Have you parked in Brighton recently?

For the first time in a while, a serious entry.

Have you parked at a pay and display machine using the Pay By Phone app, in Brighton since 1/11/16 ? If so, please read on and share. You MAY have been seriously over charged!

Before travelling to Brighton last week I looked up the parking fees, so I knew what to expect.
On Tuesday I parked on Madeira Drive for 4 hours, paying via the Pay By Phone app as recommended to make it swift and simple. I was charged £11 (plus 40p booking fee). And thought nothing more of it.

Parking again on Friday, and knowing the expected price was £7.20 (plus booking fee), but to my alarm I was charged £16.40 (inc booking fee), When my friend arrived I warned him that I had paid more than we were expecting. As he had not yet set the app up, he used the meter, and was charged, yup, £7.20.

So it turns out, the tariffs which changed for Brighton and Hove on the 1st Nov, have NOT been updated via the app. As a result of this, I have been over charged by £15.60. Have you been over charged too?

I am currently trying to get a response from B&H Parking re this. On Twitter I was informed that an error had been found and rectified on the system. This unfortunately does not mean I get an automatic refund.

So, I am writing this, and making it known, so anyone else who has parked in one of B&H's zones, and paid by app, or even maybe ANY parking area controlled by Pay By Phone , it is possible that you may have been over charged. So I would recommend you check your receipt against the online published parking tariff for where you parked, just in case.

I am £15 out of pocket, and that's just one car. How many more paid by app over the past 10 days, and how much has been taken? Does the money get passed on to B&H, or does Pay By Phone just pass on the correct charge? So many questions right now.



UPDATE

After being contacted by Pay By Phone via Twitter, I was initially told by them that there was no issue with the rates at the locations.
"The rates are correct at both Madeira Drive locations and have been correct since the seasonal change on 1st November."

However after an investigation, and a very detailed explaination of what had happened, they replied again with the following.

through my investigations, i have found that we have two locations that cover Madeira drive (85325 & 85327). It appears that 85325 was amended correctly ready for the change on 1st November. However, 85327 was incorrectly left on the summer rates until we were notified by B&H Council of this error on Friday morning (pre-9am) when it was then changed to the winter tariffs.

i have therefore arranged for both of your sessions to be partially refunded so £8.80 and £6.80 have been refunded back to you today. we have also pulled off a list of all transactions which went through at the Summer rate from 1/11-10/11 and are arranging for the over payments to be refunded via our finance team. we will ensure each customer affected receives an sms to advise them of this error.

Thank you to Pay By Phone for their openness and honesty on this matter. I hope this is a very isolated incident, and checks are made to ensure this has not occurred elsewhere.

Dear Enterprise Rent a Car....

I have just received a letter from your Traffic Violations Department regarding a traffic violation during my last rental with yourselves.
So before I get started, let me post a couple of pictures and see if someone other than the idiot that compiled the letter can work out what is wrong. I would not usually call someone an idiot for a 'simple' error, but as you will see, it has a far deeper impact than that.

So here goes.... I will go a bit easier on you in following blogs if you can spot it in under 30 seconds.

Got it.
If not, please join the issuer of the letter in the corner, and take it in turns to share the hat.
If so, then lets proceed.

Now, there are a couple of ways this could work, so lets explore.
Essex might have the date of the offence on their letter wrong (along with the automated reference number which also contains the date) If so, and the offence did indeed take place on 22nd Feb 2014 as your letter to me suggests, then I would have indeed have been in possession of the car at that time. Darn it!
Oh hold on.... May I bring your attention to this..
https://twitter.com/MichaelSnasdell/status/437175757023215616
Now while I know its not actual proof, for me to have been in Snowdonia at 10.43, sending the series of tweets that I did, and then be on Thremhall Ave in Essex 30 mins later, I must have done a bit more than 69 in a 50 I tell you.
Allow me to dumb is down a bit.. I was 277 miles away !
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=Llanberis&daddr=Thremhall+Ave,+Essex,+UK&hl=en&sll=51.875855,0.229855&sspn=0.053519,0.123425&geocode=FVGEKgMdwwTB_ymdAfncOghlSDF5DRqn3E0dZg%3BFXqGFwMd3IEDACkp6DArsY_YRzH4fwtNJUkOwg&oq=llanbe&mra=ls&t=m&z=7

Now, just for a little bit of fun on the day, ironic or what, but I decided to take a selfie of THE car, in the mountains of Essex, oh errm I mean Wales of course (must keep my story straight if I'm to be believed eh)

Awww look, you can even see the registration. And I'm sure if you check the image data.... Sorry there I go over complicating things again.

