The parking firm emptied taxi-driver Ian Cook’s bank account – and refused to refund his money
A taxi driver had almost £2,000 taken from his bank account by an automated parking system after making two drop-offs at an airport. Ian Cook’s car was registered by NCP’s number-plate recognition system on his first visit to Birmingham Airport’s premium set down car park
Then when he visited three days later and exited again, he was charged for almost 80 hours of parking. The amount came to £1,955, which cleared his bank account, and the company that runs the facility has refused a refund until it has carried out an investigation.
Ian, 56, said: “I drop off and pick up my clients at Birmingham Airport well over 100 times a year using the Premium Set Down Car Park, for this reason I have set up an automatic payment account with the car park operators NCP. Usually their ANPR cameras clock me going in and out of the Premium Set Down drop off and they automatically take the fee (currently £6 per 15 minutes) and send me an invoice via email.
“On Monday ,February 16, I dropped off my clients around 12.30pm and was in and out in minutes as normal. I went back around 9pm on Thursday February 19 and again drove in and out in minutes. The next day I got an email invoice as usual but to my horror I had been charged £1,955 and they had already taken that money from my account. Apparently, I had parked in the Premium Set Down for three days, seven hours 45 minutes and 41 seconds!”
At this point Ian assumed he’d talk to a human and the error would be obvious and the money quickly returned. “I just thought it was just a mistake, and expected it to be rectified straight away,” said Ian
“I contacted NCP immediately. Their ANPR cameras obviously didn’t clock me leaving on Monday the 16th and cameras didn’t pick me up again until the 19th. It would be ludicrous to assume I’d stayed in Premium Set Down all that time, and I thought NCP would see this was a system error and automatically refund me my £1,955 immediately, but that is not the case.
“I spent most of the day on Friday on the phone to NCP customer services and each time being told somebody would call me back within 10 minutes, these calls never materialised. No one was helpful or seemed to care. Eventually I got told ‘You’ll have to wait until we’ve done an investigation, and we’ll get back to you with our findings.’ There was no indication of how long this would be.
“I said, ‘You know, it’s not 50 quid you’ve taken, you’ve taken nearly two grand.’ But there was no reaction or care, it’s like they’re reading off a script. The NCP staff that dealt with me don’t seem to be the full ticket,” added Ian.
He added: “If they had said ‘There was a camera on the blink, we’ll get that money sent to you straight away’ and said sorry, I would have been understanding.” Ian is about to go on holiday with his wife Terry to Tenerife.
“I work hard and was looking forward to a break, but my whole week’s been ruined,” he said. “It is disgraceful and not acceptable, I’m not even sure it’s lawful. Their attitude is disgusting.”
He added: “Everyone is just trying to make money out of parking, it’s greed. It’s like an extra tax. When I first started my private hire business almost 10 years ago, it was a pound to drop off at Birmingham airport, and it just keeps going up.
“Heathrow have just put theirs up so Birmingham will usually copy. When my charges go up I have to offset the costs, so I have to pass that on to my customers. Last year I did 127 trips to Birmingham Airport, so it adds up.”
NCP has now finally agreed to refund Ian. “We are sincerely sorry for the experience that Mr Cook had with us. This is an unusual situation, and we are currently investigating this to understand what happened to cause this. In the meantime, we can arrange a same day refund and have reached out to him to arrange that, and as soon as we hear back from him then the team can process the payment.”
Ian is still far from happy as NCP have not apologised to him, and the money had not actually appeared in his account.
He said: “So I have been refunded, minus the £12 for parking. “No apology, no explanation as to what happened, no offer of compensation, just a ‘refund initiated’ receipt stating ‘please allow 10 days for your refund to be processed’.”
