Initialparking Reviews 633

25/07/25 Newquay Airport short stay car park.My wife and I took two cars to collect our family who arrived from Dublin. They were last through the arrivals gate and then had to spend 30 minutes to register that none of their luggage (4x cases 2x car seats) were on the flight from Dublin. I used one of the four machines in arrivals to pay for both vehicles. I entered the Full VRM for both vehicles and the charge displayed on the screen was £2.50. I paid by contactless and received a ticket with the VRM displayed and fee paid, along with a separate receipt for payment. I did the process for my wife’s car and received the same ticket and receipt. So payment was made for £2.50 for each car. We left the car park with our family but no luggage.
On 05/08/25 both my wife and I received a PCN for £100 reduced to £60 if paid within 2 weeks.
We both appealed supplying photo evidence of both tickets and receipts and a copy of a bank statement to prove that 2x £2.50 payments had been made to the airport .
Both appeals were refused.
I now realise (having returned to the airport today) that the £2.50 that appeared on the screen was for the minimum amount of time and it was up to me to alter the time spent in the car park to cover our stay there. I have used many car parks that use ANPR and when you put in the VRM into the the pay machine, it calculates what fee you need to pay, and it displays on the screen what fee is due. I have never known a car park where you have to calculate your stay time and alter the tariff on the machine.

This is an absolute disgrace of a system aimed purely to catch unsuspecting motorists out. Had the machine had displayed £4.50 (that is apparently the fee that was due ) I would have gladly paid it. The machine obviously knew what time I had entered the car park so why not display the amount due.

Terrible money grabbing company. Daughter paid for parking on app but failed to change the reg from her car to mine, a mistake I know. Even though I provided evidence of payment for the space allbeit wrong reg and proof she owned the car and a photo of the 2 cars together on the drive at home they rejected appeal. No offer to pay the £9 we did pay back for her car that never parked though

Abersoch Village Hall 23rd July.
The cameras time you from the point of entry until you leave so by the time we had found a space, parked and queued for a ticket quite a bit of time had passed. In practise we exited only a few minutes beyond our ticket time so a £60 fine for only a few minutes is a downright scam.... I'm sure that quite a few will get caught out like this at busy times when there are queues to get in and out and for the ticket machine. (It is only a small car park).

In July used slate quay car park. App didn't work so used coins to pay. Displayed ticket. Several days later issued with £100 PCN. Appealed and requested Initial parking check their CCTV to show ticket being purchased on placed on dashboard. Immediately appeal rejected and didn't keep ticket so utterly scamned

I parked in the designated area of the car park in Scarborough to charge my EV .no signs to say I had to pay while charging.I received a parking fine letter a week after -not even a phone number to call for clarification,just an email address.I appealed the notice and waiting to hear from them ,I attached my receipt for payment for the charging session.I also reported them to Trading Standards because they should have a camera aiming at the EV chargers ,not just in the entrance. They should have checked their payment records before issuing a parking charge.I find their behaviour very suspicious. They are harassing people to pay fines they should NOT be issuing.I told them that they are scammers and I reported them so that they don’t continue harassing people. If they acted in a similar way please report them to trading standards,through the citizens advice helpline .The more complaints then trading standards will have to investigate. Unacceptable behaviour.

Stayed small amount of time too long at car park at caernarfon castle. Very expensive to begin with. Nothing to say how to pay for extra time. £60 fine. Car parking firms like this should be out lawed

My son, a new driver parked in Gulls Rock Inn Car Park, putting a ticket onto his car, over running he went back and added another to extend it. From what we can see the ANPR couldn't cope with that and just fined him for the first car parking offence, ignoring the second ticket. To rub salt into the wound the offence was on the 10th July, notice issued on the 15th and only received on the 25th giving us just 5 days to deal with before the £60 fine rises to £100, completely done on purpose to catch you out. Wish these companies did not exist as they are nothing short of rip offs, personally I avoid these car parks and think companies and councils that use them need to think again, would avoid!!

