While we're on parking I was going to post this anyway but I turned up to a punt yesterday at a hotel only to find that I had to pay for parking and it was the ANPR cameras operated by the cunts that are Parking Eye
Having previously had a run in with these shysters which cost me dearly I was not only put out but obviously mindful that I didn't get another fine
This is after having looked on the hotel website and seeing that parking was free however clearly that was only for guests
Quick read of the almost incomprehensible signage informed me that the only way to pay was with this fucking "Pay by phone" method, I mean FFS what's wrong with sticking a few coins or credit / debit card in a machine
OK so I know i'm a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to this shit but in my experience the technology never fucking works
I went to my punt having read that it was possible to pay on exit so decided to sort it out afterwards
Back in my car post punt and I start to download the pay by phone app only to be informed that my phone doesn't support it
So what the fuck now then
I did fortunately have my laptop in the boot which is something i sometimes randomly do if i'm turning up to punt a new girl in case of being let down etc and I then have to sign up online
Turns out the cost was different to what the signs said, higher obviously
Only 60p higher but still it's another piss off and when I pay for 2 hours parking it starts the timer from when I click on pay to park rather than when I entered the car park so now i'm thinking i'm still likely to get a fine for the 50 minutes that i was there before I paid
I stress about this all the way back home and go on the website again to try and speak to someone and check it's OK, try to use the "Contact us" feature but see it's one of those useless fucking chatbox things which i'm not sure anyone has ever managed to get an answer from that was worthwhile so give up on that.
Trying to find info and navigate the website does the usual taking me round in circles which is mega annoying but finally I find something that does inform me in some instances where you are allowed to pay on exit you need to pay for the right amount of time and apparently the parking company will tie it up but it's not possible to backdate the time at the point of paying, so much for having all this ANPR and technology
I know I do get uber stressed out about this kind of shit sometimes but yet again it just reinforces to me that so much of this modern tech simply doesn't fucking work 50% of the time