A man left his £30,000 BMW with Manchester Airport valet staff in a multi-storey car park before a business trip and was greeted with an unwelcome surprise days later.
47-year-old Andrew Swindells handed the keys of his BMW One Series over, paying the airport valet's parking service just under £100 before setting off to Chicago, USA.
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The IT product manager was alerted with an unwelcome surprise while in 'the Windy City', as his phone buzzed and informed him of a 'serious collision' from his car's on-board telemetry system.
Completely dumbfounded, the father-of-two got a call from the car manufacturers themselves, who asked if he was okay and told him to pull over, though he wasn't in the car at the time.
Upon arriving back in Manchester, Widnes-based Andrew was taken to the top story of a multi-story car park, where he found his BMW crashed into a concrete bollard.
He has since revealed that the airport settled with his insurance company, and that they have also apologised for the incident.
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The car was a second-hand purchase 12 months prior to the accident, being just three-months-old at the time.
His One Series was left untouched on the top floor for weeks on end as they couldn't move it and he was out of the country, which led to his scathing review of the customer service he was given from the airport.
Andrew, who regularly flies away on business, compared the incident to something 'out of Only Fools and Horses'.
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He explained: "It all happened at the end of January, but it has taken ages for the airport to sort the insurance out. It dragged on and on.
"It's valet parking and they move the car to another site on the airport. It ended up within the boundaries of the airport on the top storey of a seven-storey multi-storey.
"During the trip I received notifications from the in-car telemetry to tell me it had been involved in an accident. Upon returning, I found the car had been driven into a concrete block, whilst being moved by the airport driver.
"The airport team told me the car was being driven slowly and safely, however the car has been written off by the insurance company. They managed to completely write it off by crashing it into a concrete block," he revealed.
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Andrew also tried to get in contact with the airport following the incident, but to no success.
Eventually, he got a hold of the airport staff, and was told that there was an accident, with no further explanation or details.
Upon landing back in Manchester on 27 January, he was greeted by two meet and greet managers who were helpful and transparent with him, which Andrew appreciated.
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"We went up to the car park and it was smashed into a post. I was just completely surprised. They said the driver misjudged a turn.
"The telemetry said it was being driven between 20 and 30mph at the time. They had to leave it in situ for the insurance assessment. It was up there for weeks," he said.
He was issued a hire car in the meantime, and was later informed that his BMW was a write-off, and was offered to pay market value at first.
But after some tough negotiations and struggles to get in touch with airport contacts for weeks, they made an offer that he accepted.
A Manchester Airport spokesperson said: “We apologise to Mr Swindells for the damage to his car and have worked with his insurance company to ensure he is fully compensated.
“Thousands of passengers use our Meet and Greet products every week and incidents leading to any kind of damage are extremely rare.”
Joshua Nair