A few weeks ago I went to Belgium for a night, to see someone off early in the moring at the airport in Brussels. So before going to brussels I looked for a parking place, and i found one close to the Midi station, so I went and book a parking place.
When I arived at the parking facility, I rang the bell at the parking facility and they told me the door would open up and I could drive in, but after a few minutes of waiting, nothing happened. I rang the bell again, and someone came out. They manually opened the main door, but there was another door behind the door, the door of the car lift of the parking facility.
The man kept trying, running around in a bussy maner. Then after a total of about 20 minutes, the man told me he was sorry, and that i should drive to another parking facility. So, assuming that this meant I was denied access to the reserved facility, I had no reason to believe these guys were still going to bill me, i found alternative parking and gave no further notion of it.
Then a few weeks later, I suddenly received an invoce by email. I checked my bank account and it turned out they had billed me the resservation amount.
So I had my bank reverse the eronous transaction, mailed them back explaining their mistake and got back a friendly reply assuming it was the end of it.
But then another invoice, with a ten euro surcharge, demanding i pay. So I mailed them again. Explained toi them again that i had been denied access, telling them to confirm with their employee that I was denied access.
At that moment things got weird. They told me they had checked and according to them the facility had been available all day. They told me the person trying to open the door for me, answering the doorbell of their facility was an employee of some hotel, not of their parking facility, and because I had not called their alarm line, and because according to them there had been no issues withe the door that day, they could not retract the invoice.
But I had proof. I sent them a screenshot of my google maps history for that day, showing that I had spent 20 minutes aththe door of their facility before driving to another parking location. Assuming they were looking into it (I didn't recieve a response for 6 days), I just waited.
But then, on the 6th days since my previous mail, I receives a third invoice. Now BaPark wanted me to pay a 40 euro surcharge, a total of 100 euro for parking they had been unable to provide. So I mailed them again.
The response?
I'm not sure now what to do with this. This is absolutely the worst customer service that I've ever experienced, and i am 52 years old, so I've seen my share of bad customer support in my life, but none as bad as this.
I could pay the 100 euro and get this bad experience behind me, but if I do I would be incentifying these horrble people to do the same with other customers. I could ignore all their invoices and see if they take legal actions so this can get a day in court, but while i know a judge in the Netherlands would 100% for sure end up seeing my side of things and judging in my favour, I don't know about Belgium. Or I could just keep on objecting and keep the communication open, hoping that they will eventualy see that they are in the wrong here and there is no justification for charging me for a service that I was denied.
I'dd love to heer the input from the HIVE community, especialy those familiar with the Belgian legal system. Should i just pay up and let it slide? Write a few one star reviews and let that be the end of it? Or should I let it escalate so they learn a hopefully expensive lesson? Or is the later really not an option because it's belgium?
Oh, so far I've written one star reviews for them on Google (Play and Maps) and TrustPilot. Are there any other sites where i should be leaving my 1 star review for these plonkers?
Let me know your thoughts.
Oh, and if you ever find yourself needing parking space in Belgium: Stay away from booking at BePark. If things go wrong, they won't admit its your fault, and will (try to) make you pay whatever they can get away with.
This truly must be the worst company on EU soil.