No such thing as FREE PARKING at Liberty Midlands Mall.

No such thing as FREE PARKING at Liberty Midlands Mall.

Full disclosure, I hate Big Malls!

The only reason I actually go to the mall at all is to pick up and drop off parcels with Pep Stores PAXI Parcel Service

Firstly, Liberty Midlands Mall made a promise at their launch to NEVER charge for parking, which actually makes this complaint that much more egregious.

In order to cover this promise, they have a "policy" that allows fifteen minutes of FREE PARKING.

The other option at the Mall is that Checkers allows you Free Parking if you shop with them. Usually I do the PAXI Pick up/ Drop off, and then drive across to Checkers and do some shopping and get my ticket franked.

I would consider that fair play.

On Tuesday 26th October at about 3.15 pm I dropped off a parcel for my mother, for the first time, I did not have to stand in a queue at PEP Stores, I then ASSUMED that I could claim my 15 Minutes FREE PARKING!

No such luck, The machine demanded that I pay for the Parking Time.

My next thought was to go shopping at Checkers, and then get the ticket franked, which I did.

No Luck, the boom wouldn't lift, I had to go back to the Pay Machine

At this point , after actually checking the time slip, I had figured out the ****!

These ******* have the incoming boom ticket time-stamped 7 minutes EARLIER than the actual time, actually allowing only 8 minutes of supposedly FREE parking, this is literally only enough time for an Uber drop-off.

I had a major altercation with the operator via intercom, clearly reporting on thee time issue, and reluctantly paid the R8.00, with the clear understanding that the issue would be attended to.

On the way home, I had already figured that this was nothing short of deliberate *****, as the machines all communicate in real time, and there should be no possibility of time differences, The only possible way that this could occur is that it would have to be a feature intentionally programmed into the system!

You may well ask how I know that it is 7 minutes?

Yesterday I sent a parcel via PAXI to my mother (Note the 3 months between visits to the Mall)

This time I was prepared, at the boom, I checked the time, and took a picture with my Phone - Time on Ticket 15.09 Time on Phone 15.16.

Again, short queue at PEP, figured that it would be close, and tried the Parking Pay Machine Time on the Machine 15.27, Time on the Phone 15.27.

That is actually 11 minutes, should have been free, but had to pay R9.00 for FREE PARKING.

Also adding an extra 7 minutes affects every payment made for parking, it effectively pads the parking fees by about 10%!

I do not know whether it is The Liberty Mall itself or the Parking Company that is so near bankruptcy that they feel it necessary to ***** from their clients.