Airport Meet & Greet - damaged my car

Joined
16 Feb 2010
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5,215
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North East England
Hate companies that think they can get away with things like this.

Go to your local garage and ask for an estimate for what could be damaged after they thrashed your car over speed bumps (suspension/tracking), get a bill for worst case and present it to the company plus the cost of a respray / fuel and full refund. In addition call the police as you don't want to get a speeding/parking ticket down the line.

Then make the ******* famous and phone a tabloid of your choice as I very much doubt this will be the first time they helped themselves to someones car.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
17 Nov 2003
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Location
Southampton, UK
The owner had consented to them driving the car, but that consent was explicitly conditional and they deliberately and knowingly broke the conditions. It could be considered taking without consent.

It all depends how explicit the limitations to giving permission were. I imagine that there will be evidential issues here.

Speeding isn't likely to pursued even with dashcam footage.
 
Soldato
Joined
28 Apr 2011
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14,762
Location
Barnet, London
Anyone used 'Purple Parking'? Any horror stories about them? I only ask as I've used them quite a bit and not had issue. You park yourself and then they seal your key in a bag. Granted, they could probably open the bag and use the car, reseal it.

Once you're parked up, you hop in a minibus to be taken to the airport. Seems a good system to me.
 
Caporegime
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26 Aug 2003
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Location
Leafy Cheshire
Anyone used 'Purple Parking'? Any horror stories about them? I only ask as I've used them quite a bit and not had issue. You park yourself and then they seal your key in a bag. Granted, they could probably open the bag and use the car, reseal it.

Once you're parked up, you hop in a minibus to be taken to the airport. Seems a good system to me.

If you are parking yourself why would you need to give them your key? :confused:

I'd also not trust any parking service. I'd rather get the shuttle bus that appears every 5 minutes, or pay the extra to park at the terminal.
 
Soldato
Joined
3 Jan 2004
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3,489
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At Home
I had a friend who used them and when he returned and drove away he noticed his right indicator was flashing faster than usual.

Thinking one of the bulbs had blown ...he checked it.....and found it hadnt in fact blown...it had been removed :eek:
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
7 Nov 2005
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4,955
Location
Widnes
Any recommendations for Heathrow?

Been doing some digging. They don't list their company details anywhere on their website. The owners did post some personal adverts on facebook though and a WHOIS search gave the second Director. They never seem to file accounts and just open a new company when they get struck off by Companies House.

I've contacted Trading Standards but will hold back on going all out until I hear back from them. They seem to have operations across the UK so I'm not sure how they can operate on such a scale without any kind of official limited company to manage it all.
 
Soldato
Joined
30 Oct 2008
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3,142
Location
South
Been reading about these companies quite a lot recently, one was also on South today bbc news, exactly the same as the op, cars were supposed to be in a secure car park but actually they were being dumped in a field with the keys in a bag left under the front wipers!! Keys were getting lost and people cars were returned filthy and damaged! Absolutely disgusting.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
21 Feb 2006
Posts
29,300
You can usually get in a short stay right by the terminal at most airports for not a lot more, just do that. If 40 quid is something you worry about then perhaps don't but is it really worth the stress of this for 40 quid? Book early, book close, keep your keys, park it yourself, walk 50 yards to the terminal.
 

FTM

FTM

Soldato
Joined
10 Dec 2003
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6,173
Location
South Shields
yeah we used the long stay at hteathrow last time we went...my main problem was it was right by the runway so stopped every 20 seconds to watch a plane landing. I am still amazed watching a 380 take off or touch down!
 
Soldato
Joined
1 Dec 2006
Posts
16,814
Location
Amsterdam, NL
Always pay for parking at the airport and park it your self, not meet and greet. It's an absolute joke. And do NOT use those stupid companies that park your car for you.
 
Caporegime
Joined
20 Jan 2005
Posts
45,619
Location
Co Durham
Hate companies that think they can get away with things like this.

Go to your local garage and ask for an estimate for what could be damaged after they thrashed your car over speed bumps (suspension/tracking), get a bill for worst case and present it to the company plus the cost of a respray / fuel and full refund. In addition call the police as you don't want to get a speeding/parking ticket down the line.

Then make the ******* famous and phone a tabloid of your choice as I very much doubt this will be the first time they helped themselves to someones car.

Used to be really bad even with main dealers. Years ago at a BMW main dealer the staff used to use customer cars as the vehicles to go home in on a night. All came to light when one salesman totally wrote off somebody's 3 series one night at 11 o'clock coming home from the pub.

Even worse the guy whose car it was a happened to pass the crash scene and saw his pride and joy totalled as well.
 
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