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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published:7 December 2007

Could this shambles lower my taxes?

• I’VE just had my first encounter with Westminster Council’s new mobile parking payment system.
It sucks. Totally. Wearing my “mobile user” hat rather than my “analyst” hat, this was my first and hopefully last real-world encounter with mobile payments.
Basically, London’s Westminster Council is fed up with people vandalising or stealing coins from parking meters, so it wants to reduce its amount of on-street payment equipment.
The system they’ve chosen is for users to either phone or text the reference number of the parking bay and the length of time they want to stay. But the payment mechanism is via debit or credit card – and the first time you park, you have to call into an interactive voice response (IVR) system to set this up (or do it on the web first if you’re organised enough), and your car registration.
The first problem is the number – an 0870 premium-rate one, which isn’t included in most mobile call packages, and which therefore costs an unknown extra amount to call. The second problem is being certain that some phisher hasn’t swapped the signs over – how do I know that it’s the correct IVR system, and not one that someone’s set up to capture credit card details?
The third thing is that I don’t know who else is involved in running the system, and I really don’t want to have my credit card number on file with the council – let’s face it, local government authorities aren’t always the most trustworthy institutions.
I reckon the most convenient form of mobile payment for parking remains the coin. It works, it’s quick and there’s no need to pay anyone else trying to shoehorn themselves in the value chain.
On the bright side, all this confusion will probably lead to more parking fines and cars being towed. I’m sure the extra cash should help lower my taxes.
NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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