Lidl Surprises

[Mr Bunt]

Whoever came up with this advertising slogan has certainly got a wry sense of humour. I visited our local Lidl last week and a few days later definitely got a Lidl Surprise when I received through the post a parking penalty charge notice from a firm called Athena ANPR Ltd. This demanded £90 and stated that the maximum permitted free stay period in Lidl’s car park was just 10 minutes (absurdly short).

It appears my car was covertly photographed by an automatic camera when I entered the car park and again when I left. The elapsed time between these two photos was 20 minutes 35 seconds. I had bought £13.48 worth of shopping in Lidl so certainly wasn’t abusing the car park. There were no signs warning people that covert surveillance methods were in use or stating the ridiculously short free stay period.

So, a warning: if you want to be an unwilling participant in Britain’s increasingly unsavoury surveillance society (in this case run by a crowd of Germans; a nation which can’t exactly claim the best of records on human rights!) and get a demand for £90 then shop at Lidl. Otherwise go to Sainsbury’s or Tesco, who don’t charge a £90 admission fee to their stores.

[mick b]

Look up on Google there is lots on there regarding this company .

[StevieG]

Ten minutes sounds ridiculous - for any supermarket's customers.

Could there be some error somewhere regarding the quoted time limit?
I'd think that, if correct, that too-brief period would work against the shop's interests, with, say 40%(?), of customers open to being so penalised, or rushing in and out without buying as much as they really want in order to stay within the '10 minutes'.

And I don't know if Lidl are good at staffing enough checkout tills to keep queues short, but many a time in supermarkets one can be queuing for at least five minutes, just waiting to pack and pay.

[Mr Bunt]

Ten minutes sounds ridiculous - for any supermarket's customers.

Could there be some error somewhere regarding the quoted time limit?
I'd think that, if correct, that too-brief period would work against the shop's interests, with, say 40%(?), of customers open to being so penalised, or rushing in and out without buying as much as they really want in order to stay within the '10 minutes'.

And I don't know if Lidl are good at staffing enough checkout tills to keep queues short, but many a time in supermarkets one can be queuing for at least five minutes, just waiting to pack and pay.

I've got the penalty notice in front of me and it clearly states "Allowed Duration of Stay - 00:10:00" which, as you say is ludicrous.

That's cost Lidl my custom. I went to Tesco instead this morning and came away having spent £45.68, which Lidl obviously weren't especially interested in having (unless I topped it up with a further £90 of course!).

[giner]

I hope you're getting some advice on this, Mr. Bunt - at least from your local Citizens Advice Bureau, or even Chamber of Commerce.

Lidl, with having no visible signs re. this despicable practice, makes it seem to me that this puts them on very shaky ground to collect any money from you. I'd certainly look into that aspect.

I don't know how things are in the UK, but here in Canada you can get a free consult with a lawyer for half an hour. I hope that's available to you.

With a visit to England coming up shortly, I'll certainly be avoiding Lidl stores. Thanks for the heads-up.

A good dose of 'name and shame' on social media would be in order, too.

[John Palmer]

A quick online search reveals images of notices about parking charges at Lidl stores taking several forms, fopr example at http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/sho ... #topofpage. The notice in that link offers 1.5 hours free parking during store opening hours, but only 10 minutes outside those hours. The Lidl store in Mr Bunt's case must have been open when he entered the car park because he then purchased goods at the store - I recommend he hangs on to the receipt for £13.48 as it has obvious evidential value.

Of course, there's a possibility Mr Bunt's car remained in the car park for more than 10 minutes after the store closed, if Athena are correct in saying that it was there for 20m 35s. I wouldn't take that on trust, because I have read that one car parking company (not Athena, to my knowledge) pursued claims for unpaid charges on the basis of photographic evidence that had been falsified by its employees. Comparison of Athena's record of the entry and exit times for the vehicle with store opening hours and the timestamp on Mr Bunt's receipt could be illuminating!

There is a plethora of advice on the internet about responding to demands made by parking companies, and if he is prepared to spend a little time at least in establishing whether he can resist the charge, I would recommend Mr Bunt to do so by looking for such advice. The impression I get is that the car parking companies probably get much of their revenue from individuals who feel so intimidated by the demands as to pay up without challenge, so if Mr Bunt resists he may find that Athena give up and look for easier prey.

I have some sympathy for stores like Lidl, as I'm sure there are cases where their car parks are treated as a convenience by those having no intention of shopping at the store. However, the limits of that sympathy are soon reached if such stores engage parking control agents whose practices are unnnecessarily harsh and unreasonable.

Incidentally, if the purpose of the charge notified in the picture contained in my posted link really is to make more spaces available to shoppers, then why would the store want to limit parking to 10 minutes when it's closed to such shoppers?

[PGBerrie]

I would suggest that you write to the Lidl management - not at the local store, but headquarters in England - ask them why Athena ANPR Ltd are fining you for 10 minutes parking during opening hours. The time must be on your ticket and if it is within shopping hours, you normally have 90 minutes free stay. There's lots in Internet about the charges and defence against them, e.g. here:
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/fo ... a-ANPR-Ltd

It's not just Lidl though. When we visited Shildon to see the Great Goodbye a couple of years ago, we were fined for parking in the hotel car park. Of course there were big notices everywhere saying the car park was being monitored, but we gave the car number to the reception and never thought anything about it. The fine came via the hire car company. The hirer, who lives in Switzerland, got back to the hotel management, who were very apologetic - they had put the wrong car number in the computer!! But it took another couple of phone calls before they actually stopped the process. By this time the hirer had been summoned to appear in court. As the hirer was English, he could sort things out - but what chance would a foreigner have had?

Peter

[1H was 2E]

You do indeed need to take further advice on this. If you're in the AA, call their legal department.

It is, I believe, the case that these bills, passed off as fines, are invoices and have no legal standing but bluff people into paying, by fear.

I'm also irritated by DVLA's role in this sort of trick. When someone failed to pay for vehicle storage at a barn I rent, I wanted to check that the person claiming to be the owner was indeed the registered keeper (the agreement for storage having a clause that non-payment of rent would result in the vehicle being sold to cover the money owing) but DVLA would not confirm this (not tell me, but confirm what I told them) because of 'privacy laws'. But apparently they're happy to inform these confidence tricksters.

[Mickey]

Lidl?. I usually order my shopping from Fortnum And Mason and Parker my butler & chauffeur nips around in the 'Roller' to pick it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloysius_Parker

Mickey

[harvester]

Mickey...so it's yours the big pink one with six wheels !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mickey]

Post deleted due to going off topic.

Mickey

[burnie]

I would take the letter into the store and ask for the manager and explain that you and all you family and friends will be shopping elsewhere unless they sort it out for you.
I echo the thought of not paying, but beware just ignoring could see a small claims court visit if the company are so minded, something similar happened to my daughter a few years back when she overstayed on a car park that was badly signed.

[Dave S]

As he got the ticket over 10 months ago, it's either been paid or cancelled by now.

[richard]

Please don't quote spam - just report it, thanks and we can delete it. Quoting it just adds more that has to be cleaned up.

(in this case the spam quoted a previous message with an inserted link to the spam site)

[strang steel]

You need to be very careful with your parking habits at these German discount stores; because there was a letter in our paper recentlt from someone who parked ineither Lidl or Aldi car park on her way to work because they were short of milk; and then went back there for a lunchtime sandwich. Both times she was only there for about 15 minutes, but received a parking fine as the computer insisted her car had been there for the whole 4 hours between the two times.

I am not as posh as Mickey, but I do shop at Waitrose which allow 2 hours free; and their food is of a decent quality.