‘I paid numerous fines after leaving car with airport meet and greet’ | Money News

Last month we featured the story of Money blog reader Shelley, who claimed the mileage on her car increased by 60 miles after using a meet-and-greet service at East Midlands Airport.

Shelley said all previous trip data had been deleted from the BMW’s sat nav, as well as the car’s last trip from its dashcam.

Since then, several readers have been in touch…

I had the same happen to me but at Heathrow Airport. I had photographic evidence, though, and thinking back, as it was maybe three years ago, my car gained hundreds of miles (800 I think). The police told me it was a civil matter as I had given the company permission to drive my car. It didn’t stop there, though, as I also had to pay numerous tickets that accrued while I was on holiday where they used my vehicle as some sort of meet and greet.
Andy Lund

In the interests of balance, we put this to Heathrow Airport and it said: “If any incidents occur with third-party operators, we would always advise the customer to register a complaint with their local trading standards if the complaint is serious, as they can then investigate.”

A spokesperson said the airport was the first to sign up to British Parking Association’s Approved Meet and Greet Operator Scheme, which aims to raise standards: “While we recommend passengers use official airport parking, we also want to ensure they have the information and confidence to enable them to make informed decisions about the services they might wish to use around the airport.”

Of course, if you have received a fine for a road violation you didn’t commit, you should appeal to the body that has sent it to you as soon as possible.

We would also recommend taking photos of your fuel gauge and mileage just before handing your car over to a meet-and-greet service so you can compare them when you return.

If you’re concerned your car was used without your permission, you could submit a data subject access request (DSAR) to the meet and greet, asking for any personal data related to your vehicle and booking.

This could include records, timestamps, photos and ANPR entries, as well as police confirmation that supports what the airport has said.

You can then cross-reference the DSAR to what the meet and greet firm says to pinpoint any discrepancies.

We would also suggest looking for online reviews on Google for the meet and greet firm to see what others say and if they have had similar problems.

We also heard from someone claiming to have worked at an airport meet and greet…

I used to be a trainer in the meet-and-greet department at Manchester Airport, part of the Manchester Airports Group that East Midlands belongs to. Several years ago a new computerised system was introduced which was quite good at looking after the administration of vehicles in the company’s care. There were functions to notice if a key had not been returned to the key store promptly. There was also a function to allow the auditing of rows of vehicles in storage to make sure we had the keys for them.

That does not mean to say the system is foolproof. It would be possible for an unscrupulous member of staff to borrow a key from the secure key store and take the vehicle away on a jolly. In this scenario there would be no record of the missing key until shortly before the customer [returned] or in the event of a random key audit. Anecdotally, while I was at this airport a report did the rounds that somebody had borrowed a car for the weekend and was caught by foolishly leaving the fuel receipt in the car that they’d topped up while using it.

Another anecdotal report was that a particularly attractive car had the keys taken from the key store while the operator decided to take it for a spin around or between the storage car parks. This was found because the customer had a tracker on it and he was notified on his mobile phone every time his vehicle was moved.
Anonymous

In response, Manchester Airport told us: “We can’t really respond fully to anecdotal things like this but it’s not true to say people’s car keys could be removed by unscrupulous members of staff without anyone realising.

“There are systems in place to prevent this, including regular auditing and ANPR cameras that track vehicles’ movements in and out of the car parks and around the airport campus.

“In the majority of our meet and greet areas, cars are parked in such a way as to mean they can’t be removed at random either – they’re parked in the order they are needed to be retrieved, meaning they’re usually boxed in (this is the reason they’re often moved slightly during the periods they’re in our care).”

Sky News has contacted Manchester Airports Group for comment.