Is this fraudulent/illegal? Council car park fully computerised takes your registration on entry and prints your card out. First 3 hours in car park only costs £2 after that it quickly goes up and can cost £17 if you stay for the full day say 09:00 to 17:00.
Yesterday discovered a way round the system. Went to the car park and paid my £2 then gets a call to go back to the office. Some 2 hours later remembered that I have paid my £2 and should have moved my car. Went back to the car park and put the same ticket into the machine and it says £2 (Fantastic). So my time in the car park has only cost me £4 instead of £8 and with the same ticket a full days parking will only cost me £6 instead of £17.
As I found a way round the councils incompetent system. I have no worries about carrying on doing this but my only concern is the system records your registration number. Can they come after me for the additional money? if they ever notice. This car park is in Scotland.
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It might be - the reasoning is this: you knew the correct tariff but realised the system was faulty in some way. You changed your 'norma'l behaviour to take advantage of it, knowing from the displayed table of parking tariffs that you gained an advantage - so not an 'innocent' mistake.
Not that I'm taking a moral position here, or critising you in any way, just imagining how the legal or court view might be espoused from a council solicitor (or Procurator Fiscal in Scotland?)
Some might say you made the contract with the council in good faith & paid the requested amount, so it's not your fault the system was faulty - but from knowledge of outcomes in 'bank error in your favour' cases, the situation is open to interpretation & precedent.
Edited by woodbines on 29/11/2007 at 10:48
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First 3 hours cost £2.
You went back after 2 hours?
Therefore still 1 hour in hand?
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Cliff Pope,
I had already been in the car park for 3 hrs when I got called back into the office. In total I had been in the car park for 5 hrs. This should have cost me between £8 and £9 and not £4 that it did cost me.
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Depends how the by laws have been written. If you could be bothered to drive out, back in and buy a new ticket, then you might be within their law. As it is, you probably were not. In the days when feeding London parking meters was possible, ISTR that wardens would note position of wheels to judge if a car had been moved.
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AS you have not produced the charege scale then £4 for 5 hours may be right. Regards Peter
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2 work colleagues who alway park from 09:00 to 17:00 are trying it today. So hopefully it will only cost them £6 instead of the usual £17.
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If it's 'fully computerised' as you say then chances are it'll note your reg on the way out too and check the time you've paid for. It's a computer, not a guy trawling through a notebook; the fine is being generated as we speak.
(ps if you don't get a fine - where is it? :))
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I suppose that the key issue is that the car was not moved, so its not another parking 'event' and therefore you would be liable for the higher charge. It sounds like the system would be intelligent enough to detect this, but whether it is programmed to take any action is another matter.
I doubt the "incompetent council" put this system together, it is probably an off the shelf system from a private company, and perhaps operated on the council's behalf by the company?
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Sorry, your post didn't say that - "Went to the car park and paid my £2 then gets a call to go back to the office. Some 2 hours later remembered that I have paid my £2"
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PU
Fancy defending someon for obtaining a percunary advantage by deception (or equivant under new Fraud Act) ?
dvd
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excuse my ignorance....you never used to be able to 'deceive' a machine. Has the new Fraud Act changed this?
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Check the small print either on the ticket or on the signs near the payment machines.
You're looking for something like "No Return Within 1 hour" which could be what they might get you for.
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Being a person with a small and dying brain I have to admit that I can't follow quite what OP is doing! However, if the computer is allowing him to do whatever it is he is doing then it is a software foul up and not deception, I would say.
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I read the OP as doing this: Taking the ticket on entry, then waiting 3 hours, and paying at one of those machines where you pay by inserting your ticket, paying the fee and then you get your ticket back and are given a few minutes to get back to your car and leave (using the ticket to open the barrier).
But instead of leaving, the OP keeps going back every 3 hours and paying the requested £2 each time using the same ticket. Feeding the meter, if you like.
So whereas 09:00 to 17:00 as the OP says would cost £17, going back and paying with the same ticket would be cheaper at £6, as three lots of £2.
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09:00 to 17:00 as the OP says would cost £17
I'd never pay £17 from my own pocket for parking a single day!
Unless company is paying that, I'd park the car somewhere in a nearby residential area and will walk to office ;)
Scotland is still not so crowded.
Well, may be I'm too poor :)
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I once got "done" for parking on the street.
I parked up and had a choice of how long to stay.At the time the charge might have been 30p for half an hour and 60p for an hour. For some reason I did not have the correct money for either so put in the coins I had, (lets say 40p).
I came back after about 35 minutes to find a ticket on the windscreen.Despite protestations to the warden who was still close by and the local office, my pleas that I has paid sufficient were dismissed and I had to pay the penalty.
The next time I put in 60p and stayed maybe 20 minutes,I collered a warden and asked for a refund for unused time and told him of my tale regarding the above.He just laughed and said "It dunt work like that mate "
I now always, as a matter of principle give my ticket away or stick it to a meter if it has unused time left on it.
Of course some greedy councils get round this by having to have part of your registration number on the ticket.
So don't talk to me about the morality of parking charges, take any advantage you can !
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