'd add the 'extra' onto the time. In these days where your average pay and display machine has more processing power than the space shuttle (maybe .... bet it's not far off seeing what they trawl the world for to keep the things flying ...) then doing that would cost nowt ...

Dave

Obvious way round this is to keep one of the cubby holes in the car filled with a variety of change for such situations.

I dont actually do this myself, as I've only just thought of it :D:thumb:

My solution would be to charge a flat rate and however much cash you put in the machine, that's how long you are allowed to stay in the car park. Change is then a non-issue.

Yes I largely agree with that Flightman.

Isn't it amazing how self centred some people can be too, like your example.

Les :(

The answer to the 'No Change' issue is to do as I do ..... each of my cars has a bag of 'Car Park' money in it. Usually £10 made up of 10p's 20p's, 50p's and £1's.

I never pay more than I have to - simple really :thumb:

The charges is another matter entirely and some are too expensive! :mad:

Cost of carrying a bag of change in a gas-guzzler for a year = £5.
Amount saved by always having the correct change for parking = £1.
Genius.

Hardly a "scam" if it says "NO CHANGE GIVEN" on the machine. :confused:

its a scam (well kind of) if you dont have the correct change in your pocket and you have to put in too much just to park, i wonder how much these machines gross in a year through this

Bloody annoying and out of order - YES, but a scam would be if the machine was designed to deceive you. With a warning it's clearly not. ;)

Interesting ... could you please supply the maths that enabled you to come up with this? :lol::Whatever_:cuckoo:

ok ok i agree with you, but you do see where were comming from on this :p

Of course, like I said it's out of order. :thumb:

Agreed you know if it isn't giving you any money back. My point is that it then doesn't give you the extra time 'pro rata' that you've paid for!

Comprendez?

Dave