8:00am Thursday 26th February 2009
By Christine Sexton
A WOMAN was forced to pay more than £250 when a firm clamped her car while she collected medicine for her elderly mother.
Mandy Renaud, 50, left her mother, dementia sufferer Gwen, 85, with carers while she popped to a Rayleigh town centre chemist.
LBS Enforcement clamped her car in the five minutes she left it near Curves gym, in Websters Way. She returned at 7.30pm on Friday to find a man fitting a wheel clamp.
She said: “I tried to explain I had to get medicines for my mother and had only left it for a few moments, but he just said I had to pay £125.
“He called his boss, who had been sitting in a pick-up truck nearby. He was about six feet tall and came over to say it would now be £245 plus VAT, as he had been called out.”
Mrs Renauld, of London Hill, Rayleigh, added: “Eventually, I had to pay up, because I knew the carers were leaving and mum couldn’t be left on her own. They even had the audacity to charge an extra £5 for paying by a credit card.”
Mrs Renauld ended up paying a total of £286. She accepted she had parked where she shouldn’t, but felt stopping briefly in the evening inconvenienced nobody.
She added: “I was totally flabbergasted. I had parked there for no more than five minutes and I was press-ganged into paying this obscene amount of money.”
When the Echo went to press, LBS had not responded to our request for a comment. However, in response to a recent, similar complaint, an LBS staff member, who would only give his name as Mr Stone, said: “Most people just take a chance.
“There’s enough warning signs in these car parks. People pay a lot of money for their parking areas, but drivers come along and park there day and night thinking it’s OK. It’s just pure ignorance.”
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