But, anyway

It happens… A whiff of wind is created as you slam the car door shut and whoosh, your parking ticket blows upside down on your dashboard.

Sounds like a reasonable, everyday mistake to make. But beware do so in a Wilson Parking car park and gust or air can slam you in the pocket for over $114.

First, you are issued with a Parking Breach Notice for a whopping $65 for not displaying a ticket correctly. Right you think, this is fair enough – they need to protect their income and at least my car wasn’t towed or clamped, so a breach notice is a good way to warn folks.

So you compose a letter (they don’t provide you with an email address…) stating that as far as you’re concerned you did nothing wrong – you bought a ticket and placed it on the dashboard, so to your knowledge you didn’t indeed infringe on anything. You trust reason will prevail and that the kind people at Wilson Parking will say no worries, move on and waive the fee.

But, no – no such luck when it comes to this crowd…

In response you get a frosty worded letter from Wilson Parking’s aptly-named Parking Enforcement Services division, thanking you for your communication and which advises you that according to their records you didn’t display the ticket correctly and that their signage “clearly stipulates that a Valid Ticket must be clearly displayed”, so they are “unable” to waive the penalty. “End of story. Here are our payment details…”

In other words: “Tough shit, we have all the power and we’re not going to give an inch because we don’t have to, so suck it up.”

Naturally, as a strong proponent of a fair deal and a decent level of customer service, you are rather incensed, so decide to give Wilson Parking another chance to redeem themselves.

You draft another letter (again, no email address on the correspondence from Wilson Parking – they clearly like doing this the hard way for reasons that will become apparent pretty soon).

This time you hint at your level of incensed-ness and once again remind them that in your mind you did indeed pay for the services received and that any alleged misadventure with the placement of the said ticket on the said dashboard was a mere freak accident and in no way intentional. Therefore, you did in fact adhere to primary terms of condition of using their facilities and that you would appreciate their understanding in the matter by kindly waiving the penalty.

You also decide to rather churlishly remind the powers that be at Wilson Parking’s Parking Enforcement Services that theirs isn’t the only game in town and that you could vote with your wheels and quite simply go elsewhere in future.

However, this plea did not sway the auto-bureaucrats at Wilson Parking’s Parking Enforcement Services one bit who decide to live up to their moniker with all the authority they have at their disposal.

To quote: “After consideration of the evidence available, we regret to advise you that this Breach Notice will not be withdrawn due to non-compliance of the Terms & Conditions of parking which are displayed on the Important Notice at the carpark.”

There’s clearly little room for compromise, compassion or common sense in PARKING ENFORCEMENT.

What’s more, they now decide you no longer owe them $65… but rather $85 because you did not pay the original penalty on time – despite the fact that you are still actively disputing the matter and have spent this time sending letters back and forth.

This is without even attempting to respond to your request for an explanation of how this alleged “non-compliance” can possibly incur a penalty to the amount of $65, let alone $85!

Of course, if you were not inclined to pay $65, you’re sure as freaking hell not going to stump up $85 for this kind of bullying bullshit.

And so you leave it to see what happens next… With no final notice, reminder or further correspondence, Wilson Parking decided to pass you onto the debt collectors who now demand $114.44.

Isn’t that a rather stiff penalty for one tiny oversight – not double-checking that your ticket is displayed properly… After all this is on top of actually paying $9.50 for your parking.

Is this really a good way to treat paying customers and encourage future patronage?

What do you think? Let Wilson Parking know – tweet them at @WilsonParkingNZ or call 0800 472 754

Tags: Parking, Wilson Parking

This entry was posted on 05/11/2012 at 9:13 pm and is filed under That's Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.