You expect an airport parking service to take care of your car while on vacation — not drive it to the supermarket.
Zoe Parr, 42, returned from her honeymoon in Montego Bay, Jamaica, to discover that an airport parking firm had driven her car nearly 500 miles without her permission.
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Parr had set up a meet-and-greet service with Manchester Airport Parking Services Ltd to take care of her BMW 123d M Sport while she was away.
Before leaving her car with the representative, she noted her vehicle had 50,000 miles. However, upon returning to Manchester, Parr noticed there were an extra 469 miles on her car odometer and the tank was almost empty.
“When the man came to drop it off it suddenly, he just dropped the keys in my hand and dashed away rapidly,” she told iNews.
“That was when we got into the car and realized that something isn’t quite right. There were crumbs all over the back seat and the petrol light was on so I knew then that the car had been driven.”
Her suspicions were confirmed when she discovered a £70 fine from Parking Eye awaiting at home. The fine was issued against her car for overstaying in an Asda supermarket car park on the second day of her vacation. The fine included a CCTV camera snapshot of a man driving her BMW into the Asda.
Parr eventually had the supermarket drop the fine, but the parking service has still not apologized.
Parr said: “I think that it’s completely unacceptable what they have done. It’s was absolutely appalling behavior from a professional meet and greet car parking firm.”
Even though Parr called Manchester Airport Parking Services Limited for answers, she never received any. The company told her that someone would return her call, but instead of doing so, £70 appeared in Parr’s bank account from the company which Parr assumes was meant to cover the fine.
“We then phoned Greater Manchester Police to report what had happened with the car,” Parr said. “However after a few weeks of investigation, we were told that we could not prosecute because they don’t know who the driver was at the time of it being in Asda.”
“I feel like I have been burgled because the police cannot do anything in taking action against this firm.”
“The whole experience has been absolutely disgusting,” she added.
