NCP Car Parks: 0 - Kamion: 1 (warning: very long winded post)

kamion

kamion

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At the end of Oct 2006, I had to park my car at the Cambridge train station for a day while I went down to London. I was in a rush to catch the train and used my credit card at the parking ticket machine. Instead of a 1 day ticket for £3.50, it issued a weekly ticket for £26.50.

In the end, I missed my train as I had to sort out the mess and get a day ticket from the station counter. I had the station agent stamp the weekly ticket so as to invalidate it and he even wrote a note on the back saying that a new day ticket was purchased. The station agent was not able to refund the parking ticket because it was run by NCP and told me to ring their help line.

I rang the helpline and was told I need to ring back on a weekday as the team doing refunds only work weekdays. So I rang back on Monday and was told to fax in a copy of the tickets and I would get a refund. I did so. I rang back again on Tuesday and was told I needed to post in the original tickets and I would get a refund. I did so with a covering letter.

A week later, I got a letter back saying they won't refund me because it was clearly stated at the ticket vending machine that it would only dispense weekly tickets for credit cards. :bang: I was very frustrated and annoyed at this point. There is just no justification for keeping my money when it was an honest mistake and I bought the correct ticket for the day anyway. I emailed the Customer Team Leader I was dealing with to hang on to my original tickets as I would be taking the matter further. :razz:

I then had to wait a couple weeks before I had time to go see the Citizens Advice Bureau. The lady was very supportive and tried to be helpful, but as I went to CAB on Saturday and only had a slot 10 minutes before they closed, she asked me to come back another day. In the end, I didn't go back and left the problem to stew for a few months.

For some unknown reason, I was reminded of this issue last week and it had sat with me for so many months stewing that I decided to write a letter to a senior manager at NCP Car Park. I went to their website and looked at their management team and found no one in particular that seemed suitable to address this problem to. In the end, I decided to write to the CEO of NCP Car Parks. :nuts:

I started the letter with:
Dear sir,
I apologise for bringing such a trivial issue to your attention, but NCP's customer service team have completely failed me and I have no one else to turn to.
Click to expand...

I went on to quickly describe the problem I had with their customer service team and dropped the CS Team Leader name in the letter if he wanted to find out what was going on or wanted to see the original tickets.

I had a call yesterday morning from NCP car park and they have decided to refund me £26.50. :thumbs:

This problem probably cost NCP Car Park a few hundred pounds having 3 or 4 people, including the CEO, taking time to deal with it. They should have just refunded me the £26.50 in the first instance! :shrug:

It is really frustrating having to deal with a large company. It's literally like ramming your head on a brick wall. :bang:

Anyway, a weight has been lifted off my soul and the world is right again. :woot:

:lol:
 
LOL - good work there - always nice to hear of someone beating the big boys! ;)
 
Thanks. :) To be honest, I didn't except any response or reply from the letter to the CEO. I was quite surprised when I received the phone call yesterday.
 
Nice 1, well done, alot of people would of left it :thumbs:

I picked a friend up from Gatwick, parked in a NCP :razz: I missed the (at the time) £18 (I think) charge by 2 mins, so had to pay £29, what a rip off! This was a few years though, doesn't sound like things have changed much
 
Waterworx said:
Nice 1, well done, alot of people would of left it :thumbs:

I picked a friend up from Gatwick, parked in a NCP :razz: I missed the (at the time) £18 (I think) charge by 2 mins, so had to pay £29, what a rip off! This was a few years though, doesn't sound like things have changed much
Click to expand...

Which we reminds of my time trying to escape a Car Park in Chester.... I'd used my (expensive) time wisely allowing myself 10 minutes to pay and leave. A long story short - I got stuck in a queue behind a person (3 cars in front) who had difficulty paying for some reason. When it finally came to my time to pay the machine calculated that I'd exceeded my allotted, cheaper rate by 3 minutes. The difference in tariffs was huge. You can imagine the argument. "But I was trying to leave earlier - you were unable to let me out!" Grrrrr! Never been back since! :bang:

Well done Han!
 
I see everyone's had a problem with NCP car parks! I have experienced the "jump" to a more expensive rate after a certain amount of hours in Ipswich centre. Something like a few quid to 15 pounds. Must be really annoying to be charged that for 2 or 3 minutes! :eek: There aren't any alternatives to NCP most of the time though. Are there?
 
Well done Kamion you've proved that it is worth perservering and complaining especially when you have a good case. Companies know that most people won't complain - it's just too much hassle to exchange letters for weeks on end. In fact they rely on it being too much hassle. Insurance companies are the worst!

Ray
 
Well done. I hate NCP car parks with a passion, and always try to avoid them.
 
well done!
 
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