A NIS 10 million class-action lawsuit has been filed with the Tel Aviv District Court against Yamit A. Bitahon (1998) Ltd., the operator of the parking lots at Ben Gurion Airport, claiming that it does not meet the promise of 15 minutes free parking. The petitioner claims that when a driver inserts a parking ticket into the payment machine indicating a stay of less than 15 minutes, the company changes the full NIS 30 fee for one hour.
The petitioner also claims that, belying the company's advertisements that the cost of parking is NIS 30 for "up to one hour", the moment a driver pays for the first hour (NIS 30), he is not allowed to leave the parking lot during the first hour. It is alleged that even though the driver paid for the full first hour, the respondent prevents him from leaving the parking lot unless he makes another payment.
The petitioner, Adv. Moran Ben-Naim, through Adv. Shlomi Friedman, claims that the moment a driver pays for the first hour (NIS 30), the respondent begins charging him an additional NIS 6 per quarter hour (or part of it), resulting in a payment of more than NIS 30, and as high as NIS 48, for the first hour of parking.
"By this conduct, and the holding of the respondent's consumers 'captive' in the parking lot, which can only be exited after payment of what the company demands, Yamit A. Bitahon misleads its consumers by concealing pertinent information about the money it collects from them," says the statement of claim, "exploiting their helplessness, exploiting their ignorance (inserting the parking ticket indicating that the driver entered the parking lot less than 15 minutes before, resulting in a payment in the amount of NIS 30), harming consumers' autonomy (since they are captive behind a locked gate), and abusing the inequality between it and its consumers."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on July 9, 2013
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