One of the reports on Watchdog tonight made several national news bulletins, the story of Pink Meet & Greet, an airport valet parking service.

Now I have to say, that my opinions of what valet parking attendants could get up to were partly formed by the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off where Ferris borrows his friends father’s prized 1961 Ferrari and leaves it at a car park in central Chicago. He tips the attendants and asks them to take special care of the car, and then as Ferris and his friends are walking out of one door, the prized Ferrari goes out the other. You next see the car in the scene pictured above, going in slow-motion above the camera to the title music of Star Wars, and at regular points until they collect the Ferrari from the car park, you see the two attendants having a fantastic time driving around the city.

You’d think that this wouldn’t be the case, but to be frank, this is pretty well what the meet and greet company reported on tonight seemed to be doing with the cars they were being given. Although the company carefully quoted the distance to and from the compound – 32 miles, that gave plenty of opportunity to try out the cars – and in other cases the cars didn’t make it the 16 miles to the compound anyway.

One woman returned to find £4000 worth of damage to her £30,000 Audi, along with a bag of cannabis in the ash tray, and a CD in the glove-box. The company said the damage had been caused when the driver slipped on ice – however when Sussex Police came after her for failing to stop after an accident it transpired that the accident had been more serious. Another customer thought his car had been safely locked away in a secure compound. When he returned, he was contacted by Sussex Trading Standards, who told him that his car had been left parked on an industrial estate all week.

The programme left a car with the company, and fitted it with a tracker, that monitored the speed and location of the car when it was left for a week. During the week it was left parked on the roadside, and round the back of a local supermarket, and broke the speed limit eight times during the week, on two occasions doing over 100mph.

Following on from the report, a viewer contacted the programme with details of problems with another of the meet and greet companies, where his Mercedes had been used for a wedding whilst he was away – the company had left confetti under some of the mats…

So, to quote Ferris – “If you had access to a car like this, would you take it back right away?â€? – it seems that with some of the drivers at this meet and greet firm in particular, the answer is probably the same as Ferris…

Bueller originally uploaded by wayoutwest.