Town Centre Car Park Merrion Centre Leeds - conmen!

[stealthwolf]

I kinda agree with sub here.

£1 per hour for the first 3 hours

This implies that (as an example) if you stayed there for five hours, you'd be charged £3 for the first three hours and then whatever was the cost of the remaining two hours.

The problem here is that it sounds like the parking company don't have a particularly strong grasp of English. Their advert would work if there was an hourly rate eg £2/hr. That way, parking for five hours should cost £7, not £10.

The sign should have said something along the lines of:

£1 per hour for the first 3 hours for up to 3 hours

or

£1 per hour if parked for 3 hours or less

Either way, there should have been a disclaimer stating that any stay over 3 hours would mean the whole stay would have been parked at the normal rate.

[Tortaruga]

Where I live there's a shopping centre with a huge underground carpark. This is taken from their website and is very clear: "Buy one hour, get two free! - €2 for the first hour, and the 2nd and 3rd hours are free, €2 per every hour after the 3rd hour until 6:00pm".

So you park for 3 hours for £2 and anything more is just the hourly rate of £2 on top.


If I were you I'd go back and tell them to at least change the wording on their sign as if it has managed to confuse someone with tertiary education, how will the great unwashed cope?

[sub39h]

^ see that above is absolutely crystal clear. It applies to the first hour only, and you get the next two hours free. In my case it is not at all clear.

From the rude tone I received from some customer service agent by email they have no intention of changing the sign. They think they're in the right and after I asked to speak with that particular agent's senior he just flat refused . Further reason to never use these people.

I've mentioned it to CAB. Let's see if they take it further. I doubt it, but I want to at least show them they can't just fob off cumstomers and expect to get away with it without a little incovenience.

[Sonic6103]

I agree with Sub here. If it had said the T&C's on or around that sign with the promo on the fair enough.

Their website states this...

Special Weekend Offer – £1/hour

We are pleased to announce that we have extended our weekend parking offer.
£1 per hour for your first 3 hours parking – so why park anywhere else!


I'm pretty sure with what the sign apparently says and with the above advertisement that most people would assume that the deal is for the FIRST 3 hours but not limited to ONLY 3 hours.

When you read the T&C's online they then state that...

Terms and conditions:
1. Offer is only for your first 3 hours- if parking exceeds the 3 hours tariffs then normal tariffs will apply.

Surely the T&C's should say that the offer is limited to no more than 3 hours instead of the "first 3 hours". I see it as any weekend parking will be charged at £1 per hour for the first 3 hours and then anything after that will then be charged at whatever rate is set but I wouldn't expect it to suddenly jump up to £4 for that extra hour. Maybe around £2.20 which is what their 1 hour rate is. I'd expect to pay no more than £5.20 for up to 4 hours on a weekend whilst this offer is running.

[Sonic6103]

I recently got a ticket off my local council for parking in a disabled bay without paying.

Like most council car parks, disabled parking had been free up until the day before I parked there. The sign which updated people of these changes had been stuck on the meter which is pointless. Disabled users of the car park would very rarely go to the meter to see this sign because they don't need a parking permit/ticket other than a blue badge and clock. I sent a letter and had my ticket cancelled straight away because they'd realised their signs had been useless and also cancelled the other 278 tickets given out that week for parking in disabled bays and not paying for a ticket.

By the way the sign said that you get the first 3 hours free. People who didn't plan on staying over 3 hours would just park and go shopping then come back to find a ticket on their window. I had to explain that this caused a lot of people to misunderstand what was meant by this. You actually only got the first 3 hours free if you purchased a one hour ticket for £1 I found out so they've now changed the signs. They said at first that they'd also put an advert in the local paper but not everyone gets it or reads it.

I think they should at the very least make their promo T&C's available to see next to their promo sign or something even more simple would be to change the wording to up to 3 hours only

[Mariedennis]