I had to pay £654 to get my car back after being scammed in a Heathrow car park

“It all of a sudden felt very shady,” says Shannon Flynn, who’s from Leicestershire. She’s describing her and her partner Jordan Harris’s experience with a meet-and-greet service she booked when flying from Heathrow. They are among the hundreds of travellers on social media and review websites such as Trustpilot who have complained of rogue meet-and-greet airport parking services. Flynn and Harris booked a service called ParkLane Meet & Greet through a comparison website called Compare Your Parking, which appeared high in their Google search. They paid £64.79 for just over six days of parking – or so they thought. For comparison, Heathrow’s official long-stay, park-and-ride parking costs £46.80 for the first day, then £37.40 for each additional 24-hour period. A confusing confirmation email from Compare Your Parking was the first red flag for Flynn. It said that the booking had been confirmed with ParkLane Meet & Greet but that a booking confirmation number would need to be shown to Super Parking Ltd. The couple went ahead with the booking, having paid. They arrived at Heathrow on 24 December and parked their car in one of Heathrow’s short-stay car parks, as specified by the instructions in the booking confirmation. There they met a member of staff from a meet-and-greet service, and that staff member took their car keys. Six days later, having landed in Heathrow, Flynn and Harris called the mobile phone number given in the booking confirmation. The couple waited at Heathrow for two hours while trying to get through to the meet-and-greet service. Giving up, they went back to where they had dropped off the car. Flynn says: “I called [the meet-and-greet service] a lot of times. By the time that we moved back to the meeting point, with no answer, I got through. “They said that they were on their way with the keys. I could see that my car was in exactly the same spot as where I’d parked it. I thought that was a little suspicious. I thought ‘they’re not coming back because the car’s in there’.” Flynn says she met other people in the car park who seemed to be in the same situation. Eventually, a person from the meet-and-greet company returned the keys. Flynn says: “I noticed a man in the distance in the car park pointing a key at cars and walking up and down the aisles. He was clearly waiting for car lights to flash so he could find the car he had the keys for. “I approached him asking if he was looking for a black Mercedes, and I called out my car registration. He handed over the key. “I asked him if the car had been left there for the whole time and whether I was going to have to pay the ticket. He told me he didn’t know, he rang someone in front of me speaking a different language thereafter and wouldn’t respond to me. I called the number [in the booking confirmation] again with no answer.” Once the couple had their keys back, they still needed to get out the car park. Flynn says: “A member of [the car park] staff had come up to me before [the meet-and-greet company arrived] saying ‘they’re not going to come back. This happens all of the time’. “He said, ‘If you need to get your car out, come and see me.’ So, when I finally got the car key back and they gave me a ticket to get out, it had the cost, which was £654 [for the time the car had been left in the short-stay car park].” Flynn says that a member of the car park staff offered to open the barrier to the car park if she paid £200 to them directly, by cash or bank transfer. Flynn and Harris opted to pay the £654 fee through the car park payment machine. The i Paper called the number for Super Parking Ltd that was given in Flynn’s booking confirmation, but the call did not connect. The i Paper also tried emailing the email address given, and there was no reply. A search on the UK Companies House register shows that there is no company listing for ParkLane Meet & Greet. However, there’s an active company listed as Super Parking Ltd, which was incorporated in September 2025. A notice has been issued on its record this month that unless the company provides further information, it will be struck off the register in two months. There are other examples of customers booking rogue firms through Compare Your Parking. In June, The Guardian reported on a case in which a customer who had booked a meet-and-greet company through Compare Your Parking had their vehicle stolen. The comparison website’s terms and conditions state: “Compare Your Parking acts only as a booking agent for the service provider for the featured car parks. It does not itself provide the parking services.” Under its complaints procedure it says: “Complaints must be made directly to the service provider. Contact details of the service provider can be found in your booking confirmation email. All documents and receipts must be provided with your complaints.” Flynn attempted to contact Compare Your Parking but received no response. The i Paper made several requests for comment from Compare Your Parking and received no reply. There isn’t a Companies House listing for “Compare Your Parking”, although there are listings for companies with similar names. An investigation last year by the consumer association Which? found that some comparison websites were colluding with unscrupulous parking firms. Flynn requested a refund from Heathrow for the fee she and Harris paid to exit the short-stay car park. She says: “Heathrow rejected my refund request, stating that ParkLane Meet & Greet was not an official Heathrow parking provider and that any claim relating to the charge should be pursued with ParkLane.” Flynn complained to Heathrow about the man who approached her and offered to open the car park barrier for a fee. She says she was told there was no CCTV footage of the incident and that there was insufficient information provided to identify the person. The i Paper contacted Heathrow for comment. A spokesperson said: “We have zero tolerance for criminality and work closely with police and other partners to address rogue operators.” It recommends passengers book directly with official Heathrow parking for secure facilities. It also encourages customers to look for British Parking Association-approved providers to ensure customers are using a reputable provider.