Parking contractors at Coastlands mall, in Paraparaumu, have been fining shoppers who make return visits on the same day.

You'd be forgiven for thinking shopping malls like their customers to return again and again.

But on the Kapiti Coast north of Wellington, repeat shoppers have been slapped with $65 parking fines – for returning too quickly between visits.

Daphne Boderick parked at Coastlands mall in Paraparaumu on Saturday morning, did some shopping and then left.

ADAM POULOPOULOS/ FAIRFAX NZ Daphne Boderick got a $65 fine for parking at Coastlands on Saturday morning, then leaving and returning later. The ticket said she had breached the mall's four-hour parking limit.

She returned a few hours later, to a different parking spot, to visit the mall again. She came back to her car to find a fine on her windscreen for exceeding the four-hour parking limit.

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Her partner Chris Pike posted on Facebook about the fine, and drew out several other angry shoppers who had encountered the same problem.

ADAM POULOPOULOS/ FAIRFAX NZ Parking Enforcement Services, which issued the tickets, was hired by Coastlands in an effort to stop rail commuters and business workers taking mall car parks.

Diane Ward said it was "just stupidity", and a good way to send people elsewhere.

Rob Walker said if you wanted people to spend money at your business, "then why would you fine them for doing so?".

Pike said it appeared licence plates were recorded in the morning and, if the same plate was found anywhere in the car park in the afternoon, drivers were ticketed.

ADAM POULOPOULOS/ FAIRFAX NZ Coastlands said it never intended for returning shoppers to be ticketed. "It's not what you want to do at all."

He said Boderick parked at about 10.45am for about 45 minutes on Saturday to go shopping.

She left before returning about 2.30pm, "quite some distance" from her previous parking spot.

FINE WAIVED

Her fine was eventually waived – but only after the couple spent two days supplying receipts and eyewitness evidence to show she had been away between visits.

But even then, Parking Enforcement Services, a division of Wilson Parking, maintained Boderick breached the terms and conditions displayed at the car park, Pike said.

Coastlands centre manager Jan Forrest said the mall had been assured by the parking contractors that the multiple visit problem would not happen again.

​TICKETS VOIDED

"It's something that we only became aware of that seemed to happen this last weekend. I don't know what the issue was, if there was a glitch."

Forrest said she had been contacted by ticketed shoppers, and so had the parking company.

They would void any tickets issued, but she said there could well be people who had paid fines already. Anybody with concerns could contact the mall.

Coastlands never intended for people who were shopping, or had returned multiple times, to be ticketed. "It's not what you want to do at all."

PROBLEM WITH COMMUTERS

She said there had been an ongoing problem with rail commuters and local business workers taking mall car parks, which the parking company had been contracted to resolve.

Wilson Parking enforcement services general manager Matt Ransom said the company had "reviewed and improved" enforcement methods to cover people who left and returned on the same day. This would ensure they were not issued with a breach notice.

"However, if for any reason a genuine customer does receive a breach notice in this situation, or has so recently, they simply need to contact us and we will be happy to cancel the breach notice."

The fine was still "a more user-friendly enforcement system than clamping or towing", he said.

WHAT'S IN A BREACH?

Automobile Association senior policy analyst Mark Stockdale said he had never heard of people getting tickets after leaving and returning to car parks.

Provided people were parking uninterrupted for no longer than four hours, the problem was probably with the method used for enforcement, he said.

"Perhaps there needs to be better systems in place to better monitor vehicle movements."

He agreed fines were better than clamping. "With clamping, you're guilty until proven innocent."."