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A FURIOUS motorist has been left ‘disgusted’ after being fined £60 for parking for just 8 minutes.
He says that the fine is around half of his daily pay.
Ian, 63, described the decision to fine him as “disgusting”[/caption]
Ian Dykes, 63, says he was fined for staying in the East Street Car Park in Nottingham for under 10 minutes.
What makes things worse is that, according to Ian, he only stayed in the space for as long as he did because he was trying to pay to park there.
He says he made four attempts to pay which were rejected when he tried to enter his registration number.
Unable to park, Ian, who works for tech company Dell, drove to a nearby multi-story car park and paid for his space there, before setting off to repair a machine at a nearby cinema.
A week later, he says he was hit by a fine out of the blue.
“I work for Dell as an engineer and I was heading for the NG1 to park. There’s a cinema by the multi-story car park and I had to go and do a job there to fix a machine.
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“There was a car park just close by and I used the number to ring to pay for the parking. So I rang it and put my registration number in, then they asked for it again so I put it in again – it asked my about four times for the number.
“It wouldn’t accept payment so within the eight minutes I was there I thought it’s pointless leaving it here, I’ll go and park at the multi-story car park, which I did.
“And then a week later I got a fine for £60 fine for trying to pay for parking!”
Ian says that he appealed the fine and showed the parking company the ticket from the multi-story with the 8 minute time difference on it but his protest was rejected.
The company insisted that he pay the fine, he says.
He described the decision as “disgusting.”
“That £60 comes out of my daily pay so that’s like half my pay for the day. They said that the machine was working fine and it just wasn’t, it was just looping all the time.
“It was just a nightmare.”
Ian insists that he is not the only one to suffer parking problems.
“Everywhere you go in NG1 there’s a problem with the parking – it’s a nightmare trying to get close to the businesses where you’re called to work.
“If someone was to come into the city to do some shopping in the city centre, it’s a nightmare to park.”
Euro Car Parks have been approached for comment.
LYING awake night after night, Kristina Belkaite can’t stop thinking about whether she’ll be able to keep her business afloat after scammers stole over £24,700.
The 28-year-old runs a street food stall with business partner Fabien Battut and their hard-earned cash was swiped by fraudsters in June.
They received a phone call from someone claiming to be from their business bank, Tide.
The scammer said that hackers had compromised their account and a new one needed to be opened to keep their cash safe.
But little did they know the caller on the other end of the phone was a fraudster, out to steal their cash.
At first the pair were suspicious about the phone call out of the blue.
But the caller had personal information such as transaction details and sounded professional, which persuaded Kristina and Fabien it was real.
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To move their cash to a new “safe” account, the duo were sent an email with a QR code in it.
Once scanned, this would enable the caller to access their account.
Usually when logging into a Tide account on your computer, a QR code pops up on the login page – you scan this through your app and it then lets you access your account on your laptop.
The scammer set up a bank transfer to move £24,700 to the so-called “safe” account.
They then said that a new card and account information would arrive in the post within a couple of days.
But after the phone call ended, the penny dropped – Kristina and Fabien realised they had just been scammed.
“She kept talking over me on the phone, and when she hung up I thought something was fishy,” Kristina said.
“I went ‘oh my god its a scam’, and I was freaking out.”
The pair immediately logged on to their Tide app to report the fraud.
They have a basic business account package and with no monthly charge to use it.
But that means they couldn’t phone customer services and had to go through the app’s messaging service instead.
Tide aims to reply to messages in the app within 20 minutes.
But Kristina and Fabien didn’t receive a reply until the next day, despite the urgency of the issue.
Since then, Kristina said they have been going “round in circles” with Tide – they have asked the bank numerous times for a phone call.
“Each time, we had to explain problem again fresh, ” said Kristina.
“No one bothered to call me for days – I’m furious.”
Eventually Tide told Kristina that following an investigation into their case, they could only get 24p of their money back.
“It’s ridiculous – how can we run the business on that?,” said Kristina.
“We’re not closing our company, but I’m really worried.
“We’re having to rely on credit cards just to keep the business going because all the cash was taken.
“We’ve already racked up a bill of £3,000 and we can’t pay suppliers on time.
“I can’t sleep and I can’t concentrate on anything – all I’m thinking all day long is: ‘where the hell is my money?’”.
That’s why Kristina got in touch with The Sun’s Squeeze Team to see if we could help get their cash back.
After we contacted Tide, it looked at their case again, and is now offering a full refund plus £500 in compensation.
A spokesperson said: “After a complaint was raised, we investigated the matter thoroughly, and we are sorry for the added stress the customer has been through getting this matter resolved.
“We would encourage all our customers to be vigilant. There is advice on our website about fraud prevention.”
Unfortunately, the number of scam victims like Kristina and Fabien are rising.
Cases of fraud jumped 36% to 5.1million in the year to September 2021, according to the Office for National Statistics.
If you think you’ve been scammed, call your bank immediately using the number on the back of the card.
Tell Action Fraud, report it online or by calling 0300 123 2040 (Monday to Friday, 8am-8pm).
It will tell the police and give you a crime reference number.
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Some banks offer automatic refunds – but it does vary.
Current rules say if you have not authorised the payment then you should get a refund as long as you did not act fraudulently or with “gross negligence”, for example, giving away your PIN number or password.
CRISTIANO RONALDO once slammed Gary Neville for his “disgraceful farmer’s field” tactics during Valencia’s draw with Real Madrid in 2016.
Neville endured a horror stint as manager of Valencia in the 2015-16 season – lasting just THREE months before being sacked.
The former Manchester United full-back failed to record a single win in his first nine matches and left with the Spanish giants 14th in LaLiga.
But amongst the dark moments was one shining light – as his side twice battled from behind to draw 2-2 with a star-studded Real Madrid side.
In a fiery encounter, now-Chelsea star Mateo Kovacic was sent off as Paco Alcacer secured a late leveller to seal a point.
And Neville has now revealed how that game got under Ronaldo’s skin.
Nev told Sky Sports’ Off Script podcast: “The 2-2 draw with Real Madrid where we almost won it late on was an incredible night.
“Rafa Benitez was Madrid manager and that was his last game before he got sacked.
“What I remember most about that game was our tactic of leaving the grass really long.
“We didn’t water the pitch so the ball wouldn’t travel as quick in the hope of slowing down Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale.
“It was like a farmer’s field.
“Cristiano came over to me before the game and said ‘it’s a disgrace, cut the pitch’ – I said ‘absolutely no chance’.
“There was no way he was dribbling that night.”
Dropping those two points ultimately cost Los Blancos greatly, as they missed out on the LaLiga title to Barcelona by ONE point.
But it still wasn’t enough for Neville to save his job, as he was sacked just weeks later.
Neville hasn’t managed since, instead sticking to punditry on Sky Sports.
