Excel Parking, BW Legal and now what looks like court papers

Xanthanan · 27 August 2016 at 2:56PM

Back in 2014 a vehicle hired by me went into a car park to pick up an item from the back entrance of a charity shop. The driver (wasn't me and could have been anyone from a list of a few people) just went there to load and I guess tehy presumed they would get a few minutes grace as they weren't actually parking. Im told the passenger went into the shop and took a while before he came out of the shop with the manager carrying the sofa, chairs, cushions etc. which were then loaded and off they went.

A couple of months later I got a letter from Excel parking saying I (they presumed I was the driver) had to pay a charge as I had failed to pay to park. I will have to go and find all the letters as I cant remember exactly but it was something like a 10 min 'grace period' and the driver took something like 15. There were pictures of the vehicle on the letter (or on one of the subsequent letters) but I cant remember exactly how clear they were. The letter demanded so much (maybe £60), or the charge would go up to £100 after so long and if left longer I could end up with more costs and court actions etc. I guess I should have googled better about what to do at the time but what I found meant that I thought I was already pretty 'up to speed' with what to do, simply ignore them and they will eventually go away. Numerous letters and phone calls were successfully ignored, both from Excel and then later Rossendales collect (a debt recovery company). I still managed to do what I thought was the right thing and ignore it all and they did eventually go away.

However, earlier this year I got a new demand from BW legal, as usual demanding monies and again threatening court action and ignored it as I thought that would never happen, which brings me to today. I have now got what looks like court papers for the Northampton "County Court Business Centre". The ignore them plan appears to not work and I find myself on this forum, reading that the plan wasn't as up to date as I had hoped.

The court papers say I have upto 14 days to respond but I have a further pressure, I am off to the USA in 5 days so I need to sort it fast. I'm tempted to pay the extortionate amount of almost £250 which is what the papers claim but I'm really not pleased it should be so costly for what was a few minutes by someone else and some out of date advice.

Does anyone have a way forward? Even if that way forward is 'pay the money and stop moaning'

The_Deep · 27 August 2016 at 3:12PM

Resist the temptation, it is a scam, and some of us are trying to get this firm sanctioned or even struck off.

There are plenty of others in the same boat, read any recent threads with BW Law in the title. Here is one such thread.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5516670

pappa_golf · 27 August 2016 at 3:13PM

how long are you in the USA for?

Xanthanan · 27 August 2016 at 5:43PM

I'm in the US from 1st to 15th of September (land back in the UK early on the 16th) and my biggest worry is if they are genuine court papers then I cant mess about with them like I would mess with the parking extortionists. Laughably I had a real summons a few weeks back, to be a court Juror later in September so when that first arrived my heart did genuinely miss a beat until I saw it was for Jury service, I'm quite excited about doing that!

pappa_golf · 27 August 2016 at 5:56PM

OK , I thought you might have been out of the country and jurisdiction of the CC

read up on defending and send an aclolagement in order to give you extra time

Xanthanan · 28 August 2016 at 12:48AM

So would it be a sensible thing for me to speak to the Northampton county court business centre on Tuesday and ask if there is actually an official claim lodged against me? If this is a scam and there isn't a claim at the courts would I be within my rights complain to the court (or the police) that 'bogus' court papers appear to have been sent to me?

Coupon-mad · 28 August 2016 at 1:13AM

Xanthanan wrote: »

So would it be a sensible thing for me to speak to the Northampton county court business centre on Tuesday and ask if there is actually an official claim lodged against me? If this is a scam and there isn't a claim at the courts would I be within my rights complain to the court (or the police) that 'bogus' court papers appear to have been sent to me?

No, this will be a real claim. DO NOT IGNORE IT. It's not a scam in terms of the claim not being genuine, it's a scam because of the entire parking industry and the way BW Legal conduct themselves in these cases with misleading letters. They are using the courts as a form of debt collection to frighten people into paying charges that are (very often with Excel) not even the recipient's liability.

Read the absolute shedloads of other BW Legal/Excel threads on here and on pepipoo forum:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=60

You really should not have ignored BW Legal letters. Far easier to have been replying to them and reporting them to the CSA and SRA like loads of other people are on here and on pepipoo, at the moment.

You need to URGENTLY acknowledge the claim online by using the Government Gateway password on the claim form, leaving the defence box blank and ticking 'no' to contesting jurisdiction. Say you will defend in full but leave the actual 'defence' box BLANK for now.

