A man has been left fuming after being clobbered with a £100 parking penalty for visiting a McDonald's branch twice in a day. He claims the parking company said he'd been parked there all day.
Dad Spencer Barclay said he visited the eatery at the Metro Retail Park in Gatehead for a morning coffee. Spencer, 52, from Newcastle, said he then went to work nearby, parking up for the day in the office's free car park.
He went on to say that, when he finished at 5pm, he drove back to the McDonald's restaurant to collect a Happy Meal for his six-year-old son. A few days later, he was shocked to receive a parking charge from UKPC, which he said had claimed he parked there for a straight eight hours and 43 minutes, reports ChronicleLive.
Spencer, who works as a software consultant, said: "It's absolutely disgusting, it's just blatantly designed to try to get money out of people - it's extortion. This can clearly happen to anybody.
"I think they have got a camera that photographs you, but the camera is a snap shot in time. It photographs you coming in and leaving, and that's fine, but what if you visit twice? If you visit McDonald's twice in a day you can get £100 fine - that can't be right. How many other people have been unfairly treated for going for a happy meal?"
Spencer said that he arrived at the restaurant at 8.25am on Friday, June 24, bought a coffee for himself and sat in the car park for a few minutes while he drank some of it. He said that left the site and did not return until just after 5pm the same day when he went to collect the takeaway for his child.
Spencer said he received the UKPC parking charge, which had been sent out on June 29, in the post on Saturday, July 2. The cameras had captured images of his Ford Galaxy arriving at 8.25am and leaving at 5.09pm.
The letter says he will receive a 50% "early pay discount" if he pays within 14 days. After that, he will owe the full £100. Spencer said he has complained to the parking firm about the penalty but had not received a response.
He said: "It's absolutely infuriating. They have got the photograph of me in the morning and at night, but nothing in between. I want to see the video evidence to show I was in that car park for the whole of the day.
"The first thing I said was 'the information is wrong, I arrived at that time and I left at that time, but you've got to be a complete moron if you park in that car park and walk to work where there's a free car park'. I have said to them 'take me to court'.
"My first thought was how can I prove it? We have got to put in a system, that's fair - this isn't fair, it's total extortion."
A spokesperson for McDonald’s said: "We are sorry to hear about this customer’s experience. The car park at our Metro Retail Park restaurant is run by a third party provider and we have made them aware of this issue. We understand that if the customer contacts the provider directly, their case will be considered under the appeals process"
Chronicle Live has contacted UKPC for a comment.
