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In July, I took a weekend trip to London from my home in Birmingham. I took the train from Birmingham International Airport on Saturday morning and returned on Monday afternoon. I left my car in the NCP car park at the station.
Unfortunately I lost the parking ticket while I was out and only realized when I got back to my car.
I assumed there would be ANPR cameras to check how long my car had been there and I thought I could be charged the maximum daily rate of £12.50 for the three days. That would have been fine.
But when I got to the exit barrier, I was told I had to pay a “lost ticket fee” of £100 per day (£300 in total) before I was allowed to leave the car park.
No way out: HJ was told he couldn’t leave the car park unless he paid a £300 ‘lost ticket’ fee
Yo I asked if there were cameras to show me when I entered, but they said no. I also showed the attendant my train tickets with timetable.
I paid the £300 to be able to leave, but I think it’s excessive. All I did was lose my ticket.
I later checked with NCP but they said the charge is set by Avanti West Coast, who manage the train station, and there is nothing they can do. HJ, Birmingham
Helen Crane, consumer rights campaigner at This is Money, replies: This is an exorbitant fee for a lost parking ticket, and must have been a huge blow to your already battered wallet after a weekend of sightseeing in London.
£300 could have bought eight adults a visit to Buckingham Palace, seven rides on the London Eye or a round of pints for 44 people in a typical London pub.
It even pales in comparison to the average fine charged, which is around £60. Although you accept your mistake in missing the ticket and are willing to pay the fine, you consider the amount to be exorbitant.
It is also unclear why he was fined. The purpose of buying a ticket in a car park is to prevent people from overstaying their welcome.
And yet the NCP didn’t think you’d overstayed your allotted time. The parking attendant must have thought you’d only been there for three days (well, two and a bit more) because he charged you the already exorbitant £100 lost ticket fee three times, once per day.
Does that mean you paid £300 just for the cost of a piece of paper?
I contacted NCP and Avanti to ask how they justified such a punitive fee.
As it turned out, this was not the case, as the NCP admitted that it had been overcharged.
Instead of paying £100 per day, you should have paid a single fee of £100 per lost ticket for your entire stay.
That is a shocking mistake on the part of the parking attendant, and had he not asked me to investigate, one that may never have been discovered.
An NCP customer service representative recently told her via email that they “did not have the option to override this price.”
A spokeswoman said: “When the customer contacted NCP’s customer service centre, an error was made in charging the lost ticket fee per day, rather than charging a one-off lost ticket fee for the stay. This is not the correct procedure.”
NCP and Avanti have refunded the full amount of £300 for the lost ticket.
The spokeswoman continued: “We would like to thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We sincerely apologize for the extra cost and inconvenience this customer experienced.”
NCP also told me that it has briefed its staff on the rules when a customer loses their ticket.
Not in the pocket: HJ lost track of his parking ticket during a weekend away but feels the £300 fee NCP and Avanti charged him for his mistake was too harsh (file image)
When I asked if the £100 fee per lost ticket applied to all Avanti train station car parks, the NCP spokeswoman told me that this was specific to Birmingham International and was intended to prevent non-train station users abusing the car park facilities.
“Avanti has a standard £100 lost ticket fee policy at Birmingham International Airport to protect the facility for the use of rail passengers,” he said.
Birmingham International Train Station serves Birmingham Airport, so if the fine was lower, I can understand why tourists might try to evade long-stay parking charges by using the station car park and accepting the (cheaper) fine.
But you were able to show the train tickets, so I think they should have made an exception.
An Avanti West Coast spokesperson added: ‘We are very sorry to hear about (HJ’s) experience and have worked with NCP, who manage our station car parks, to arrange a full refund after he was overcharged.
‘We also communicated directly with (HJ) to apologize and waived payment for the lost ticket as a gesture of goodwill.’
In his case, a legitimate mistake was made, but many motorists remain angry about the unfair charges imposed on them by private parking companies.
The government has long been asked to put a stop to these companies, which charge 35,000 parking fees a day.
He proposed a Private Parking Code of Practice that would have capped penalty charges and debt recovery fees, but this was shelved in 2022.
This is Money continues to campaign on this issue – if you have been affected, please contact us at editor@thisismoney.co.uk.
Has Fidelity lost my £2,000?
In mid-July I opened a Fidelity Stocks and Shares ISA. As part of the process, I transferred £2000 from my current account.
He said it would take up to five business days for the account to be opened, but the fifth day came and it still hadn’t been opened.
I called Fidelity and was told that my account was not showing up in Fidelity’s system, so the person was unable to help me. I asked if I should call back in a few days, but the person said they didn’t know because they had no information to give me.
They said the delay could have been due to the global computer system being outage, although Fidelity’s website said it had not been affected. Is my £2,000 gone? RR
Transfer issues: RS put money into a new Fidelity investment ISA, but it then seemed to disappear
Helen Crane responds: The widespread IT issues experienced in July were caused by a software update from tech firm CrowdStrike and caused problems for customers of airlines, banks and more.
This happened the day before you applied to open your account, so when it wasn’t open on the fifth business day after you applied, you began to worry, and speaking to Fidelity on the phone did little to ease your fears.
You provided all the relevant documents and identification and were given a customer number, so you did not understand what the delay was.
Fidelity didn’t seem to have any record of the £2000 he transferred, so he contacted me to see if I could help. Was your money lost on the internet?
Fortunately, the investment platform was able to confirm that this was not the case. Instead, the verification process to open the new account had taken longer than expected.
One day after contacting Fidelity, the money was safely in her account.
A spokeswoman said: “We have spoken to our customer services team who have been in touch with (RS) and can confirm that this process is now complete. The customer’s account is open and the funds have been allocated.
“The delay was not related to the recent global IT outage, but was due to essential verification processes for opening new accounts. This was a communication error by a member of customer service and we apologize for any confusion this may have caused.”
He added that the account was not visible to the person on the phone because they had a temporary problem with their access at the time of the call.
CRANE OVER THE CASE
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