‘Outraged’ Northamptonshire Starbucks customers criticise company after receiving £100 fines for staying too long

A chain coffee shop at The Oval M1, Junction 16 M1 has been the source of pain for a number of customers after parking fines were issued when visiting for coffee

Starbucks has been criticised for its lack of communication to customers over the maximum parking time being enforced on its site after a number of £100 parking fines were received in the post.

Jackie Shirley from Nether Heyford uses the coffee giant to meet friends. She was appalled and shocked when she received a parking ticket in the post. Her friend also received a parking ticket after they sat for their coffee catch-up and cake, which exceeded the 90 minutes maximum time.

As Starbucks is part of a service station, there is a 90-minute limit, however, Starbucks customers can input their car registration number so they are excluded from the time limit. Jackie, however, claims that the place to input the registration number in Starbucks is “not obvious” and staff did not tell her about it.

Jackie said: “How can they just sit back and watch their customers getting parking fines? There is an iPad in the cafe to put your car registration in, but it’s below eye level and the staff mentioned nothing about it.

“I was so upset when I opened the envelope. I never get fines and I am always very careful. I feel terrible.”

A number of residents at Nether Heyford use Starbucks and reported on Facebook that they had also received fines and said: “Perhaps someone ought to get staff to mention the registration iPad. It’s wrong that they don’t.”

Jackie added: “I asked the staff about this at Starbucks and they had said it was nothing to do with them.”

Jackie and two others who have received the fine have now been into Starbucks and told that the parking fines will not need to be paid.

Starbucks has been contacted about the fines and asked why staff are not making customers more aware of the iPad car registration but have not come back with a response as of yet.

EG Group has been contacted about this but have refused to comment.