Overpayment accepted
(Image from Design with Intent blog)
'I suggest something about the scandalous failure of car parking machines to give change, and the rise of the statement 'overpayment is accepted'..the pricing is set to make it more difficult, so it's 90p for half an hour, or £1.80 for an hour.
..I would rather it actually cost a pound than have to scrabble around for a minimum of 3 coins to pay the 90p..How much 'overpayment' is made by the great British public to money grabbing local authorities, car park companies etc. per year?'
Writes Gary Skinner. Your 'overpayment accepted' tales and photos welcome.
Email us
Our Twitter
Join our Facebook group
Listen to iPM
Technorati
Google
Ice Rocket
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~02~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
The campaign for thr Freedom of Information repoerts the following from September '07 (http://www.cfoi.org.uk/pdf/FOIStories2006-07.pdf)
"Buses rake in £37k from your change
Cardiff Bus is making £700 a week from passengers who don't have the right change to pay for their tickets. In the 2006-07 financial year, £37,500 in excess payments was handed over by passengers. Bus managing director David Brown said: "Were we to give change, the additional costs of cash handling, coupled with delays in boarding times, would have to be passed on in the form of either higher fares or a reduced level of service."
Complain about this comment
Dublin Bus has an interesting overpayment policy that I discussed here last year - http://architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2007/06/30/ticket-off-reprise/ - which has led to some charities getting a welcome boost at the bus company's expense. There's also an example illustrated of a very odd pricing structure from a car park in Totnes, Devon, which has surely been designed deliberately to make overpayment likely.
Those FOI figures for Cardiff are high enough to suggest that it's a significant revenue source for the company. It's difficult, therefore, not to see it as a deliberate strategy, surely comparable to things like excessive overdraft charges by banks.
Thanks for bringing this issue to wider attention!
Dan Lockton, Design with Intent
Complain about this comment
The main bus company in Edinburgh (Lothian buses) don't give change. They then introduced ticket machines at selected to bus stops so you could buy in advance of getting on the bus. I at first thought this would rectify the problem, but guess what.... "No change given, over payment accepted".
Complain about this comment
70p per hour or part of hour, £10 for six hours or more? So if you stay for five hours and fifty-nine minutes you will be charged £4.20; stay an extra minute and stray up to six hours and you are charged ten quid! That's £1.66p per hour; for seven hours, £1.42p; eight hours, £1.25p; nine hours, £1.11p... In order to pay as little as 71p per hour at the rate charged for longer parking, you'd need to stay for fourteen hours: how many people do that, I wonder? The only period for which one gains any advantage is between fifteen and eighteen hours. (66.7p, 62.5p, 58.8p, 55.5p per hour)
A clear case for going back during the lunch-hour and taking the car out, then bringing it straight back in again, I'd say.
Back in the 1970s when I knew the town people were complaining about the charging system for some of the Totnes car-parking being designed to make people pay too much, so nothing new there then (please note the nobility with which I did *not* write 'no change there'...)
Complain about this comment
Many councils now operate cashless parking. While some of these systems are, let's say, far from perfect, I don't see why we should have to carry cash for all these small transactions. (How long before Londoners can pay for parking with Oyster?) I always pay the M6 Toll charge with my debit card - I don't see why we can't do the same for parking charges.
Complain about this comment
Standing about on street corners! Wanting 30p for nothing! They'll be dossing around at home next! Drinking electricity in the afternoon without lifting a finger!
Mark my words, that Davros Powell was right - the streets will be rivers of blood! Exterminate!
* P.S - I am not racist - some of my best friends are machines.
Complain about this comment
Cash is king and I find the idea of "overpayment accepted" disgusting.
A service, product, or facility is priced as it is and that price I am willing to pay. But to be told I may "over pay" my local authority is horrendous and ridiculous. I am sure (as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow) that there must be some arcane piece of legislation which outlaws this practice.
Complain about this comment
On an inoccent trip out to the New Forest I lost £3
Complain about this comment
Sorry Jennifer it was £3 i lost but the machine should have given me change to the amount of £1.50 or similar - either way I followed the instructions and checked the change thingy!
Outrageous!
Complain about this comment
(Ahem) I'm told that in Bury,Lancashire the first fifteen minutes on all parking meters is free. Not a bad idea. I think that would give time to obtain the right money if one wanted to park longer.
Complain about this comment
How about the baggage trolley the refuses to give you your £1 back? Returning to Bristol Airport from a summer break, with multiple bags and screaming kids, I put my quid into the trolley to stack up the luggage from the carouselle and was stunned to read that this money was non refundable.
Absolute daylight robbery - unless they meant for me to BUY the trolley & take it home. But no, they get the trolley back, I use it for 20 minutes & they get to keep the pound. I was gobsmacked. I can't wait to meet the new MD at Bristol Airport and talk to him about it - maybe I can find another place to put £1 so it never sees the light of day again...
