Parking Tag - if you have an account, think about how much you use it vs. monthly fees

An Easytrip toll tag account is similar, there is an 'admin charge' every month.

And beware when they send you an invitation to sign up for parking using your toll tag - there is another admin. charge on top i.e. if you enable the account for parking, you will end up paying two admin charges each month. Which the e-mail fails to mention, it's buried in the small print when you sign up.

All the while during the lockdowns when people were working from home and not parking in town or passing through tolls, those companies were raking in the money for doing SFA.

Cancelled this years ago. Monthly charge was simply not worth for the amount of times I would park. The service charge will erode the top-up over time.

Everyone, also beware:

There is a 20 cent charge for that reminder text before your time is up. I turned that off ages ago when I copped it. Make sure you do the same if you use it. Just put a reminder in your phone or remember the time.

I was having lunch today with a few of the lads when we got discussing parkingtag. One of them claimed that there was a 'surcharge' for using the service i.e. above and beyond what you'd pay in cash if feeding the meter. When I told him that was the charge for the SMS reminder which he could opt out of by simply unticking it, his jaw dropped. He thought that was a free part of the package, had no idea the reminder was optional and that allowing it to default meant he was paying 20c extra every time he used the app. And it's a total rip-off because there's no reason why the app couldn't kick off a countdown alarm on your phone to go off 5 minutes before the time expires. Or at the very least, throw up the countdown alarm menu to let you set it.

Thanks for pointing this out. I just checked. I pay 80c plus VAT per month on account fees since October (50c up to September). Any idea why?

Immediately switched off the SMS notifications.

I paid 17 Euro of fees for account fees and SMS reminders in the last year. Never realized!

I often wonder why none of the parking machines here accept card / contactless payments. I travel a good bit to the UK and it's rare to find one that doesn't.

I’ve just noticed that I’m been charged this fee also and I’m usually very Careful reading what I’m singing up to. Only spotted it as they auto topped up my account and I haven’t used it in months!

I reckon there is no way it was made clear on the sign up, probably buried in small print which I would imagine breaks some law.

Think I downloaded the app around start of October 22 which is roughly when they introduced the charges I think.

They have an offer of 4 cents a litre off fuel in circle K. I use this every time I get diesel. 30 litres and you've got your €1.20 monthly charge back.

Not really. I keep a good eye on fuel prices and the majority of stations are within a few decimal points of each other.