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The fast food giant, McDonald's has teamed up with MET Parking Services, who now control some of their car parks.
Watchdog has heard from angry McDonalds customers who feel they've been asked to pay unfair charges.
The fast food giant, McDonald's has teamed up with MET Parking Services, who now control some of their car parks.
Watchdog has heard from angry McDonalds customers who feel they've been asked to pay unfair charges.
MET Parking Services Limited use number plate recognition cameras to make sure drivers comply with their parking rules.
They usually allow free parking for between 60 and 75 minutes and no return within 90 to 120 minutes.
If you break these strict conditions, your meal could be an unhappy one as Richard Kerr discovered.
On the way to collect his mum from Stansted Airport, Richard picked up a quarter pounder with cheese from McDonalds. When he collected his Mum, she was hungry so they returned to the restaurant about half an hour later.
Charges for repeat custom
Two weeks later, Richard received a demand to pay charges from Met Parking. He had spent a total of just 47 minutes on site but because he had left and then returned within the forbidden 90 minutes, his car was clocked by the camera and he was served a parking charge.
The car park that he used advertised 60 minutes of free parking. Other McDonalds car parks offer more minutes of free parking.
Richard called McDonalds customer services to complain. He told Watchdog:
"They weren't interested in the fact that I had used their restaurant twice, and spent my money there twice, they weren't willing to help me at all."
Terms and conditions
There are warning signs at the McDonalds branches that have these parking restrictions but visitors may not look at these when buying a burger.
When we called MET Parking about to ask about their terms and conditions, we got a confusing response.
We asked if the signs say it's free parking for 60 minutes, could a customer come back within that 60 minutes? They told us:
"From the first entry and exit it will be classed as one visit, if you then come back it will be considered as returning within the no returns period but then if you haven't stayed for very long, say for more than 10 minutes, then you won't be issued a ticket."
To translate, this means you can return without incurring a charge, as long as you don't stay on site for more than 10 minutes.
Sallie Hill had a special circumstance for her return to McDonalds. She stopped for a coffee before picking up her son, but then he fancied a 'Maccies' too so, just half an hour later, she went back.
She received a £50 parking charge because there was less than 90 minutes between her visits.
MET Parking is a private company, and has nothing to do with the Metropolitan or 'Met' Police and even though its charge notices do look very official, Sallie decided to ignore hers. MET Parking pursued the fine. Sallie told Watchdog:
"I received four more letters from them, followed by two letters from a debt collector, and two letters from their solicitors; all threatening to take me to court, and a record against my credit rating."
Fine escalated to £350
The original £50 charge had been supersized to £150 pounds and now, MET Parking's solicitors are threatening court action and have added another £200 in court costs.
Sally isn't alone; we've had dozens of complaints from disgruntled Watchdog viewers who've received similar letters.
McDonalds Statement:
"In an effort to make sure there are always parking spaces available for our customers, we have parking restrictions in place at around 10% of our restaurants.
The restrictions were put in place because of problems we were experiencing ranging from people leaving their cars for several hours whilst they went on shopping trips, to others using our airport restaurants as free car parks whilst they went on holiday, to minicab drivers using our car parks as waiting bays between fares.
In each of the car parks where parking restrictions are necessary, we try to make the parking policy fair but from the two customer experiences you've shared with us, it's clear that it's not always perfect and mistakes do happen, for which we are sorry.
MET does not pay McDonald's to operate its parking management service and McDonald's does not profit from MET levying parking charges.
We shall contact the two customers directly to discuss what has happened and shall review our practices to see if we can find a better and fairer system for the future."
Big charges with your Big Mac
The fast food giant, McDonald's has teamed up with MET Parking Services, who now control some of their car parks.
Watchdog has heard from angry McDonalds customers who feel they've been asked to pay unfair charges.
The fast food giant, McDonald's has teamed up with MET Parking Services, who now control some of their car parks.
Watchdog has heard from angry McDonalds customers who feel they've been asked to pay unfair charges.
MET Parking Services Limited use number plate recognition cameras to make sure drivers comply with their parking rules.
They usually allow free parking for between 60 and 75 minutes and no return within 90 to 120 minutes.
If you break these strict conditions, your meal could be an unhappy one as Richard Kerr discovered.
On the way to collect his mum from Stansted Airport, Richard picked up a quarter pounder with cheese from McDonalds. When he collected his Mum, she was hungry so they returned to the restaurant about half an hour later.
Charges for repeat custom
Two weeks later, Richard received a demand to pay charges from Met Parking. He had spent a total of just 47 minutes on site but because he had left and then returned within the forbidden 90 minutes, his car was clocked by the camera and he was served a parking charge.
The car park that he used advertised 60 minutes of free parking. Other McDonalds car parks offer more minutes of free parking.
Richard called McDonalds customer services to complain. He told Watchdog:
"They weren't interested in the fact that I had used their restaurant twice, and spent my money there twice, they weren't willing to help me at all."
Terms and conditions
There are warning signs at the McDonalds branches that have these parking restrictions but visitors may not look at these when buying a burger.
When we called MET Parking about to ask about their terms and conditions, we got a confusing response.
We asked if the signs say it's free parking for 60 minutes, could a customer come back within that 60 minutes? They told us:
"From the first entry and exit it will be classed as one visit, if you then come back it will be considered as returning within the no returns period but then if you haven't stayed for very long, say for more than 10 minutes, then you won't be issued a ticket."
To translate, this means you can return without incurring a charge, as long as you don't stay on site for more than 10 minutes.
Sallie Hill had a special circumstance for her return to McDonalds. She stopped for a coffee before picking up her son, but then he fancied a 'Maccies' too so, just half an hour later, she went back.
She received a £50 parking charge because there was less than 90 minutes between her visits.
MET Parking is a private company, and has nothing to do with the Metropolitan or 'Met' Police and even though its charge notices do look very official, Sallie decided to ignore hers. MET Parking pursued the fine. Sallie told Watchdog:
"I received four more letters from them, followed by two letters from a debt collector, and two letters from their solicitors; all threatening to take me to court, and a record against my credit rating."
Fine escalated to £350
The original £50 charge had been supersized to £150 pounds and now, MET Parking's solicitors are threatening court action and have added another £200 in court costs.
Sally isn't alone; we've had dozens of complaints from disgruntled Watchdog viewers who've received similar letters.
McDonalds Statement:
"In an effort to make sure there are always parking spaces available for our customers, we have parking restrictions in place at around 10% of our restaurants.
The restrictions were put in place because of problems we were experiencing ranging from people leaving their cars for several hours whilst they went on shopping trips, to others using our airport restaurants as free car parks whilst they went on holiday, to minicab drivers using our car parks as waiting bays between fares.
In each of the car parks where parking restrictions are necessary, we try to make the parking policy fair but from the two customer experiences you've shared with us, it's clear that it's not always perfect and mistakes do happen, for which we are sorry.
MET does not pay McDonald's to operate its parking management service and McDonald's does not profit from MET levying parking charges.
We shall contact the two customers directly to discuss what has happened and shall review our practices to see if we can find a better and fairer system for the future."
Big charges with your Big Mac
