Have YOU been affected by Blue Circle parking or a rogue parking firm? Email: arthur.parashar@mailonline.co.ukDozens of furious holidaymakers have accused an airport meet and greet parking company of 'stealing' their vehicles after returning home to find their cars missing.
Blue Circle customers were promised that after dropping their vehicles off at the terminal, professional chauffeurs would take them to their car park secured by security barriers, CCTV and 24 hour patrols. But after spending blissful weeks away in the sun, they came back to find they were greeted by confused airport staff and silence from Blue Circle.
Have YOU been affected by Blue Circle parking or a rogue parking firm? Email: arthur.parashar@mailonline.co.uk Maple Parking confirmed they had been brought in to reunite cars with their owners but did not comment further. Via social media customers traded postcodes and locations for missing cars finding that they were being kept in unsecured car parks in closed down hotels or on the outskirts of the airport.
Mrs Freeman said she and her husband started to panic but decided to get their suitcases from the baggage area and go back to where they had dropped their car off. Mrs Freeman then claims she called the police before a worker from Maple Parking gave her a postcode and suggested they try to look for their car there.
She said: 'So my husband got a taxi there, but no key, no car, and no paperwork was in the office for our car. The family then claimed they tried three different locations where Maple Parking had previously discovered cars that had been abandoned by Blue Circle. 'We followed another address but it just left us in the middle of a road and there was a hotel there, a Holiday Inn.
The following day Mrs Freeman's husband and father returned to Heathrow and after systematically exploring every terminal car park, they eventually found their car. 'How could somebody do this to us? They know it's a family car, because there's two children's car seats in the back.'People were telling me just to give up, saying"You're never going to find it" but I don't want to just give up. But like it's an expensive car, we work hard.'
The strip of industrial estate where Ms Turner said she found her car was near a Holiday Inn. Far from a secure car park, the area was described as 'chaos' and unsafe The couple said they regretted their decision to park with the company and looking back believe there were a number of issues they failed to notice at the time.
When she returned, she alleged her car was missing and she couldn't find any Blue Circle staff to help her. 'They didn't say anything to us. Let us go in. But I felt very unsafe - the taxi man even said,"Do you want me to stay with you?". The inside of Blue Circle's 'office' on a slip of industrial land on the outskirts of Heathrow airport. The room was full of overflowing bags and broken furniture and the Mr Richards said he was able to just wander in
'There wasn't really a security gate. It was some fencing that you could move quite easily. It may have been chained, but all you had to do was up lift it up. Mr Richards said: 'Went into the main airport but no staff seemed to know what to do or had any answers so then we went to where our car was, at the Hilton car park.
The couple said there were clothes, duvets, a TV and broken furniture and it looked like people had left in a hurry or had been living there Berni Hazard, a council worker from Daventry, returned from a week in Santorini to Birmingham airport on the same day Blue Circle parking ceased operating. A spokesperson for Birmingham airport said: 'Blue Circle ceased operations at Birmingham Airport on Monday 20th May, well over a month ago. This was a third-party operator that parked its customers’ cars off-site.
'We were only able to find our car by looking on comments and posts on Facebook and typing in Blue Circle and we found that more helpful than anything else. But comments left on the reviewing website Trustpilot have been largely critical of the company, with testimonials showing a largely negative experience.