So, lets move on shall we, and pretend, just for the sake of sarcasm, that I have my days wrong, and I was indeed in possession of the car in January instead.
On January 21st, my dog went in to have surgery on his face, and I took a week off work to take care of him during his recovery. On Jan 22nd he was still very sleepy and poorly from the procedure, so as much as I would have liked to have been out driving along the A120 in Essex, I was very much at home, tweeting, and facebooking images of him.
Anyway I won't spend any more time on the sarcasm, I will get down to business.

First up... The letter.
I received an read the letter stating that I, Michael Snasdell, named on contact 479918 had been involved and reported for a traffic violation, and that further more there would be a £35 admin fee to yourselves, which you will take automatically as per my signed and dated rental contract.

Right, so lets break this down.
If you have not already worked it out, the offence ref 1120/14/0002 Dated 22/01/2014, timed 11.25 is NOT the same as the date you state on your letter which is referred to as 'Citation Issue Time/Date 22/02/2014 @11:25. Do you see the problem now?  ITS THE WRONG MONTH !!!

Now the usual reaction to receiving such a notice is a sinking feeling, and that oh damnit feeling, before doing what is required, sending off your licence and payment, and taking the 3 points on the chin.
But this is different, VERY different. You see I need my licence, for my future, for my career, and for my livelihood. SO the reaction for me was something very deep, dark and upsetting. I will go so far as to say distressing.
Of course the disbelief leads to checking (something that should have been done before the letter was generated) and then there is the feeling of relief, along with the self forgiveness for even thinking for one moment that you might have actually committed the offence. So for me, this goes a bit further than a small admin error. Yes s*** happens, but sometimes when it does, things need to happen to make it right again.

THEN.... we have the next part which states that £35 is due to yourselves for having to go through the arduous task of getting this so badly wrong, then causing me so much upset and I should add anger (does it show?). Yes I did indeed sign as part of my contract with you IN FEBRUARY that you could charge my card with any fines relating to my rental period... IN FEBRUARY ! Not however any prior fines that previous renters had incurred, just loaded up on me. So should you decide to exercise your right to make that charge to my credit card, please be aware that I will report this immediately as an unauthorised transaction, and exercise my right to be a PITA to the furthest extent possible.

Now if you read up from this point, you will see that a lot of time and effort has gone into compiling this reply to your letter, including tracking back through Twitter, Facebook and other social media sources, as well as through my phone to retrieve relevant information and pictures. Easily 10 times the amount of effort that went into the poor effort of a letter to me with so many errors.
So, here's the deal... IF you charge the £35 to my credit card following receipt of my actual email that I will be sending, politely pointing out the issues, I will in turn seek £350 in admin charges, damages, incorrectly informing Essex Police that I was the driver, and other costs for this blog entry.... Fair ?

I would also like to point out a few more things very briefly.
Your phone number for Traffic Violations is broken, so I could not call to tell you about this.
I believe from your letter that you have already informed Essex Police that I was indeed the driver. So would request that you formally write to them again, and tell them you are idiots, and that in fact I was NOT driving the car. I would like to be CC'ed on this letter (i'm serious, maybe not about the calling yourselves idiots, but the rest)
And finally, that this whole matter has been rather stressful for me. While I have seen the funny side now, I am 100% serious that it caused genuine upset at the time of opening the letter.

Anyway, I look forward to my next rental from Enterprise Rent a Car, because all the above put to one side, you do great cars at great prices.