News Archive

Beware Rogue Traders! (08/11/12)

Valet Parking or Meet and Greet Parking are without doubt the most convenient and quickest car parking services at Stansted Airport. However, handing your valuable car over to someone else for them to drive to their car park isn't always as secure as you would hope...

With 'get rich quick schemes' having the ability to build professional looking web sites overnight, we thought it would be a good idea to put together a few pointers in order to help you in your choice of car park at Stansted Airport.

Avoid web sites that only display mobile numbers for your only point of contact. Ensure the web site displays a land line number in case of dispute or otherwise.
All good web sites will display a Companies House Number, VAT Number and Registered Address. This is a requirement of Trading Standards.
All good and reputable Airport Parking Companies will publish the location of their parking business on their web site. Your Insurance Policy may be invalid in the event you are unable to ascertain the location of your vehicle should something happen.
Make sure the parking is LOCAL to the Terminals. If you leave your passport or that 'teddy bear' in the car you will want to retrieve it quickly. Besides, It is hardly environmentally friendly if the car park is 'miles' from the terminals or indeed easy on your fuel tank!!

Ask yourself this;

If the web site does not state a Company Number or VAT number is it not likely that the web site is owned by a sole trader with a turnover of less than the VAT registered threshold?

In this event they could possibly have:

a) A licensed car park?
b) Effective insurance?
c) Run the maintenance on a fully secure car park?

In 2010, 27 vehicles were burnt out on a farm that was unauthorised for car parking!!!