A car parking payment machine at the Royal Surrey County hospital in Guildford looks like something from a cross between Blake’s 7 and The Krypton Factor.
Among its half-dozen wordy commands on the tiny screen is that you check in with your bank card and check out before you leave. People were getting extremely stressed and upset by its complexity.
With difficulty, I checked in using my credit card and, an hour later, with more difficulty, checked out and paid the £4.50 charge. Later, on checking my bank account, I found the car park had made a “holding payment” of £19. I was told it is to ensure customers have enough money in their accounts to pay and that it would take between five and 10 working days to be removed.
AC, Guildford, Surrey
Pre-authorised payments – where a trader “reserves” a certain sum before the exact cost of a transaction is known – are permitted under the Payment Services Directive and are commonly used by car-hire firms or hotels to ensure customers can afford the eventual bill.
This is the first time I’ve heard of it being used for parking. The car park at the Royal Surrey is managed by CP Plus whose website promises to make parking “as simple as possible”. It says that the check-in, check-out system is “to take the pressure and stress” off visitors because automated barriers cause queues and impedes ambulances.
“When a driver checks in, the system doesn’t know how long they will be staying, so it charges the day rate (£19) to the card in case the customer stays all day or fails to check out,” it explains. “At checkout, the correct amount is charged and the £19 will be refunded by their bank or card provider.”
Surprisingly, the amount a trader can ringfence is not limited by law and is not set by a regulator. Instead, it’s card schemes such as Visa and Mastercard who make the rules.
Visa says that only certain categories of merchant – such as car hire firms and hotels – are allowed to do this, but occasionally other traders are permitted. Once the final bill is paid, the merchant must reverse the ringfenced sum within 24 hours and the bank must immediately release the funds.
Mastercard says it allows pre-authorisations where the final cost is not yet known. This sum must be displayed to the customer before they enter their pin number.
CP Plus, which plans to simplify the payment process, says it abides by the rules and has no control over how long a bank takes to refund the £19. If you were not made aware of the £19 when you checked in, or if it is not promptly refunded, raise a chargeback with your card issuer.
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