Claim Form received - VCS - WON - For the second time!

beamerguy

Fruitcake said:

Quote from the Excel website whinge.

"We are especially disappointed that the Ministry has rejected the widespread public support (80%) for a three-tiered parking charge system in favour of the local authority model."

What they failed to mention was of the 3000 or so responses to the consultation, only 1/3 were considered to be genuine. The rest were from the scammers who, on mass, each copied and pasted hundreds of identical responses. 
Luckily the powers that be spotted this and disregarded the obvious ringers.

Meaning the one who did a "round robin" letter " in an attempt to change the new CoP... WASTED THEIR FEEBLE TIME

Snakes_Belly

beamerguy said:

Fruitcake said:

Quote from the Excel website whinge.

"We are especially disappointed that the Ministry has rejected the widespread public support (80%) for a three-tiered parking charge system in favour of the local authority model."

What they failed to mention was of the 3000 or so responses to the consultation, only 1/3 were considered to be genuine. The rest were from the scammers who, on mass, each copied and pasted hundreds of identical responses. 
Luckily the powers that be spotted this and disregarded the obvious ringers.

Meaning the one who did a "round robin" letter " in an attempt to change the new CoP... WASTED THEIR FEEBLE TIME

They seem to forget that it was all the letters from motorists complaining about the aggressive behaviour of companies like Excel, VCS and their ilk that bought about the PMB in the first place. Their greed will be their downfall. 

I cannot see many supermarkets introducing a parking tariff or increasing an existing one. They will want to encourage shoppers back from online shopping as this is an expensive platform to deliver.  

Snakes_Belly

VCS and Excel have been rude to MP's, judges, employees, and the general public. They must have also upset some of their clients as they have lost business. 

 In his pursuit of wealth SRS would do well to remember the adage  "Be nice to people on your way up because you might meet them again on your way back down."

As I have mentioned before I have nothing against people who create wealth. It's the way that some go about it that I abhor.   

Snakes_Belly

Where I think that the business model of a PPC falls down is that it should benefit all stakeholders. That includes the owner/investors, the clients/landowners, employees and the end users/motorists. 

In the case of the PPC's the profit comes from spurious claims sometimes where the end user is set up to fail. There is no benefit for the end user in the business model. In fact it is the reverse. 

There is usually a large turnover of staff which is possibly why their paperwork and admin is in a mess often blaming the defendant.  

I hope that some of the clients start to wake up and see that this is wrong and start to manage their own car parks.   

lyndonp59

Well the re-hearing was this morning at 10am. Quite annoying as it was scheduled for 3pm but my son received an email yesterday morning saying it would be at 10am instead, little warning. (Bit like the re-hearing, initially for the first hearing  -and usualy only one- you give dates for the next 6 months you can't make. On the set aside order for the re-hearing it just stipulated the date the Final Hearing was to be no way to change if you were on holiday!

Anyway, we won again for the second time, 20 minutes grace period is more than an 19 minutes overstay, once more!

It was the same District Judge Heppell. The solicitor for ELMS was a James Gould.

This time it was MS-Teams video call not a telephone one like last time.

DJ Heppell wouldn't listen to the fact that VCS submitted their WS late. Said we had had it in good time.

JG gave his spiel, and one point I really couldn't understand, something about grace periods and the contract is for 2 hours and you are in breach of contract as soon as you go over it. He brought up their land owner doc which had grace period of 10 minutes minimum which I had seen before in their WS but the document dates to 2010. He also reled off all the usual legal cases etc.

My main point was the grace periods of entry and exit. I showed the relevant IPC CoP for entry and exit grace periods and the entrance signage telling drivers to read the full T&Cs in the car park, plus after 10 minutes you agree to the T&Cs, and the T&Cs are for 2 hours so the 10 minutes must be the entry grace period. I also made a point about the landowner doc being 2010 and this case is for 2015 and is 5 years old by 2015, and not relevant as the IPC CoP changes all the time, afterall VCS were in the BPA prior to IPC.

I also rasied the fact it doesn't say time commences on entry, yet that is now specficed on the new entrance board signs so clearly wasn't in effect in 2015.

At this point JG pipes up he hasn't got our WS and Supplementary WS. I thought he was talking to me and jumped down his throat a bit too quickly and he calmly told me he was speaking to the judge! Fortunately I had prepared for this by sending one email to both the court and the litigation@ email address, plus put all the emails and receipts into the S-WS. I didn't need to say anything DJ Heppell actually said he could see that the WS and S-WS had been sent to them at the litigation@!

Anyway in his summing up DJ H said

• He accepted the car park was busy and therefore a spot to park couldn't be found for a while (I had shownthe IPC CoP specifically for entry grace periods  says to PARK and read the T&Cs - not sure if that was win or not
  
• landowner contract was live with VCS
• Nothing wrong with the signage - little disappointed with that
• He wouldn't have allowed the additional £60, only £100, he said Sheffield courts don't strike out cases like others in the country.
• contract was formed on entering the car park
• something about the signage and the the time commecing on entry in later signage - not sure if that was a win or not
  
• no breach of contract, grace periods for entry and exit are 10+10=20 more than 19 - win
  

I asked for costs again but he wouldn't award the attendance allowance like last time of £95 so zilch. Seems unreasonable to me. He said in small claims cost are borne by each party. JG gave a spiel about it too. I will remember that if it goes to appeal and they win! see below.

The downer is that JG asked to appeal. DJ H said there had to be a valid reason to appeal and asked him what it was. JG said he didn't have one at the moment! I could see DJ H was a little annoyed by that and told him that he was satified with the 20 minute grace periods for entry and exit and the fact the WS ans S-WS were sent to them and there was no vaild reason for an appeal. He then told JG if he wishes to appeal it would have to be a higher court/judge or something(?) and they have 21 days to do so.

So still not over. Will they have to pay for an appeal?

Le_Kirk

Well done (I think).  Appeals do cost money but they cannot appeal the judgment unless the judge erred in law but they can appeal the process.  If they are going to appeal the process, they need to be careful as they lied about not receiving your WS and also failed to send their own WS in time - even though the judge poo-pooed that, once again, more latitude for the claimant than for the defendant!

Fruitcake

Well done, again!

Yes, the scammers will have to pay in order to appeal, and have a limited amount of time to do so. I can't remember what it is but I'm sure someone will be along with that information.

There have to be specific reasons for an appeal, such as the judge erred in law. They can't just appeal because they didn't like the result.

Many scammers say they will appeal, but I don't think that many do. They pick and chose the cases and victims they think are the weakest, such as the Semark-Julian case but not the other cases that were heard at the same time.

lyndonp59

Fruitcake said:

Well done, again!

Yes, the scammers will have to pay in order to appeal, and have a limited amount of time to do so. I can't remember what it is but I'm sure someone will be along with that information.

Thanks
At the beginning the judge said they could appeal to him if there was an error but not just because they didn't like his verdict. Because he didn't agree with their reason to appeal (or maybe because their rep couldn't think of what to appeal against more like!) he said there only recourse was to appeal to a higher body/court or something and they had 21 days in which to do so. No idea what the higher body is?

Snakes_Belly

Well done on your win.

In my case the judge did give Excel the right to appeal. They did not appeal.      

lyndonp59

Snakes_Belly said:

Well done on your win.

In my case the judge did give Excel the right to appeal. They did not appeal.      

Thanks. Out of pure interest only, on what grounds did they propose to appeal?