Motorist sends warning after being slapped with huge £638 charge for making simple mistake
James Flack was charged £638 when he parked his Peugeot at Terminal One's short term car park for 50 minutes while picking up family
A motorist was left mortified after he was charged a whopping £638 for parking his car at Manchester International Airport - for less than an hour.
James Flack, from Huddersfield, parked his Peugeot at Terminal One's short-term car park for just 50 minutes while picking up family members. He expected to pay £12 upon exiting the car park.
James explained: "I parked at Manchester Airport Terminal 1 for 50 minutes, from approximately 12.35pm to 13.25pm on Wednesday May 15th. It is an ANPR system, no tickets, no receipt, zero paper trail other than my bank statement."
"The charge should have been £12.00 on exiting the car park. I couldn't clearly see the digital display on the exit gate pay machine, due the height, angle, and sun glare on it. But I thought, well I know it is £12 and inserted my card and PIN and left when the gate opened."
However, the shock came the next day when James checked his bank statement and saw the exorbitant charge. He told the Manchester Evening News: "I rang the bank because it said pending transaction.
"They said that unfortunately because I had authorised the payment with my PIN they could not stop it as it was a legal contractual agreement to pay the amount. They could do nothing about it and urged me to contact the airport."
James was also left fuming by an "impossible" attempt to contact Manchester Airport through their automated system - which kept directing him to an online complaint form. Despite completing the form and being given a reference number, he faced a two-week silence with no follow-up.
He said: "It is a lot of money to be out of pocket and is quite a random amount. How many other people has this happened to - I can't be a one-off case."
"It was a short-term multi-storey car park near arrivals. I just drove in and was asked if I had booked a place, explained I was only there for an hour and was directed to the second level and it is all ANPR."
Fortunately, James has now confirmed that he has since received a refund. A spokesperson for Manchester Airport said: "We apologise to Mr Flack for the inconvenience caused by this technical error and have refunded him in full.
"We can reassure customers that issues of this nature are extremely rare and whenever they are brought to our attention, we rectify them immediately."
The airport also clarified the situation with a statement: "Our customer feedback team attempted to contact Mr Flack a number of times, including on the day he submitted his complaint, but due to a typo in the email address he submitted it is possible that these messages did not reach him.
"We have processed a full refund of the £638.00 he paid, and as a goodwill gesture this includes the £12.00 parking charge that was due."