Complain about this comment
In my area, car parks are regulated by the Council and the money goes into the general pot. Unfortunately, because of the way the government supports the District Council in terms of grant, one of the few things they can do to raise money where they are not inhibited by government regulations is to increase car park charges.
It is in effect an extra tax on residents and visitors to the town.
I would rather be charged a round pound for an hour, than the awkward amount we have to pay. It would still be too much, but at least it would be open and above board.
Complain about this comment
In Warsaw (that’s Poland, not Walsall in the West Midlands) the parking meters give you what you pay for. Once you have put in the minimum charge, you can put in whatever else you like (except for the smallest value coins) and are given the appropriate number of minutes. You can also pay by using your mobile phone.
If Poland can do it, why does Britain have to stick with such primitive technology?
Complain about this comment
Something else to look into: why when you've bought your hour can you not pass it on to someone else?
If there's more than 15 minutes left on my ticket I either find someone to give it to or leave it stuck to a machine for the next person to find. Now many machines want you to put your registration number on the ticket so you can't do this.
It's my hour I've paid for. Why shouldn't I let someone else use some oif it?
Complain about this comment
I had occasion to park in Windsor, not far from Windsor Castle. Bear in mind this is a car park probably used by many thousands of visitors to the UK.
First point is the ticket machines in this car park ONLY take coins and yet the charges are expensive.
Surely provision should be made to pay by other means.
I attempted to buy a car park ticket and found 2 of my coins were rejected by the machine. Not wishing to risk leaving the car without a ticket I purchased a ticket with the coins accepted by the machine and placed the ticket on my windscreen. I left the car park to get change purchasing something I did not really want from a local shop.
I returned to the car park and purchased another ticket.
I carefully placed both tickets in the clip on the inside of the windscreen and made sure both tickets were visible as the start times of both tickets were within 20 minutes of each other but
the total time paid for far exceeded the time I needed.
When I returned to the car park I found my car had been clamped. I immediately called the number
on the clamping notice from my windscreen. Two 'ladies' from the car clamping company were still in
the car park a few yards from me.
I thought that a mistake had been made as I noticed mysteriously one of the tickets had in part slipped down behind the other and I could show I had in fact paid more than I needed to, however, the 'ladies' advised that they could not remove the clamp unless I paid (£120
They said if they removed the clamp without payment their boss would think I had given them some money directly to remove the clamp. Before I returned to the car they had taken a photograph of the tickets as both could be seen but one was partially covered. They said I had to pay for the clamp to be removed and then appeal for a refund. I paid up and then sent an appeal explaining
what had happened.
To my horror I received a letter stating my appeal had been unsuccessful as it is the drivers responsibility to ensure the tickets are fully visible and that I could have taken the second ticket from a friend's car and cannot prove otherwise !!!!
The letter also advised that if I sent any other letters they would be filed but no reply would be given. There was no phone number and the address was a PO Box. Clearly designed so that further contact cannot be made. Are these clamping companies answerable to any body or in any way
regulated?
In brief my visit to Windsor and it's car parking facilities resulted in:
- being late for my appointment
- purchase of unwanted item to obtain change for ticket
- paying excessive car parking charges
- paying to have the clamp removed from the car
Windosr - Is this a good example of the UK to give visitors?
Royal Windsor - 'We' are not amused !
Complain about this comment
Hospital car parks are another case in point. Charges are time-banded and with 24 hour charging, even in the middle of the night with the car park all but empty.
This means if you are there for an unpredictable length of time, visit to A& E for example, you are bound to overpay in order to ensure that you don't come out to find the car clamped. Just adds unnecessary stress to an already difficult situation.
Complain about this comment
Here in Sydney you can pay with coins, credit cards, or mobile phone at the majority of ticket machines. The machines give you what you pay for - if it's $2 an hour and you put in 50 cents, you get 15 minutes. Easy! That's the aussie Fair Go in action.
Not only do UK ticket machines allow you to overpay by not giving change, they also overcharge by having a minimum stay. Theoretically if the minimum you can buy a ticket for is 1 hour for £1.10, two people could use the space in that hour for half an hour each, both paying £2 as they don't have change, so the council earns £4/hour on that space instead of £1.10.
And that, as we say here in Australia, is a complete rort.
Complain about this comment
Now it's happening with loos!
In my new hometown of Halifax the public loos have to be paid for by users (I think the charge is 5p), and that is bad enough in itself; a civilised society should always provide free public loos. However, wait for it, overpayment is accepted. You can use any coin you like up to 50p, but NO CHANGE IS GIVEN. It is bad enough when you are conned out of money when you are desperate for a parking space, but when you are just desperate, it really is beyond the pale. Any others seen this?
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS