A CAVERSHAM homeowner has expressed his frustration at a parking website for letting Reading festivalgoers use his driveway without consent.
Every year, more than 100,000 people come to the town for the three-day event, with some travelling long distances and requiring somewhere to park.
Although many park legitimately in site car parks, a Caversham man said he had a rude awakening when he found a car in his driveway without his consent.
The red Alfa Romeo was parked in the driveway of Jon Evans’ home from Thursday, August 25, through to 3am on Monday, August 29.
Mr Evans, of St Peter’s Hill, said he suspected a fraudster hired out his drive without his knowledge.
He found out the booking was made through YourParkingSpace, a website which allows people to hire out their parking spaces for others to use.
But Mr Evans said he hasn’t used the site to list his driveway, leading him to criticise YourParkingSpace’s validation procedures.
He said: “I contacted the organisation’s chief information officer (CIO) who tells me the checks are email, address and phone number.
“None of which are apparently traced back to the actual owner or land.
“This also risks young kids like festivalgoers turning up and potentially getting into challenging situations.”
Mr Evans said it is a “scammer’s dream” which he says is “reckless in the extreme”.
He called for YourParkingSpace to tighten its validation process so the incident doesn’t happen again.
YourParkingSpace agreed to compensate Mr Evans for the inconvenience caused over the weekend, and said it would tighten its procedures.
A spokesperson said: “We are working on establishing the cause of the issue – deliberate fraud or a genuine mistake when entering the address by the individual who listed the space.
“We have sincerely apologised to the individual for the distress caused and will, of course, be passing the funds for the booking over to him.
“At YourParkingSpace, we take verification checks incredibly seriously, as we conduct a series of checks on every single new space on the platform, including manual reviews by our quality control team to ensure each listing meets our quality standards.
“Having said this, we continually review our security processes to ensure only genuine and accurate listings are made.”
They added: “We strive for the highest standards, so we believe just one case, such as the one unfortunately experienced by the individual in Caversham, is too many.
“We will use this incident to see how we can tighten our processes to prevent similar unfortunate occurrences in the future.”
The Reading Festival website encourages people to travel via public transport, but does offer a range of parking spaces for festivalgoers.
