City worker charged £3,700 for parking in central London for six hours

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Manish Wadhwani, 32, got the bill from National Car Parks

Manish Wadhwani had a pre-arranged a £5 ticket at the NCP car park which meant he could stay for up to 12 hours

A man was charged more than £3,700 for parking in central London for six hours.

Manish Wadhwani, 32, recieved the bill from National Car Parks after he took his wife, Risha, and their three-year-old son to the Winter Wonderland festival in Hyde Park.

The organised father-of-one had pre-arranged a £5 deal at an NCP car park which meant he could stay for up to 12 hours for just £5 as long as he pre-booked the place.

But when the family returned to their car six hours later on Sunday afternoon - inside their 12-hours allowance - they were hit with a £3,731 bill.

Mr Wadhwani, of Watford, Herts, said: "The first thing I thought was that it couldn't be true - this is absolutely ridiculous. I spoke to an operator at the car park and he was helpless.

"He said the only thing he could do was register a case for me and that somebody would pick it up."

Mr Wadhwani said the four-figure bill sent him over his credit card limit and left him facing the possibility of costly credit card fees on top.

He said he spent most of Monday trying to contact NCP.

He said: "I was trying until 2pm to get in contact with them. Their system wasn't available and I tweeted them many times so, essentially, the whole working day was lost."

He added: "When I told the bank they were very helpful, but were also shocked.

"It's been really stressful. I haven't been able to use my credit card for a few days. My parents have been visiting us from India so you expect to do social things.

"It was my brother's wedding anniversary and I couldn't pay for the cake; my sister had to. We're also going on holiday next week. "

The parking ticket charge was down to an earlier trip in to London on August 23rd when a mistake led to Mr Wadhwani never being registered as leaving the car park, amounting to the equivalent of a three month parking stay.

He had used the same £5 parking deal then as he had on Sunday.

As he was leaving, the machine didn't recognise his card which meant the operator had to override the system, leading to him not being registered as leaving.

NCP have since processed a refund, but Mr Wadhwani is still waiting for the process to be complete.

An NCP spokeswoman: "Our investigation showed us that the customer had parked with us in August, and hadn't exited the car park using the card he used on entry. This may be due to a barrier already been raised.

"As a consequence, when he parked on Sunday, the parking equipment believed he had overstayed from his August booking. The system believed he was on an overcharge stay and charged him accordingly."

She added: "We offer our most sincere apologies and have immediately refunded this customer."

SOURCE

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So It was a mistake - not really interesting then...