I recently decided hired a rental car for a day to go from Melbourne to Belaret. Decided to return to Melbourne via Geelong, a city I had never been to before. On arriving at a waterfront location, there appeared to be few cars around. This should have been a warning, but at this stage I didn't know much about Geelong so tried to work out if it was an area where you paid for parking or not. Regretably I determined it was a free area with a time limit, but it seems it was in fact an area you had to pay for. Arriving back at the rental car, I had a $72 fine.
I wrote to the Geelong council explaining the circumstances and didn't expect to get a lot of joy, it looked like this was a tourist trap that earned Gelong City a good revenue stream from visitors while locals parked on free parking near-by. Sure enough I got a form letter back from someone claiming to be an Ombudsmen, hadnt it appeared bothered to read what I wrote or couldn't be bothered responding to it. It appears the Ombudsmen is in fact an accountant, and I shouldn't be surprised I guess that an accountant wasn't too interested in an appeal against a parking fine.
Now I didn't try to evade Geelong parking fees, their signage as I see it on Google Street view isn't very clear and they might well encourage visitors anyway by having an area where people can park for free. $72 is a steep fine and it was clear that it has deterred most people from parking in the area. This must catch quite a few visitors and I expect earns them quite good revenue. If you are a ;local you can appeal to the local Court but of course they would simply confirm there were signs and the council could fine you what they want. I've only got the satisfaction now of telling people not to go to Geelong.
