This month I was issued a £90 Parking Penalty on Asda’s private Car Park at the Leyton branch in London whilst in store spending my hard earned cash. Unfortunately, being my nearest supermarket, I spend hundreds of pounds at this budget on a weekly basis. I agree that tickets should be issued to cars in disabled bays with no blue badge or cars parked in child and parent bays when they have no children. But why the hell should anybody pay £90 to ASDA’s privite parking company UKPC for parking crooked or over the white lines in a normal bay. I hate to admit, i was parked badly – enough to fail a test I’m sure, but i was obstructing absolutely nothing and nobody. I wasn’t causing any danger, and if that isn’t an annoying way to waste £90, the fact that the rest of the gigantic car park was virtually empty has tipped me over the edge. So I began a user group on facebook called Rage Against Extortionate Parking Penalties on Asda Car Park for Customers. I am tired of being pushed around by massive companies who are fronted by little people reading from a script and afraid of losing their £12,000 a year job. Where has the common sense gone in this country??? And while I’m at it, don’t get me started on Sky, BT, TalkTalk, Virgin, RAC, I could go on…..
Please show your support for this group by joining or by not shopping at ASDA until some sort of common sense prevails. (ie, probably never)
For anyone in a similar dilemma, there is information at www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/private-parking-tickets, where basically, you will see that many of these private parking companies disguise their fines to look like official government penalties or police fines. There are many loopholes to look at and you should not feel pressured to pay up straight away until you have done your research.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I am a disabled badge holder and also got a £90 penalty notice from these idiots who didn’t even have the sense to take the photo of the car from the front which clearly shows the badge in the window. I am appealing at the moment, wish me luck, i may need it according to the reputation of UKPC.
got a £25 fine at Andover Asda today. I don’t like Asda food anyway so that’s the last time I’ll be shopping there!
I`m sorry but you openly admit you were parked like and idiot. If you parked properly between the lines then you would not be on here complaining. I suggest that in future you park with a little more respect to other users of that car park and not just dump you car anywhere.
Hi all, I got a ticket today 31.07.11 in the ASDA Leyton Mills branch for parking my 125cc motorbike in a cycle bay. Now, I had no idea that the parking was being run by UKPC and that there were dedicated parking spaces for motorbikes but when I was about to “selfishly” leave my bike in a “car” parking space, a call centre type “jobsworth” taking a smoking break and on his mobile, interrupted his chat to tell me that there were spaces for bikes and gave me two options by pointing at their locations. Now, he used the generic term “bikes” and I headed for the one nearer to where I was and the branch exit and promptly dismounted and locked it up. As I entered the branch the jobsworth acknowledgeded me and told me “it should be okay there”.
You can imagine my surprise when I later approached my bike and could see a ticket attached to a mirror, I was fuming…so I promptly found the jobsworth and told him what had happened. Unable to keep a sincere and straight face he told me that ASDA were not responsible for the parking and that it was issued by a private firm. Now, if that was the case (and I put this to him) then why did he concern himself with where I was parking? His reply was that “he was doing me a favour”…Indeed!
I managed to find the person responsible for issuing the ticket and he told me that it was issued because it was “parked in the wrong place”. When I told him that it was parked there on the advice of an ASDA employee he said that “it has nothing to do with them and I was wrongly advised”. He also added that where it was parked “it was not safe” and that if a child climbed on it, it could fall over. I pointed out that it was on a very sturdy stand and that a child should not climb on it anyway, wherever it is parked, he then said that “it was not secure”, I then took him over and showed him that it was security locked to the bars provided and that the bike was leaning towards it. Unable to contest my obvious points he pointed to the so called correct spaces which ironically were overrun with shopping trolleys, so you would have not been able to see the motorcycles road markings. The sign indicating motorcycles is not much better (not being prominent) and is lost in a sea of ASDA “Shrek green”. I told him that I am also a motorist (car driver) and that I was about to leave it in a car parking space when the ASDA employee approached me, ironically he said that it would have been alright. I asked him what the reasoning was behind that if there are so called spaces for motorcycles, you are not sending out a consistent message and it is then open to an individuals interpretation. It would be far better for an individual to exercise discretion rather than to misinterpret which is clearly what happened here. I said do you think I would have parked it there if I had known that it was not allowed and that I would be fined, his reply was “no”. Anyway, I took the earlier precaution of taking a snapshot of the ID card of the person who wrongly advised me and showed the warden this, he then agreed with my sentiments and told me that once issued he could not cancel it and advised me to appeal against it. I am quite adept at dealing with these situations and have successfully appealed for myself and others in the past. I am merely “venting off” here and limbering up for the fight. I think the people who do not return trolleys to the correct place should be fined if anything, rather than you return and find a trolley up against your paintwork or in my case today up against my tank. I will let you know how I get on. All the best with your endeavours everyone.
I think that you should be ashamed of yourself asda, people go to your shop to spend their hard earned cash, and you have someone outside ripping them off, but stiking fines on their cars…..
Being a private company you are not abliged to pay them anything. Ignore the letters and do not answer any of them. Also wearing a uniform they are breaking the law, calling themselves an officer is also breaking the law. Putting a ticket on your vehicle is against the law unless they are a traffic warden employed by the council. Check it out for yourself if you have any worries on that score.
Do a google search about it, you may be surprised
Go here and don’t pay, it’s harder to get your money back so don’t pay in the first place.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/private-parking-tickets
i had a ticket today ,4/1/2012 as i tryed to park there was a public transport bus broken down and a large break down lorry blocking entrance to car park ,there was room to get out of car park but there was a man a machanic under the bus with is legs sticking out and i could not get passed , so i reversed into a bus space with nowhere to go as i could not go out the way i came in , one way, so i went into asda for 5 minutes i left my wife in car , i came back and i was issued a ticket fine ,well at that time i did my nut in, and told them what i thought of them ,i explain what as happened ,told them to check camras but they did not want to know , any info off anybody would be most greatful thanks
so please dont shop at asda ,if they have these sort of people in there car parks avoid shopping there , im just lucky ,i didnt have 2 for 1 , only joking
Jeff, check out the link i posted above, you don’t have to pay these private companies as they are mostly working illegally.
yes i had a fine at asda cwmran , i wont shop there again ,i will go to lidls opposite lot less hassle
yes i will join i wont shop there either ,whats the point if you go there and get a fine , aldis opposite is now the best place ,
Whilst the general advice is to just ignore every single letter you receive and they will eventually go away.
However if you are going to reply the take a look at how to write to them!!
http://timkevan.blogspot.com/2012/03/challenge-to-private-parking-charge.html
I parked in AZDA biggleswade to do my xmas food shopping, I spent £300 and just over 2 hours in the store. A few days later I recieved a fine of £70 from Town & Country Parking. Telling me if I paid it immediatley it would only be £35. I was told to ignore this because they are not enforcable. So I did, I have now recieved another letter from Debt Recovery Plus Ltd threatening court action and all sorts and telling me they now want £120. Should I pay. The problem I have is I recieved a fine from ALDI a month before I paid it and was told I was stupid and should’nt have because that one wasn’ enforcable either. They only give you an hour and a half. It makes my food bill quite expensive and I don’t find the time long enough. If I could find a supermarket that didn’t try to rip you off I would happily pay for a parking ticket or extra for my food. I would just like to know what is the law, do I pay or not. Help please