MOBILE: Rose Paino wants 2degrees to enable text parking. IMAGE: Cathy Romeyn
A FINAL year university student from Stokes Valley can’t afford the tickets she has incurred because of not having small change for car parking.
Rose Paino (22) has previously paid for parking by mobile phone, using the TXT-A-Park option available on nearly 500 meters throughout Wellington.
TXT-a-Park, the service that allows motorists to pay for parking via mobile phone, is not available to 2degree’s half-million-plus customers.
It is only available to Telecom and Vodafone customers.
“I’ve been with Telecom, Vodafone and now 2degrees. I switched because they’re cheaper but I didn’t realise that I can’t text park with them. It’s a real pain. Shops don’t want to give change and I’ve been pinged a few times now with fines,” she said.
Wellington City Council is one of 12 local bodies throughout the country, which has installed meters offering text parking.
It processes an average of 1450 text transactions daily.
2degrees announced this week it has signed up 580,112 customers since its launch 18 months ago, but the company is yet to offer the service to its customers.
Several approaches were made to 2degrees, asking if it intends to make this service available.
A customer services representative emailed: “All we can say is that TXT-a-Park is being worked on, however we cannot give a date as to when this service will be available.”
The company ran half-page newspaper advertising this month celebrating the signing up of nearly 600,000 customers, an increase of 374,000 on a year ago.
Some customers are voicing their frustration on the company’s Facebook site about being unable to text for parking.
Danny Sunkel posted: “Yep am just looking at switching and didn’t even realise that you couldn’t txt 2 park. This one’s possibly a deal breaker.”
2degrees commented on its site 11 months ago: “Unfortunately it’s not something that will probably happen straight away. However a number of people have mentioned it so we’re exploring what we can do.”
