This morning on George Breakfast we were fighting the power.
"And by power we mean parking wardens."
"...Or not so much the wardens. They're just doing their job. But the people who own the parking buildings. The people that buy up empty lots in the city and then charge you $16-17 every half hour, and they hover to wait until you're a minute over time, then they slap you with an $85 fine."
Bloody bastards.
To be honest, I know people need jobs... but to literally shit on someone's day for a living? How do parking wardens sleep at night?
That corporate dickwad of a parking company; Wilson Parking recently got called out in Wellington for nailing cars in a free lot that DIDN'T EVEN BELONG TO THEM.
Lately, Auckland Transport has gone nato in surburban areas of the Central City - Eden Terrace, Ponsonby, Freemans Bay - enforcing two hour parking limits for no good reason, outside of revenue making of course...
One caller on George Breakfast this morning said she knows someone who works in a parking building, and then she revealed, with 100% certainty, PARKING WARDENS ARE ON COMMISSION.
"They actually work on a commission basis, so of course you don't really have much hope when you argue with them... they get massive incentives, and it supplements their wages."
George Breakfast host "DJ Clint Roberts" recently got stung with a lost ticket fine in a private parking lot, and argued that the $72 fee was obscene. He fought it, AND HE WON.
THEY ACTUALLY REFUNDED HIM IN FULL.
"It took me two months, and about fifteen emails in total. But in the end they asked me for my bank details and they deposited all of the money."
Check out his feature on The Project last night (he comes in around 1.10)
Anyway, after all that, here's our top 7 tips to get out of tickets.
As told by Clint and our callers.
1. Challenge the ticket.
Get back to your car and find a ticket you don't believe is fair? Email the parking company. Or "write" if they're real douchebaggy, and don't have an emailing option.
2. Give as much detail as you can possibly provide.
The more detail you give, the better the case.
3. Persistence.
"The trick is you just keep emailing them."
If you don't hear back email again. And again. And again. They will delay you but they actually legally have to reply.
Eventually you'll be costing them MORE money from the admin it takes to respond to your barrage of emails, so they'll let it go, just to keep down costs.
4. Stay calm and polite via email.
"Always be slightly backhanded. But polite."
If you're being aggressive they have more of a reason to ignore you. Stay polite but forward and you'll get a lot further.
"If they come back and say 'Sorry, we consider this case closed. We will not be refunding you.' You go, 'sorry I consider this case still open, please escalate this to your manager.'"
5. Tell a lie involving a cute old lady.
Write a long, sob story about helping your old lady or your Nana out. They might have a heart. Worked for one of our callers.
6. Opt out of NZTA being able to share your details with third parties. Yes, that's an option. Then private parking buildings can't find out who you are.
You can actually hit the NZTA website and opt-out of sharing your registration information, then parking buildings can fine your rego plate, but they can't fine YOU personally, because they don't know who you are.
Genius.
7. Just cry.
"It works every time. I was towing an unsecure load, the couch flew off on the motorway, was driving in bareffet, had no warrant, and no rego and I got off the lot because I started crying and the cop couldn't handle it."
Well. That's your 7 tips.
Personally, I got to the point where the pile up of parking tickets was so depressing, I just ignored them... for a really, really long time. And then one day I got a letter in the mail saying there was a warrant out for my arrest BECAUSE OF PARKING TICKETS.
No joke.
So, this list is going to come in reaaaal handy...
But, if you personally are going to take anything from this article, it's this:
Don't just lie down and let parking buildings shove tickets up your ass.
FIGHT THE POWER. CHALLENGE YOUR TICKETS.
Roisin Kelly
(Ro the web girl)
