Excel Parking - Letter Before Action

Coupon-mad

It's a bit too much 'please and thankyou, too polite for my liking, pilch1984!

What about adding something more hard-hitting, after your first points:

There is no obligation on me, as the registered keeper, to make Excel's case nor find the driver for them. Excel have clearly failed to establish any contract at the outset with any driver(s) and cannot now rely upon threatening letters to the registered keeper, who was not liable pre POFA.

The fact that Excel were recently banned by the DVLA, and other county court cases from the time of the alleged contraventions, proves that Excel have a history of flawed signs and unenforceable penalties. In 2008, in the Excel v Hetherington-Jakeman case, the judge decided that Excel's charges and subsequent court claim was intended to "frighten or intimidate" her, rather than compensate the firm for any lost income.

In 2011, Deputy District Judge Lateef of the Stockport County Court personally inspected and roundly criticised Excel's signage in the Martin Cutts case. It is in the public domain that the lady judge was then, allegedly, publicly derided in a national paper by Simon Renshaw-Smith.

I will have no hesitation with adducing both cases as evidence for the judge, if Excel should proceed to a hearing against me.

In addition I warn you that your continued spurious pursuit of this wholly denied 'debt' is harassment. I am collating each and every letter from yourselves and reserve the right to sue Excel for damages if you do not desist. I am the registered keeper; as such I am not liable and it is unlawful for you to pursue the wrong party, as well as a breach of the BPA Code of Practice.

If you think you have a valid claim then serve court papers within 14 days. If not, then stop harassing me and close your file, deleting all data stored about myself and my vehicle or I will report you to the Information Commissioner. I have already complained about your behaviour to the BPA Ltd.

Stroma

pilch1984 wrote: »

Hello,

So, it's taken them a while but they've replied to my letter. I'm a little bit out of my depth so as ever, your advice is appreciated


We write further to your correspondence received on the 3 September 2013, in connection to the above Parking Charge Notices.

We have noted your comments and would like to respond as follows :

1) The basis of our claim is non payment of three Parking Charge Notices issued to the above vehicle, namely a … with the registration mark… .

2) All three Notices were all issued for parking in breach of the terms and conditions in operation at the on the dates listed above. The retail park operates with a maximum stay of 3 hours. On each occasion a Notice was issued,your vehicle was parked for longer than 3 hours. Please see the attached schedule, this details the date/time of each contravention.

3) Due to technical issues at present we are unable to provide a copy of the Notice to Owner or other correspondence that was generated at the time the Notices were issued. Once this technical issue has been resolved we will send you a copies of all previous correspondence.

4) As the vehicle is registered to yourself and all correspondence was sent to you at your address (as registered with the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA)) and we have not received any previous correspondence. We therefore feel on the balance of probabilities as the keeper of the vehicle you were most likely the driver .

5) The amount of the Notice is a genuine pre-estimate of loss. We incur significant costs in ensuring compliance to the stated Terms and Conditions, as well as follow ing up on any breaches that have occurred . The sum is within the recommendations set out within Clause 19 of the BPA Code of Practice and is clearly laid out on the signage at the parking location wh ich offers the parking contract to the motorist. By remaining on site, we contend that the driver has accepted all of the prevailing Terms and Conditions of that contract including the charges for breach of the contract, and furthermore accepts that they are reasonable.

6) A full list of documents will be provided at the court disclosure stage.

7) In relation to the DVLA enquiry an enquiry was made for each Notice issued. Please see attached schedule for the dates of each enquiry. A request was made to the DVLA on the basis of having "reasonable cause" that a contravention occurred through a breach of the terms and conditions since we did not have a name or address for the driver of the vehicle. Our signs in situ at … state that the keeper details would be requested from the DVLA in the event a breach of the terms and conditions occurred.

8) We do not have to be the landowner to issue court proceedings, we provide, manage and enforce the car park on behalf of the land owner . A copy of our contract will not be provided at this stage due to this information been of a commercially sensitive nature.

Please note we will place the account on hold for a further 14 days in order for payment to be made or for a response to be received.

Schedule of PCNs

Entry - 12:07 Exit - 15:26 Duration of stay - 3 hrs 19 mins

Entry - 13:22 Exit - 16:51 Duration of stay - 3 hrs 29 mins

Entry - 11:37 Exit - 15:28 Duration of stay - 3 hrs 51 mins

Clearly, the stays were over 3 hours but we genuinely weren't aware of the 3 hour limit at the time. However, as this was 4 years ago, I have no way of proving that the signage was inadequate. I also think (I need to double check) that Excel no longer operate the car park in question anymore so I can't even look at the signs that are there at the moment. I also fail to see how £100 each time is a reasonable cost!

Thanks,
Pilch

I have those images of the signs from more than a year ago in Parc Tawe North, as it was my complaint that got them banned to begin with. And there is a different parking company there now with their operatives in a little cabin outside Lidl's. Will post them to you if you wish

HO87

By all means write to the BPA but if you were minded to drop something onto Steve Clark's desk today here's his email address:

[EMAIL="Steve.C@britishparking.co.uk"]Steve.C@britishparking.co.uk[/EMAIL]

P.S. My avatar, coincidentally, is Simon Renshaw-Smith - so you can put a face to the name.

pilch1984

Thanks all for your input.

Daisy - so far no letters have come from solicitors, just 'litigation assistants' from Excel. I guess it's only a matter of time before I get one from one of their solicitors.

I will keep you posted on what they come back with next.

Pilch

pilch1984

Hi Stroma,

Yes please. I'd quite like to have this info.

Pilch

Stroma

Will post them up tomorrow and post a link here, can I just say that there is a foi request online that says why they were banned, might be worth adding it to your defence

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/excel_parking_ban_suspended

pilch1984

Hello again,

I've not had any response from Excel Parking since my last post *touches wood*. However, I was curious about my credit rating and when i looked in to this, I can see that Excel Parking searched for information on my credit report in July 2013. I was just wondering, are they entitled to do this? It clearly says that all searches should be done with my consent but i don't remember giving permission for this. Just a bit curious...

Ta,
Pilch

Stroma

Excel parking searched your credit file? Are you sure it wasn't Excel something else? I'm not sure but they would need some kind of credit licence to do that? I'm sure somebody like fermi over on the debt free wannabe forum could confirm that.

pilch1984

It's definitely excel parking services. I was a bit surprised to see that I must admit

Coupon-mad

pilch1984 wrote: »

Hello again,

I've not had any response from Excel Parking since my last post *touches wood*. However, I was curious about my credit rating and when i looked in to this, I can see that Excel Parking searched for information on my credit report in July 2013. I was just wondering, are they entitled to do this? It clearly says that all searches should be done with my consent but i don't remember giving permission for this. Just a bit curious...

Hmmmm...I don't think they can do that. I would email the BPA using the BPA email address in post #6 of the NEWBIES sticky thread.