Terence Baxter* had booked a meet-and-greet service to park his Volkswagen at Heathrow airport while he and his wife went on holiday. The couple handed over the keys at the drop-off site and were driven to the terminal – and that was the last they saw of their car. On their return they were informed by the company it had been stolen.
Their case comes as airports and police forces are warning travellers to be wary of “unofficial” operators advertising cheap long-stay parking after a rise in complaints.
Returning holidaymakers have been reporting vehicles that have been damaged, burgled or stolen while in the care of meet-and-greet companies.
Some have received penalty charge notices (PCNs) for parking breaches while their cars were in supposedly secure compounds, while others were left stranded at the arrivals terminal when their meet-and-greet service failed to materialise.
Anyone can set up as a parking operator and trade legally, provided they are not in breach of airline bylaws. The unscrupulous companies usually do not have contracts with landowners. Some operators “moonlight” from the car parks of airport hotels – where customers are directed to drop off their cars – and then dump the vehicles on land outside the airport perimeter, including on construction sites and in fields.
Baxter used a comparison website, Compare Your Parking, to find a long-stay deal. He clicked a recommended option, Heathrow Park & Ride, and paid £109 for three weeks’ parking at a secure site. Almost a month later he was informed that his booking had been amended, and the service provider would now be a company called Park At Airport Ltd. The drop-off location was the car park of the Heathrow Holiday Inn, where he was met by an agent in a car. The paperwork was completed in the boot.
On the couple’s return to the UK, they called the number provided and were promised they would be met in the arrivals hall and taken to their car.
“They didn’t come,” Baxter says. “I had to phone them again five times. Eventually, they called to inform me that my car had been stolen, along with seven others.”
Baxter is now pursuing a claim through his insurer that has been classed as “at fault”. He says: “I feel that I am being made to feel like the guilty party, while the car park company seems as if it can walk away and carry on trading with no consequences.”
Customer reviews of Park At Airport on Trustpilot suggest similar experiences. Some report the theft of their vehicle, lost keys or receiving PCNs for parking breaches or unpaid ultra-low emission zone (ULEZ) charges.
Park At Airport blamed vehicle and key thefts on organised criminal gangs and said it was cooperating with a police investigation. It said that the matter of PCNs being issued to customers was being resolved. “We make it clear that vehicles may be moved between compounds,” a spokesperson said. “Unfortunately, there was a recent security breach that affected a relatively small number of customers. Since then, we have implemented enhanced security measures across all our compounds.”
Sussex police told the Guardian it had closed the investigation because of a lack of evidence. “Officers remain aware of ongoing concerns in the local area about the practices of some parking providers,” a spokesperson said. “They continue to work closely with the relevant authorities, including trading standards, to address these issues.”
An investigation last year into airport meet-and-greet companies by the consumer group Which? found that some comparison websites operate in cahoots with unscrupulous parking firms.
“Rogue operators are often prominently listed in search engine results and on some comparison sites. With generic names that change as soon as they attract poor reviews, consumers can easily be caught out,” says the Which? travel expert Guy Hobbs. “In some cases we believe the comparison site and provider to be one and the same.”
Which? recently published a useful guide to the best, and cheapest, on-site and off-site parking options at UK airports.
A dummy booking on Compare Your Parking, the typo-laden comparison site used by Baxter, produced quotes from a range of providers with official-sounding names such as Heathrow Park & Ride and unattributed four- or five-star reviews. In some cases, when we looked, customers had to click through to the small print to discover that the contract was with a differently named company. The companies checked out by the Guardian had one-star reviews on Trustpilot, with customers reporting unsafe storage compounds, theft and damage.
Compare Your Parking is the trading name of Compare Travel Services Ltd, whose director was previously linked to a meet-and-greet service called Wizpark, which attracted some critical reviews from customers on social media. The company did not respond to our requests for a comment.
Heathrow airport this year signed up to a new quality-control initiative designed to vet member parking operators after scores of complaints from scam victims. The approved meet and greet parking operator scheme” (AM-GO), launched by the British Parking Association, is supported by Police Crime Prevention Initiatives and requires member companies to uphold a code of practice. Birmingham airport has also joined the scheme.
Most airports do not yet have a list of approved parking operators. Travellers should read reviews of providers before booking and check they bear the Park Mark logo, which shows that their facilities have passed police safety checks. And if a deal is significantly cheaper than average, beware, as there is probably a catch.
* Name has been changed
