Private Parking Tickets discussion

quanto2009

Excel parking sheffield
Received final notice from Excel parking to pay £100 within 14 days or be taken to court with court and solicitor costs £80 added to the amount after recieving a ticket in December for not having a valid ticket.
What now?
Do they really stop hounding and is it legal to ignore beginning to worry

Oopsadaisy

trisontana wrote: »

Quote:-
oh, by the way, I work at the solicitors office so this is not going to cost me anything!

Quack, quack, oops!!! Sorry.

Oopsadaisy

Hayley_McCulloch wrote: »

I will keep people posted as to the response my solicitors received

Er, let me do that for you......they won't reply [they never do].

Crabman

quanto2009 wrote: »

Excel parking sheffield
Received final notice from Excel parking to pay £100 within 14 days or be taken to court with court and solicitor costs £80 added to the amount after recieving a ticket in December for not having a valid ticket.
What now?
Do they really stop hounding and is it legal to ignore beginning to worry

We don't have letters for Excel yet (would you be willing to scan, block out personal details and upload yours?) but if you take a look at the below thread hopefully you'll see it's a common tactic used by PPCs in an effort to scare and threaten people into paying up.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2214803

Eaglewoman

Hi, I would just like to check certain info about private parking company charges. If what I have found out is correct it may help others.

My info is that the taking of digital photographs without the permission of the person having their image taken is illegal.

So that for the PPC to have photographic evidence of somone's face they have to ask for permission to take a digital image of each driver of each vehicle before the vehicle enters the car park.

Which means if they have photographic evidence of someone's face it would be foolish of them to go to court on a civil matter when they themselves have commited a criminal offence.

Therefore, if the PPC say they have photographic evidence it can only be of the car/registration number, coz if they admit to having a clear image of the driver they have committed an offence. Can anyone confirm that ?

Second, if the driver owns up, the PPC can only charge for the time overstayed at a rate of twice the hourly rate normally charged.

Some of the charges I have read about here are way in advance of that. And in the case of some supermarkets there is no charge made for parking at all. They say you may stay for 1/2/3 hours only. So if there is no charge at all it would seem to me that 2 x 0 per hour is ............ ummmm, 0!

Driver8

quanto2009 wrote: »

Excel parking sheffield
Received final notice from Excel parking to pay £100 within 14 days or be taken to court with court and solicitor costs £80 added to the amount after recieving a ticket in December for not having a valid ticket.
What now?
Do they really stop hounding and is it legal to ignore beginning to worry

Just ignore it. Excel have been stung in the past in court. Just google the Sheffield papers.

ripped_off_driver

Driver8 wrote: »

Just ignore it. Excel have been stung in the past in court. Just google the Sheffield papers.

Including a little birdie tells me yesterday in their other guise of Vehicle Control Services (VCS). Yesterday's Sheffield County Court drubbing turned on the adequacy of signs I am informed.However nobody should worry that Excel take many cases to court. They don't. It just happens that in the very few they have taken they have lost them all. Because they take real cases with an opponent who is often advised by forum experts the result is predictably different to Perky's set ups.

Sir_Roger_deLodger

Eaglewoman wrote: »

My info is that the taking of digital photographs without the permission of the person having their image taken is illegal.

Dont know where you got that info from but it is wrong. It is not illegal to take photographs of anyone in a public place. See this site . Anyway it is immaterial - how can they name someone they've never seen before from a photo? They can't just turn up at court with a photograph hoping they have the right person.

Eaglewoman wrote: »

Second, if the driver owns up, the PPC can only charge for the time overstayed at a rate of twice the hourly rate normally charged.

Again wrong. The remedy for breach of contract is damages, ie the amount the driver's actions have cost them. So if the charge is £2 they can sue for £2. If the car park is free, the damages are zero. Which is why they never do court.

quanto2009

Watchdog on BBC1 did a piece on PCN at Mcdonald where photographs of cars entering and leaving and if returning with the hour tickets were issued through the post for contravening the restrictions on site.
They basically got Ronald McDonald to drive in and out of the car park and contravening the site restrictions and are waiting to see if any tickets are sent to the legal owner of the car.
They didn't say too much on if the charges were legal or not, just highlighting the fact the cameras were recording the events and tickets were not issued by a car park attendant.
There was one woman who to date had ignored the letters to take to court and had been sent the 4 letters then a bailiff and solicitor letter.
Hope they shed some more light on this

Coupon-mad

No further light needs to be shed other than the info that this forum, and others, already elucidate on the matter of PPC fake parking tickets. Parking Charge Notices are a scam, end of. :mad:

PPCs like MET and others just send you a standard letter-chain and yes, they use headed notepaper purporting to be from a solicitor and/or debt collector. So what? Then the whole scam ends.

That's the one thing I was waiting to hear from them when they mentioned on Watchdog about the lady who ignored her scam 'threatogram' letters (good for her) because after the letters they mentioned NOTHING happens - she had reached the end of the scam but Watchdog didn't say this, they left it hanging as if to suggest that Court was an option. Just for dramatic effect I expect and because the BBC stop short of saying things like this are a scam and will never actually go to Court.

Anyhoo, here's the whole forum board with all current threads which should shed the light you need (see the first thread for examples of similar letters which form the usual standard scary-letter chain, then dip into other threads ad infinitum until you understand this really is a con and no more):

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=163

HTH now relax and stop expecting a BBC programme to confirm what internet forums already know and can tell you now!