Excel Parking - Iceland Spennymoor

JazzJPH

Hi everyone!

We've received a PCN from Excel Parking, addressed to my wife. It has ANPR images of her car arriving at 11am and leaving at 1.23pm at the Iceland car park in Spennymoor with a 2 hour maximum stay.

She has honestly told me she didn't see the any signs indicating a maximum 2 hour stay otherwise she would have made a note of that. So I know she hasn't deliberately overstayed.

We had already appealed before reading the MSE threads, which we regret since the guide instructs newbies to not mention the driver or rhyme on about mitigating circumstances. So please, get your violins out for this beauty of an appeal by myself:

"Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you on behalf of my wife to appeal the charge as a result of her staying in the car park for over the allotted time.

We are not denying that she stayed over the maximum time, however we appeal to your good nature to please waive the charge. We have not long been married and beforehand she lived down in Southport so is not as familiar with the area. I must also add that my wife is Lithuanian and hasn't fully mastered her English vocabulary yet. She was unaware there was a maximum permitted time, not seeing any signs to state this, but I have made sure she understands now what these signs mean.

As this is her first offence please could the charge be waived? It would mean a lot to us.

Yours faithfully"

So with this in mind, have I placed us on a back foot in the appeals process? I want to appeal to POPLA because my wife asserted she did not see the signs. Besides, is £100 really what she incurred for staying over in half-full car park for 23 minutes? Despite the "generous" 14 day offer of paying "only" £60... Sorry for the sarcasm.

Can anyone advise what we do from this point?

Jazz

Redx

if you have outed the driver you have lost certain appeal points

popla do not accept mitigation and it says so on their website, so any popla appeal will be based on legal grounds only

the newbies thread deals with the initial appeals, and then popla appeals

you can expect a rejection and a popla code based on the above

nowhere have you mentioned appealing directly to the landowner, who contracted excel , either

cut the head off the snake................................. blah blah

JazzJPH

Yeah we've received the reply from Excel saying the appeal is rejected. We've been given a POPLA reference if we wish to appeal.

So are you saying our only option is to pay the £60 or do we have a chance at appealing to POPLA?

Redx

if you have a popla code, appeal it to popla within say 25 days of the code being issued, check the newbies thread for the code checker that gives the expiry date, then check the popla appeals examples and tailor one for your own popla appeal

remember, you have only 28 days to submit it to popla, which can be done online by attaching it when you appeal

they will hear the appeal between 5 and 8 weeks later

assuming you win at popla, you pay nothing at all

The_Deep

I really do not see why anyone should need to spend two hours in Iceland, but, if they are spending money, and presumably Iceland are happy, I do not see why they should not. My local Iceland, with sole use of the car park, has a limit of 90 minutes.

I wish you well with that appeal, and think that they should wave their charges. If they do not, I hope you make them pay for their greed.

JazzJPH

Redx wrote: »

if you have a popla code, appeal it to popla within say 25 days of the code being issued, check the newbies thread for the code checker that gives the expiry date, then check the popla appeals examples and tailor one for your own popla appeal

remember, you have only 28 days to submit it to popla, which can be done online by attaching it when you appeal

they will hear the appeal between 5 and 8 weeks later

assuming you win at popla, you pay nothing at all

Thanks Redx, I appreciate the rapid response too. I'll have a look at the appeals templates and make our appeal.

Do I have to put the same story to POPLA as I did to Excel?

Can I still appeal on the grounds of "no genuine pre-estimate of loss"?

The templates may answer my questions so I'll head straight there.

Redx

JazzJPH wrote: »

Thanks Redx, I appreciate the rapid response too. I'll have a look at the appeals templates and make our appeal.

Do I have to put the same story to POPLA as I did to Excel?

Can I still appeal on the grounds of "no genuine pre-estimate of loss"?

The templates may answer my questions so I'll head straight there.

there are no popla templates, there are only examples, you must tailor your own popla appeal, I did tell you to read that sticky thread and the popla examples before posting again

I already said popla do not consider mitigation and it says so on their website, so none of what you wrote in your PPC appeal is relevant and they will ignore it completely

if you really wanted to use the appeal in post #1 , you should aim it at iceland or the landowner if its not iceland, but you seem to have ignored that advice too

so which part of this IN RED in post #1 of the newbies sticky thread did you not understand ?

If you want to have a rant, if you are angry about the so-called 'PCN' and intend to complain to the retailer/landowner/Hospital/hotel or whatever is on site, DO COMPLAIN in writing!! Many, many of these PCNs are cancelled when retailers & landowners receive an assertive complaint.


Do not phone a PPC. Do not phone the retailer/landowner.

Write a complaint in your own complaint-writing style. See separate post #6 below and we have another sticky thread re 'Successful Complaints'!

yes you appeal on "not a gpeol"

yes you appeal on "no contract"

yes you appeal on "poor signage"

plus anything else that is relevant

the sticky thread answers all questions, so if you have a question its usually because you havent read or digested the NEWBIES sticky thread

good luck

Coupon-mad

EDITED - now irrelevant as Excel do not offer POPLA in 2017.

SEE MY SIGNATURE!!

JazzJPH

Coupon-mad wrote: »

You know to do the POPLA appeal in your wife's name, NOT YOURS, I hope? You are a third party of course. POPLA can only consider an appeal from the driver or keeper of the car and you have already told Excel she is both.

She will win if you use a decent version about no GPEOL, amended to suit, from post #3 of the NEWBIES thread 'How to win at POPLA'. She can put anything in a POPLA appeal, completely different from the weak first appeal you had no hope of winning with (sorry but Excel would have rubbed their hands with glee at reading it).

Yes, the appeal to POPLA will be from my wife. I've followed that newbie thread and followed a link to a letter you (Coupon-Mad) have checked at this link here - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/64393064#Comment_64393064

If I have not requested certain pieces of information do I take them out of the letter? Or should I request certain information? One example would be requesting Excel to provide a copy of the contract with the landowner.

JazzJPH

I also forgot to mention, Coupon-Mad, that I don't expect you to be sorry for the comment about my appeal to Excel. I know now that it was hilariously poor.

I do hope it'll be an example for other newbies of what not to do.

JazzJPH

Just to show how quickly someone will go past the "contractual" sign if there is someone driving behind them trying to gain access to the car park:



I think it's deliberately placed here because they know nobody will stop. If 3 cars are in a line and someone stops to read this it gets really congested. The road before the car park is really narrow.

Anyway. This is from Google street view, it's not my photo, it 100% belongs to them.

Should this be supporting evidence? Hold on a few more minutes and I'll post my draft letter.

I appreciate it to whoever checks my letter. I'll highlight in red the points I have changed from the link I referenced earlier.