Then you will have extended the time to 28 days from service of the court papers.

Hopefully, it sounds like as soon as you return from the US you will have time to read all the other BW Legal/Excel claim threads on pepipoo. Loads of them show a decent defence. All done online for the time being at this stage.

And do not reply to any 'private message' you might get on either forum, if you register on pepipoo as well. People sending messages offering to help are not to be responded to, could be the parking firm, you never know. Keep it in the open, stick to this thread (and any thread you start on pepipoo) and you will get lots of assistance with the defence wording.

You cannot ignore this nor miss any deadlines if you have court papers. The keeper can defend this though and it sounds as if you have time to acknowledge it now then deal with the defence immediately on your return. I suspect you will then have a week at least, as long as you submit an acknowledgement in a day or two, before you go - what's the date on the claim form?

Xanthanan · 28 August 2016 at 1:00PM

Thank you Coupon-Mad that makes a lot of sense to me. I'm pretty embarrassed that I followed out of date info and let it get to this stage, I'm also a little worried that I don't have any knowledge or experience of legal stuff as even the simplest of terms or abbreviations leaves me confused. I will log into the .gov site, acknowledge the paperwork and submit the 'blank' defence. Im in your hands now Ladies & Gents, I'm not paying hundreds of pounds for parking I didn't do

I see references to sending a 'part 18 request' which sounds like a request to the complainant for an explanation of their evidence for taking me to court. Do I need to do this? Is this a request form that's publically available? How do I trigger it? I see theres a link to an explanation in the newbie thread (repeated below for my info) of the part 18 request. I'll go read that.

I tried to post the link, new users aren't allowed

It ended with showthread.php?t=5373288

Is there any option to get the hearing date put back further due to me being out of the country for more than half of the period allowed to compile a defence? I think its a reasonable request but have no idea how I would do that.
Looking a little further I see that may not be a worry, it looks like any 'day in court' will be a real one and much later, I have to compile an electronic basic defence and will then be given info for a date to be arranged in my local court on a mutually acceptable date.

However, I have no idea how to compile that basic defence. I see you mention that there are a great deal of threads on the pepipoo site but also note the various warnings of PM's and interference from the 'bad guys'. I'll go and create an account on there and see how that goes!

I guess the defence needs to comprise of the 'standard' stuff that I've seen in some threads in here plus things arising from my particular circumstances such as:

Contracts with landowners (and maybe their assumed contract of parking with me?)
Sinage sizing, positioning and maintenance
Proof of who committed the 'offence' (It was a hire van and I am not the owner or keeper)
Unreasonable charging (a few minutes is not £60 - 100) and the car park had plenty of unused space anyway.
Can I use parking versus 'loading' (at no time did the driver leave the vehicle, just sat there waiting for the load to be brought to the van while his mate left the vehicle)
Is there an argument to be had in accusing them of profiteering over and above unnecessary charges? They seem to have latched onto the smallest of 'infractions' (in their opinion) and are looking to maximise the money earned from that few minutes.

I'll go get some pictures of the site today, need to nip into town but very rarely go in that park as there is another free (for 2 hours) car park directly across the main road that I always use. I'll also go have a hunt through the piles of mail I have stored away, I didn't get rid of any of their original letters (clever me!) but they are quite poorly filed / hidden

Redx · 28 August 2016 at 1:11PM

this thread http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5505546 has a lot of good info on procedures , part 18 example , holding defence example etc (especially see ho87 posts on page 2)

the more research you do , the better

read the court sub-section in post #1 of the newbies sticky thread, especially the bargepole post linked there

read parking pranksters court guide too

until you do the above, and more , you wont ever get an idea of what needs to be done here , anyone who has to ask generally has no idea about these matters, but research is the key

later on in the process at the directions stage , I believe you can tell the court what dates you are "unavailable"

here is the thread linked in the last reply

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5373288

Coupon-mad · 28 August 2016 at 2:54PM

I see references to sending a 'part 18 request' which sounds like a request to the complainant for an explanation of their evidence for taking me to court. Do I need to do this? Is this a request form that's publically available? How do I trigger it? I see theres a link to an explanation in the newbie thread (repeated below for my info) of the part 18 request. I'll go read that.

