Call to clamp down on clampers

NEW ZEALAND – A South Auckland woman is accusing car clamp companies of deliberately targeting poor areas.

The government today announced it was considering placing a cap on clamping fees, which often cost people hundreds of dollars.

In 2016, Anele Bamber’s mother, Lilieni Bamber, 71, was forced to pay $200 after she accidentally parked in a reserved spot.

Anele Bamber said her mother had driven to the Papatoetoe cheesecake shop to buy a birthday cake for her son.

She was in the shop for around five minutes and returned to find a man in a black uniform standing beside her clamped car.

Anele Bamber said the man demanded her mother pay $200 to have the clamps removed.

“She questioned him because she didn’t feel it was right because there was no visible signage there to say she couldn’t park there,” she said.

“My mother became quite distressed and felt like in order to leave she had to pay up the cash of $200.”

Anele Bamber said the clampers deliberately targeted poor areas like Papatoetoe, where residents might not be aware of their rights.

“There’s been a lot of discussion on Facebook with people sharing their incidents that have happened in certain areas that are always targeted – like the food court in Manukau, general parking places where a lot of people access fruit shops. All across South Auckland it’s been quite prominent,” she said.

AA spokesman Mark Stockdale said car clamping was ineffective and should be banned.

“People are restricted from moving their vehicles and actually vacating a carpark so it doesn’t solve the very problem that enforcers want, which is to free up a carpark for a legitimate user,” Stockdalsaide.

“The penalties are excessive and it denies natural justice because you have to handover the money to release the wheel clamp.”

Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi told RNZ that the government was looking to place a cap on the fees charged by clampers – but said a ban was unlikely.

“People do have property rights. If you owned a carpark and people illegally parked there or wrongly parked there or parked there if they knew they weren’t meant to then I think you do have some recourse, so getting that balance right is what, I think, we are trying to make sure we get.”