Secure Parking cops $11m fine for misleading customers with Secure-a-Spot false advertising

A major car park operator has been fined almost $11m and forced to confess its “deceptive conduct” to its Melbourne clients over a dodgy marketing campaign.

Parking operator Secure Parking copped a nearly $11m fine for its misleading Secure-a-Spot marketing campaign. Picture: Secure Parking

A major car park operator has been forced to confess to “misleading” its Melbourne customers and send them all an email detailing its crimes.

Secure Parking was this month fined a whopping $10.95m in penalties for using the name ‘Secure-a-Spot’ in its marketing material.

Between 2017 and 2022, Secure Parking told its customers they could “book online for a guaranteed spot” — but failed to uphold the marketing claim.

The Federal Court found the company generally did not reserve its customers’ parking spaces and potentially left them in the lurch.

Secure Parking was fined $10.95m after the Federal Court found it had misled its customers with false advertising. Picture: ACCC

“Customers may have been seriously inconvenienced when they arrived at their chosen car park to discover the parking space they thought they had booked was not available to them,” Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Commissioner Liza Carver said.

“This penalty sends a strong message to all businesses that making misleading claims to consumers about the nature of the services provided can attract substantial penalties.”

The ACCC found the company had “denied customers the opportunity to make an informed decision about which parking service best suited their needs”.

As well as the multimillion-dollar fine, the Federal Court ordered Secure Parking to publish corrective notices, which were on Saturday emailed to its customer base.

The company falsely told its customers a parking spot would be reserved for them with its Secure-a-Spot online booking. Picture: Secure Parking

“Secure Parking represented to consumers that by using its Secure-a-Spot online booking service a consumer would have a parking space reserved for them for the time, date and location specified in the booking they had paid for, when that was not the case,” the parking giant told its clients.

“These representations were made on Secure Parking’s website, in subscriber emails, in Facebook posts and in YouTube videos.

“The Federal Court ordered that this letter be sent by Secure Parking to all subscribers on its customer database”

Secure Parking hosts more than 20 car parks throughout the CBD including at The Stand and at Docklands.

It operates more than 600 car parks across the country.

Originally published as Secure Parking cops $11m fine for misleading customers with Secure-a-Spot false advertising