You are right, that's all it is. You do not 'have to' do a part 18 request but as BW Legal claims and letters are so generic and misleading, you could use it to ask:

- on what basis the claimant reckons a hirer of a vehicle is liable in law, seeing as 'Elliott v Loake' is not relevant and the claimant does not use the right wording for keeper or hirer liability.

- on what basis the contract on the signs related to loading/unloading?

Do NOT imply who was driving when writing anything (Part 18 or defence) because one major point is that a hirer can't be held liable without the right paperwork accompanying that first letter you got (as set out in para 13/14 of the POFA Schedule 4, they had to have served hire documents with the postal PCN letter you first got. They will not have done so).

read all the zillions of other BW Legal defences, many more are on pepipoo:

http://forums.pepipoo.com/index.php?showforum=60

Crib from the other threads. Your defence can be critiqued here on the forum in this thread, keep it updated (and on pepipoo you may like to start a thread but PLEASE read other ones about defences first because over there (as here) we are really running out of steam to cope with newbies threads that say 'I got a BW Legal claim, what do I do?' when if they'd just cast their eyes further down the forum first and read a shedload of cases exactly the same, already replied to, they would know.

Do not reply to any private message on either forum, offering to 'help' because you do not know who they are/what their agenda is. Chances are, they would not be a regular with thousands of posts to their name, as the people who post openly on threads, are.

Xanthanan · 29 August 2016 at 1:19AM

You guys are awesome, I wish I had come here earlier rather than just taking the first advice I saw saying 'ignore them and they will go away'

I logged into the MCOL site intending to take the 'defence' option with a blank defence, however, as well as the defence option (which doesn't mention additional time) there is an "Acknowledgement of service" option which is described as follows:

If you need 28 days (rather than 14) from the date of service to prepare your defence, or wish to contest the court's jurisdiction, complete the Acknowledgment of Service (AOS).

Would I be better to use the "Acknowledgement of service" option due to being in the USA until the 16th Sept?

I had a quick nosey on pepipoo and found a case about the same car park as mine, on my 'lazy days' in the US I'll have a good read through a few them and take some notes / get a good feeling for the way it works.

I've taken pictures of the car park signage, spoken to some of the shopkeepers on site and even managed to save a guy doing similar... He was off-loading bags of stuff at the same charity shop and was clearly going to take more than 10 minutes... I told him this story and he promptly paid 50p to avoid getting scammed. Now theres my good deed of the day

The signage looked pretty new and I doubt it would be the same as what was there in 2014. To be fair the shopkeepers were very sympathetic and had heard the same story so may times they were sick of it, looks like this car park is a nice little earner for 'minor infringements' of Excels cash grabbing scheme. I was told the land owner is actually Mr Sports Direct and Newcastle United Millionaire, Mike Ashley but haven't verified that and would doubt the actual ownership could easily be attributed to one of his various holding companies without a land registry search. Is it worthwhile doing that? Would they actually be willing to apply pressure to Excel? One sign showed 2 hours free car parking for Sports Direct gym members so I suspect they wouldn't pressurise their own parking contractors, no matter how tenuous the link.

Better news is that I found the original 'PCN' letter and a couple of things made me wonder if they could contribute to my defence.

Firstly, the notice has an issue date 65 days after the 'offence' date quoted in the letter. I seem to remember seeing somewhere (darn my terrible memory) that the original notice must arrive after a certain number of days, I wonder if they missed that maximum number of days due to having to contact the hire company.

Secondly, the notice appears to be a standard letter, it has a generic statement about driver and keeper (and the basic methods they use to locate the keeper) but doesn't appear to have any specific documentation pertaining to their method of deciding I was the driver in their contact with the vehicle hire company.
I've seen this quoted in a thread (showthread.php?p=69906180#post69906180) linked to by the newbie guide and wonder if their initial contact letter failed to follow the POFA (I must look up what that means) Schedules

ALL the requirements of Schedule 4 of POFA must be met, particularly the serving of the correct notices (Sec 7-9) with exactly the right information in them. This is the bit most PPCs don't get right most of the time, thus preventing them from holding the keeper liable.

The original PCN also shows that the vehicle was in the car park for a total of 16 minutes, meaning 6 minutes of 'overstay' (the hourly rate of the penalty charge is therefore rather large)

Excel Parking, BW Legal and now what looks like court papers

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free