Holidaymaker’s car wrecked ...by meet and greet parking
She returns from trip to find vehicle written off
A HOLIDAYMAKER has branded an airport parking firm ‘despicable’ after she returned home to find it had written her car off.
Julia Hickling, 44, was distraught to learn a company driver had crashed her Citroen C2 – while it was meant to be safely locked up.
To make matters worse, she claims Cheshire Meet and Greet is ‘refusing to accept any wrongdoing’ and has yet to apologise.
It follows complaints from hundreds of airport parking customers across Britain that their cars have been returned damaged or with excessive mileage.
Earlier this year, it was revealed Cheshire Meet and Greet, which claims to provide 24-hour surveillance in a secure site, were leaving cars in pub car parks.
On April 8, Miss Hickling left her Citroen C2, which cost her £2,000, at Manchester Airport before she flew off on a twoweek holiday to Croatia.
On her return, she was shocked when a company representative told her ‘I have been dreading your call’, before revealing the car she had owned for three years had been in a crash.
The staff member explained the driver had been pushed off the road by another motorist – who fled – on the way to the firm’s lock-up in Lymm, Cheshire, around 11 miles away.
But when Miss Hickling obtained a police incident report the next day, it revealed the crash had in fact happened more than 36 hours later – when the car should already have been locked away.
It emerged the vehicle had hit a wall and smashed into several other parked cars about half a mile from where it was supposed to be safely held.
On a 30mph a road, the airbags were deployed, the front wheel was shorn off and the front of the car crumpled.
With the car completely written off, Miss Hickling said it took her weeks of ‘stress and anxiety’ chasing up the owner of Cheshire Meet and Greet, Lee Anderson, to sort out her insurance. She claims he refused to answer calls.
‘[He] still hasn’t bothered to apologise to me and he seems to be refusing to accept any wrongdoing,’ she said, adding: ‘I accept accidents happen, but I just want an apology.
‘It’s despicable … It seems like Lee Anderson thinks he can walk all over people and it doesn’t matter, but it does and he shouldn’t be able to get away with it.’
Offering rates of £31.50 per week, Cheshire Meet and Greet claims to provide the ‘safest and most secure service’, with chauffeurs who have ‘years of experience’.
But on Google, the company has less than a two-star rating – with several reviews complaining of abusive staff and of chauffeurs turning up hours late. In July, an investigation revealed the family-run firm was leaving cars in an unmanned pub car park 15 miles from the lock-up. When asked for comment at the time, Mr Anderson said: ‘Today’s news, tomorrow’s chip shop papers. Run what you like.’
The following month, Manchester council announced a crackdown on rogue meet and greet firms after receiving more than 100 complaints.
It is understood the number of airport parking companies has trebled to roughly 50 around the city – with some suspected to be run by lowlevel organised crime gangs.
Miss Hickling, a cruise ship marketing manager from Silkstone Common, South Yorkshire, said she has received her insurance pay- out – but has lost her no claims bonus.
Yesterday, Mr Anderson said the car had been stored overnight at another meet and greet company’s site. As it was taken to the firm’s own site in Lymm the next day, he said a ‘passing car squeezed my driver into a BMW that was illegally parked’ and caused damage ‘to over three cars’.
He claimed that the accident had been reported to his insurers and left with them so ‘as not to make an unfortunate incident any more stressful’ to Miss Hickling.
Airport car park pirates Daily Mail, July 27