Paid for the car park and was charged a fine for violating car park conditions. Together with rental company processing fee-128GBP
It seems like I didn't type in the whole reg number (missing last digit). I provided the proof of payment and they still would not issue a refund (of the fine I fully paid thinking I must have parked in the boats space or something else). Disgraceful company

Abersoch Village Hall Saturday 10th May. No slot to pay cash. Credit card reader not operative. Loads of people trying to download the "Initial Parking" which took ages.... and then wouldn't accept £3.20 bank authorised payment (screen grabs as proof). Tried again later to find it would accept £1.20 (1 hr) not £3.20 (3hr). Deliberate? Appeal made and acknowledged.Appeal ignored for over two months - assumed with the overwhelming evdence given it had been dropped - got a debt collectors letter yesterday demanding £170.00 as the "opportunity to appeal has now passed" Er...? Fortunately I have hard copies of everything. Anyone else scammed by Abersoch car park that day because of total absence of a means to pay, please reply via trustpilot. It refuses to accept my email for you to reply. Class action?

discresful scam company; avoid parking there. ticket paid genuinely but due to faulty ticket machine fine was issued. No NCP note delived, case passed to Debt Recovery, no one seems to will to cooperate despite hard evidence delivered

3 days ago
New
DO NOT PARK here...it's a pay & display car park BUT they have anpr cameras on entry & exit...
so by the time you have found a space, parked, walked to the ticket machine, queued & actually paid, then returned to put the ticket into your car - you think you have the ticket time as purchased to enjoy Abersoch. You then return back to your car, make your way out to the exit and at that point the anpr camera clocks you going out. Basically you don't just pay to park here, you pay for the time you enter & exit the car park...so BEWARE it could cost you £100 just to enter here!!!!!
SHAME ON ABERSOCH VILLAGE HALL FOR SUPPORTING THESE CROOKS!!!

Avoid parking here, it's a scam!
Use the Parking for Snowdon further down the road as it is cheaper and legitimate. Staying in your car for more than 10 minutes will result in a £100 fine.

DISGRACEFUL SCAM - As many others I was fined £100 for parking in St Mary's Church Car Park in Betws-y-Coed Wales. Had poor GPS signal and only one machine was working. They combine your consideration to park and grace period in one which meant my time ran over when I collected my car. Even after appealling to POPLA I was unsuccessful. I will be reporting this company to Gov.uk for unlawful practices.

I thought I was pretty street wise, clearly not though as it turns out. There’s a lovely village in Wales called Abersoch. It has a village hall which has a car park. Sadly they employ a team of scammers to run their car park. The scam is quite ingenious. They scan your vehicle as you drive in. You park and buy a ticket. There is no internet connection or phone signal so you go back to the car for change. You buy a ticket and it has an expiry time. You think that’s the time you need to return by. But no they record the time you physically leave and even when this is before the expiry time you get a fine of £100. Why, because they base it not on the time on the ticket but that on the camera.

Seems this is common practice with the company concerned who run car parks all over the UK.

What bothers me most is not the sharks who run the company it’s Abersoch village hall. Surely you know what is going on, a minute on trip advisor will show this.

payed for car ticket at lamberis car park for 2h only stayed for 1h30mins got a 100 fine waiting on appeal outcome beware keep ticket as proof

Entered Fistral Beach car park Newquay at 15.45pm , both machines did not accept cash , after typing in vehicle information the machine said no contactless payment cash only , so I returned the the car , I did not have enough coins , returned to the pay station , used the app and paid via the car park number on the sign for 2 hours , walked on the beach came back to the car before 18.00pm , as we had removed our footwear, we cleaned the sand from out feet , replaced trainers , got in the car , typed in sat nav so we knew which way to leave . Left the car park at 18.13pm , received a fine for over staying the car park as we found out later you are charged from the minute you enter the car park to the minute you leave ,
Appealed turned down with in 40 mins we received a reply the next morning,
Poor inconsiderate service, never use a car park run by them again .

Just had a parking fine of £100 through the door from parking in Holywell bay, luckily I’d kept the ticket so appealed and got a reply from these scammers saying because of my evidence they wouldn’t pursue the fine, firstly I payed for my parking I remember thinking how shocked my Dad would’ve been £8 for parking !! secondly they didn’t apologise at all, they must get so much money taking advantage of people especially the most vulnerable, absolute disgrace.

Completely unethical company, no understanding shown having paid for a ticket, simply making money often at the expense of legitimate human difficulty!

We were actually working for the car park's owner when we got fined by their scamming car park management company, Initial Parking. Even though we appealed on that basis they still would not retract the charge. They don't read your letters, the response to mine rejecting my appeal came by email at 4.30 in the morning proving it's just an automated system set to auto reject.

Even though we paid, provided evidence of the payment via bank statement AND produced the ticket and then appealed to POPLA, the appeal got denied because of an error on our ticket.
As MANY others have stated here, this is due to a faulty machine printing only the first 2 digits. How would anyone even know that the machine part printing your reg is a mistake and not because of privacy??? Why are motorists now being held liable for faulty or incorrectly set up machines?

Appalling that POPLA are not concerned, stating that this falls outside their role.

Note the owner has multiple such businesses, and a little digging into their reviews, shows MANY to have the same thread....SCAM! These guys need to be reported, but I suspect just like POPLA, they wont care.