Excel parking- advice on their reply please

give_them_FA

And be sure to contact the lease company and tell them that the charge is an attempted scam and they are neither to pay it nor try to charge you, you will need to speak to your employer too by the look of it.

Nick1001_2

Thanks Give them FA,
I will write to them on the lines you suggest and contact the lease company and my employer to make them aware.
The only bit I cannot say is that I paid the £25 in the mistaken belief I was liable- I clearly stated in my letter that I knew I was not liable and could not be pursued

give_them_FA

Fine, just amend it to somrthing like you paid them despite the fact you were not liable or whatever you put in your original letter.

taffy056

Nick1001 wrote: »

Thanks Taffy, their letter definitely states they will pursue settlement from the vehicle owner (the lease company) if I wont tell them the driver, I assume the lease company will simply forward on any correspondence to my employer. I dont want further £10 charges from the lease car company for each time they have to forward on a letter.....

And that is the reason it will never go to court, the owner of the vehicle is normally a finance company, the lease company would be the registered keeper usually, the point is they are not legally responsible for this alleged contract unless they were actually driving the vehicle. Very often the driver is not the RK of the vehicle, only the driver can have this invoice. The point being this will never get to court as its fatally flawed .

Nick1001_2

Just drafted this letter. Any thoughts? Thanks

[FONT=&quot]In response to you letter .... I am forwarding my letter to you dated ... in which I advised you I was not the driver of the above car at the time the ticket was issued and am therefore not liable to pay your invoice. Please do not contact me with regards this matter. I have no intention of informing you who the driver was and should you think I am being untruthful I have numerous witnesses to confirm that I was attending a family event elsewhere at this time. I am therefore not indebted to you at all.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I offered a more than reasonable payment to you in a gesture of good faith in order not to have to continue to correspond, even though I had no obligation to do so. I did so because I find such correspondence very distressing and wanted to avoid further upset. Please note I have absolutely no intention of making any further payment and given the tone of your letter in reply to this gesture I regret having paid your organization any amount at all. Therefore please cease from pursuing any further payment from me. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I note your intention to pursue the payment through the registered owner of the vehicle, the lease company, I am aware that this is unlawful. I will be writing to the company informing them of the situation and advising that any correspondence to them is either ignored or forwarded to me where it too will be ignored. I understand you have no right of action against the registered owner, your action can only be addressed to the driver and again I repeat I have no intention of informing you who this was, nor am I obliged to do so.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Please be aware I consider your continuous correspondence to be harassment and I will report you to the British Parking Association and the Security Industry Authority if you contact me again. [/FONT]

vax2002

The British Parking Association is a scammers club that they are all in.
Can I just give you some advice please and I beg of you, that you take it.

Put down your sword of justice , you are cutting yourself with it.
STOP: do some research in how other people have beaten these scammers, until you do you are making a right pigs ear of it so far, sending cheques, writing and negotiating with scammers.
The only people you should be having any dialogue with is the lease company to inform them you wont be paying an illegal penalty or any admin charges.

And : do not cancel the cheque, they can and will sue you for cancelling it and will win.

Nick1001_2

Thanks but I am confused over the advice- to write the letter or not. It seems to me that this letter is the last one I would send and lays the way open for harassment as Give Them FA suggested.
I have written to the lease company too as you advised.
Thanks for the advice on the cheque.

vax2002

Right here is my answer :
By making part payment you may have accepted that what you have received is a legal bill under Bills of Exchange Act 1882 :
You have been very foolish indeed, I am sorry, but that is the cold hard truth.
They have a very good legal case against you for the rest of the bill.
I can not say if they will pursue it or not, but if they do I feel they would most likely win due to your foolish actions in acceptance of the bill.

give_them_FA

Or, since he was never liable to pay the charge in the first place, they fell foul of submitting an invoice for unsolicited goods and services, and for monies not due to them, which is against the law. To go to court the doctrine, under equity, is that you must do so "with clean hands". Theirs are dirty and a judge would dismiss any claim they brought accordingly. One look at the letters they are sending would convince him of that. Neither do courts apply Acts in a manner in which Parliament never intended that they should be applied and where it would produce an inequitable result. I doubt an 1882 Act was ever intended to apply to parking, somehow.

In short, Vax, the "bill" has to be legitimate in the first place. Your theory would only apply to a valid, lawful bill; not one which doesn't and never did have any lawful foundation. You cannot enforce an unlawful invoice merely because a partial payment has (admittedly foolishly) been paid towards it.

vax2002

Once you accept that what you have been served is a legal bill, by acknowledgement, consideration and making payment, you have probably shafted any chance you have of arguing over what the bill was about.
The OP has put themselves in an almost unique position in that they have made a payment on account.
However I am not going to post the next bit of quantifying case law or any reference to it, I do not want parking companies to be tipped off.