RingGo: Mobile Car Parking App 4+

Easy to use

Makes parking and extending your parking time remotely very easy. A positive use of technology if only it wasn’t unwittingly adding to the ever-increasing global surveillance society that we’re waking up to. The loss of cash parking meters will accelerate the advent of our cash-less society and once cash has vanished and the global central bank digital currency is established ( coming soon to your neighbourhood ) the Earth population’s freedom to interact financially with one another will be forever at risk of being severely controlled and curtailed at the whim of an algorithm by a hidden elite whose aims may only become clear once we’ve given away our right and ability to trade independently with a people’s currency. Other than that issue of losing those freedoms globally I cannot praise the Ringo app more highly and would recommend it to anyone with a vehicle.

Clever recent changes make it more likely to get a parking ticket - borderline criminal

The app used to be good. Simple to use. I used for for a couple of years. Recent changes make it much less intuitive, perhaps coders sat in a office somewhere who look at nothing all day but this, find it easy. Try using the new look app when you are rushing, in the rain and guess what, you have more on your mind than this app! Then ask yourselves have the new changes made it easier for the user (your primary incline stream), or easier for your parking clients to raise parking fine revenue. Is this a rant? Absolutely. Stung £25 yesterday in MK because the new app requires the user to ‘start the parking session’. Yet sends the text first to say parking session started. The screen also has a ‘started time’ box on left side. Therefore not unreasonable for the user to assume the sessions has started. But no. Apparently not. Hence I’m £25 out of pocket. App developers - please see your changes through the eyes of your CUSTOMERS, in the circumstances they use your product, not through ‘revenue maximised’ eyes. What’s was a v useful product now feels like partnership with the parking location owners to rip off or trick the end customer. Not the most enduring business model I’ve ever seen. Rant over. Frustration remains!

2 fatal flaws that together create an unusable app

Some car park operators (such as Waverley Borough Council) have chosen to disable Apple Pay and Google Pay within the RingGo app for their car parks. But this renders the app entirely pointless for the user. RingGo must push back on operators who ask for this. Waverley BC had complained about difficulties of handling refunds, and so RingGo responded by allowing them to disable it altogether. That’s nuts. Made worse by the fact that if the user then, instead, chooses to load a credit card into the app - you can’t. That’s because the app doesn’t allow your phone to pre-load / pre-populate all the fields. Think about this. Users who regularly use Apple Pay or Google Pay are precisely the ones who are unlikely to carry their card. Meaning that users who get caught out by lack of Google / Apple Pay are completely stuffed. It really shouldn’t be this hard to pay for parking….
EDIT: post developers response… You’re still not addressing the 2nd issue. Why does your app make it so difficult to load a credit card?! Why on earth can’t you allow my phone to pre-load all the fields, like every other app and website in existence?!?

Developer Response ,

Payment method options is an Operators decision as they manage the car parking areas, not RingGo. Should you wish to add a payment card to your RingGo app then please contact us via our Live Chat service, where an agent would be happy to assist and guide you further.