EXCEL Parking Charge Notice

james1989

Hi,

Today I have received a parking charge notice from Excel Parking. For breaching the car park terms and conditions in the "privately operated car park" at ASDA.

I have 14 days to pay a discounted rate of £30 within 14 days or full charge of £60. They are asking me to send cheque or use the automated payment service.

They photographic evidence of me entering and leaving the car park using APR cameras. The max stay permitted is 1 Hour and I stayed there for 1 Hour, 29 Minutes.

I am at fault for over staying the max 1 Hour of the car rules which are clearly sign posted. But have heard a few about privately owned car parks.

Do I pay this or just ignore it?

Thanks.

muckybutt

You most certainly DO NOT PAY

Have a read of the letter sticky page at the top of the parking forum page, if you scroll down you will see the excel letters.

The have a watch of the watchdog clip about private parking on youtube.

If after that you have any more questions or are in doubt, come back here for some more reassurance that you dont need to pay them a penny.

The_Slithy_Tove

Ignore, then ignore some more. After that, ignore all the follow-up letters you'll receive. And then ignore the letters from the fake debt collectors and fake solicitors after that.

Stephen_Leak

james1989 wrote: »

Hi,

Today I have received a parking charge notice from Excel Parking. For breaching the car park terms and conditions in the "privately operated car park" at ASDA.

I have 14 days to pay a discounted rate of £30 within 14 days or full charge of £60. They are asking me to send cheque or use the automated payment service.

They photographic evidence of me entering and leaving the car park using APR cameras. The max stay permitted is 1 Hour and I stayed there for 1 Hour, 29 Minutes.

I am at fault for over staying the max 1 Hour of the car rules which are clearly sign posted. But have heard a few about privately owned car parks.

Do I pay this or just ignore it?

Thanks.

I thought ASDA used TCP.

Firstly, the legal stuff.

Only councils, the police, train operators and Transport for London can impose legally enforceable fines or penalties. A private company or individual can't. A private parking company (PPC) call their tickets “Parking Charge Notices”, not “Penalty Charge Notices”. In law, they’re called “speculative invoices”.

Any warning signs are usually so badly positioned and worded, that they won’t have created a fair and legally binding deemed contract between the car park owner and a driver entering the car park in the first place. See The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997 and Excel Parking Services vs. Cutts, Stockport, 2011.

All the car park owner (CPO) can claim from a driver in damages for any alleged breach of any alleged contract is what they’ve lost as a result. If it’s in a free car park or the driver paid, this is £0.00. Demanding more has been judged to be unreasonable and therefore an unfair contract penalty under the terms of The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1997, which is not legally enforceable. See Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. Ltd. vs. New Garage & Motor Co. Ltd., House of Lords, 1914 and countless cases since.

There are also now recent landmark court cases, VCS Parking Control vs. Ronald Ibbotson, S!!!!horpe, 2012, HM Revenue & Customs vs. VCS Parking Control, Lower Tax Tribunal, 2012 and VCS Parking Control vs. HM Revenue & Customs (Appeal), Upper Tax Tribunal, 2012. In these cases, the judges ruled that only the car park owner can take drivers to court. The Upper Tax Tribunal is a court of record, equivalent to the High Court, and therefore its judgement sets a legal precedent.

What should I do now?

We don’t condone not paying or overstaying in a pay car park. If you owe the CPO the original charge, then you ought to write to the CPO, offering this in “full and final settlement”. In any event, you should write to the CPO, advising them that they are "jointly and severally liable" for the actions of their agents, the PPC, and that any further actions by either of them would be regarded as harassment under the terms of The Protection from Harassment Act 1997. This ought to make the CPO call off the PPC and, hopefully, realise the potential cost of doing business with a PPC.

Don’t appeal to the PPC. They always reject them. What’s in it for them to let anyone off? Actually, there is something in it for them: information. They need to know the identity of the driver of the vehicle involved at the time, because that’s who the alleged contract was with. If they don’t know who the driver was, they have to make do with harassing the registered keeper.

With windscreen notices, an appeal letter will tell them your name and address, and maybe who was driving at the time. If they don’t know who the driver was, they have to buy the details of registered keeper from the DVLA. With postal notices, they’ve had to do this already. But they still need to know the identity of the driver.

They sometimes say that they have the right to ask for this information. This doesn’t mean that you have to tell them.

However, even if you’ve written and told them who the driver was, it just means that they can now harass the driver instead of harassing the registered keeper.

How will they do this to me?

The PPC, then a debt collector and then a solicitor will send you a series of letters. The debt collector and solicitor are usually also the PPC, but using different headed paper. These letters will threaten you with every kind of financial and legal unpleasantness imaginable to intimidate you into paying.

But, they can't actually do anything, for the same reason that a blackmailer can't take anyone who didn’t pay them to court.

What should I do then?

Continue to ignore everything you get from the PPC and their aliases. It does seem odd to deal with something like this by ignoring it. Eventually, they will run out of empty threats and stop throwing good money after bad.

Coupon-mad

Unless it's a company/hire/lease car, you must ALWAYS just ignore any fake PCN.

It is NOT a fine at all. Forget it unless you actually get real sealed Court papers (won't happen but have to let you know you have a 1 in 72,000 chance of a small claim being attempted! But most PPCs never bother - and they would lose a defended case).

You are not liable to pay and you must not 'appeal' as that's a pretence. There is no appealing a scam. This is a private company with an unsolicited invoice, dressed up to impersonate a parking ticket. It's NOTHING at all to spend any time worrying about!

Tick off the threatening letters Here.

Watchdog clip with expert Solicitor's opinion here.

Barrister's opinion here.

If it's a company/hire/lease car then read this final link below as you need to hook the PPC in your direction with a letter and you need to tell the lease/company Fleet Manager that they may be about to receive scam letters which look like a parking ticket but it's a fake one (much more details here.


HTH

bondy_lad

purely and simply a scam, a FAKE ticket,so please read stickies on what letters to expect, they are all part of the scam so IGNORE the lot, despite what they threaten, nothing can/will happen to you, i have loads from these cowboys, doubles up as spare loo roll.jobs a real good un innit.