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Over-charged for parking in Lyon, France

Posted by (Lake Oswego, Oregon) on

When we were Lyon for four days at the end of May 2024, we parked at the LPA. On the advice of our hotelier, we used the LPA app and prepaid for the weekend. Because we arrived one day before the start of the weekend I knew we would owe for one day.

However, upon exiting the garage, my credit card was charged 145 euros, which did not take into account our prepaid reservation. By my calculations, parking for the one day (before the weekend) should have been 27 euros. So I was over-charged approximately 118 euros.

I reached out to LPA providing evidence of the prepayment and credit card charge. They have acknowledged that I am due a refund and requested my “RIB” in order to process the refund.

With some research I learned what a RIB is ("Relevé d'Identite Bancaire" which is a document provided by banks in France that contains all the necessary details of a person's bank account.)

I further learned that there is no equivalent in the US for a RIB.

I have explained this to LPA and requested that they process the refund to my credit card, but they did not respond. It has now been almost a month since their last email.

At this point I’m not sure who to turn to or what else I can do.

Does anyone have any advice for how I can resolve this issue?

Thanks in advance,
Theresa,
Oregon, USA

Posted by
2025 posts

In Europe the international version of the RIB is the IBAN (international Banking Account Number)

To receive the refund you will need to provide:

  • The name of the account holder

  • Your ABA routing number

  • Your bank account number

  • Your bank’s Swift/BIC code (or BBAN)

Contact your bank for confirmation

Posted by
3791 posts

You may not need to contact your bank. Your ABA routing number should be on your checks. It is the 9-digit number found before your account number. A Google search (name of bank + swift code + international wire transfer) will find the SWIFT code for you. The rest of the requested information is stuff you have. Put it all together into a single document. Wire transfers are very commonly done in France but not as commonly done here in the US so you may feel a little uncomfortable sending out your banking information but it seems like it is what you will have to do to get the refund. You can password protect the document and send the password separately. It’s not much protection but it’s something.

Posted by
2 posts

A BIG thank you to JoLui and JHK.

Your responses were very helpful.

I did end up contacting my Bank (Charles Schwab) and they provided the wiring instructions to their affiliate (Citibank) bank in Germany, with further credit to my account. Hopefully, everything will now resolve.

I must say that I've been worrying about this issue for weeks and it was only today that I thought about reaching out to the Travel Forum. Big lesson learned today. Thank you again!

Theresa

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