A taxi driver claims he was mistakenly charged £260 for briefly dropping a customer off at Bristol Airport. Stuart Walters has been working as a taxi driver for more than 25 years but says this is the first time he has been charged more than £5 for entering the 'drop and go' zone.
Mr Walters, who works independently, says last week he collected a customer at 7.20am from Shirehampton and dropped them off at the car park next to the terminal. He then drove to the barrier and made a card payment, and put the receipt in his pocket without giving it a second glance.
“I was in and out within three minutes. As I do many of these journeys, I don't always look at the receipt and put the receipt in my back pocket,” explained Mr Walters, who recalled entering his PIN after his contactless payment was rejected.
Read more: Bristol Airport parking leaves food trader unable to work in lay-by
Mr Walters claims that he only realised how much he had been charged the following week, when he was doing his tax returns. He also noticed an error on a receipt for the previous day (May 15) which suggests he remained in the airport carpark for 24 hours but in this case he was only charged £5 - the standard charge for vehicles staying in the airport carpark for up to 10 minutes.
He said: “When I phoned the lady at Bristol Airport and told her I had been overcharged, she didn’t seem too surprised. I was advised to put in a complaint, but it takes 14 days for a response.
“I can't be the only one who has been overcharged and if it wasn't for business reasons I would have just taken the ticket, screwed it up and put it in my bin when I got home and may have not noticed it on my bank statement.”
Photos of the receipts, shown to Bristol Live, show a £5.00 charge dated May 16 with the length of stay listed as '1 days, 00:00', with the timings listed as 7.45pm on May 15 to 7.45pm on May 16. The other receipt dated May 17 shows a charge of £260.00, with the length of stay listed as '0 days, 12:07'. The timing is listed as 7.49pm on May 16 to 7.49am on May 17.
Mr Walters said he "certainly wasn't parked up the airport all day as I was back in Bristol working". The drop and go car park, which is not designed for long stays, charges £20 for up to an hour and £20 per hour or part of an hour after that - suggesting the system thought he had been parked up for 12 or 13 hours.
Bristol Airport has said it will "fully investigate" Mr Walters' case if he has put his complaint in writing, and apologised if it turns out that he was overcharged. A spokesperson said: “All Bristol Airport’s car parks are equipped with car registration vehicle recognition systems, CCTV cameras and exit barrier help call point button technology. If there is an issue, customers can press the help button on the pay stations and exit barriers and speak to a member of the ground transportation team immediately for assistance, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“The car park barrier system works on car number plate recognition, if the customer is a frequent user of Bristol Airport and on a previous visit the exit barrier did not register the exit of the vehicle correctly, this may be the reason for the car park system registering the vehicle as being in the car park for a longer stay length and incurring the additional car park fees. We are sorry if the customer has been overcharged, however if the customer has written into us with a complaint, we will be able to fully investigate their visit, and respond directly to the customer."
Read next:
