I drove into a Shell garage in Kilburn (north-west London) to use the automatic car wash. I paid £5, and there were five or six cars in front and two behind me. It took ages – probably about an hour.
I have since received a £60 fine (rising to £100 if not paid within a set time) from Euro Car Parks saying I overstayed its maximum 20-minute waiting time. It rejected my appeal stating that the signs say clearly there is a maximum wait time. This is frankly absurd. Shell is selling this car wash and yet not using discretion about the fact that a line of cars will easily lead to overstaying this 20-minute period.
I don’t intend to pay the fine and have appealed, but surely Shell has to account for people waiting to use a service it has sold. SR, London
We got in touch with Shell which claimed it had not received a direct complaint from you. It said the format does not involve a strict queueing system but is a forecourt “where customers tend to park their cars and go into nearby shops. This is why there is a notice at the site that informs site visitors and car wash users to input their details into a car wash console, so that the waiting time registers as waiting for the car wash service. Unfortunately, there is no record on our side of [SR’s] details being input into the console, which is why the fine notice was sent.”
You appealed to Euro Car Parks, which refused to overturn the decision, but then you went further to Popla (the independent appeals service for parking charge notices issued on private land) and recently learned that your appeal was successful. Euro Car Parks did not respond to our request for an explanation. Your case seems to raise interesting questions. We’d be interested to hear if other readers have had similar problems.
We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com or write to Consumer Champions, Money, the Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone number. Submission and publication of all letters is subject to terms and conditions
