Excel Claim from 2017 going to court

QuincyCockers

Snakes_Belly said:

BEWARE !!!!!! TURPIN'S CAR PARK

The hotel was ok but BE WARNED the car park is operated by Excel and if you are getting dropped of and go one minute over the 10 you will get a £100 invoice disguised as a parking ticket from Excel. If you then contact premier inn you will see the real face of the company. They are not interested and will just keep repeating its out of our hands as we sold the car park to Excel. I would think that selling the car park to a company with such a poor reputation as Excel tells you more about premier inn than anything. After many years of staying in Premier Inns all over the UK this will be my last time. No real apology, no offer to mitigate just a complete WE DONT CARE AND ARE NOT INTERESTED ATTITUDE.

Read less

There are a number of comments about this car park. Premier may have leased this car park to Excel.

Premier Inn have certainly been going downhill with their customer service for some time including their care factor over their car parks. I’ve had to rectify issues with parking a few times now. The car park in this case isn’t a Premier Inn. I’ve found out it belongs to an individual who I will send a short email to today  regarding Excel’s aggressive pursuit of a penalty over a paid ticket.

I’ll weave your other points into my WS. Particular the signage colour. Thank you.

Fruitcake

... and another thing. The IPC have a scheme called Get Your Reg Right, and as part of that they have been banging on about Typo Proof systems to prevent motorists from entering the wrong VRM.

Have a look at this tweet from the IPC.

The International Parking Community (IPC) on Twitter: "@_TheIPC's mantra is that no motorist should be marginalised - or humiliated! (See news article below) @_TheIPC's award nominated "Get Your Reg Right" campaign urges the manufacture of #typoproof #parking payment systems as a moral duty. #mondaythoughts https://t.co/izGqyc1wO0 https://t.co/ztH9lbYpX2" / Twitter

The International Parking Community (IPC)

@_TheIPC's mantra is that no motorist should be marginalised - or humiliated! (See news article below)

@_TheIPC's award nominated "Get Your Reg Right" campaign urges the manufacture of #typoproof #parking payment systems as a moral duty.

Note the key words, "humiliated" and "moral duty".

I suggest you include the proof that you entered an old VRM linked to the claimant's own proof that you entered it, then state that being penalised for entering an incorrect VRM goes against the IPC's own mantra as stated in that tweet.

The technology to prevent the VRM of a vehicle that was not in the car park at the time to from being entered has been around for years. The only reason for not implementing it is to ensure motorists fail in order that the claimant can make money from motorist's genuine mistakes.

Coupon-mad

It worries me that Excel appear to have sent a full bundle including your defence.  A bundle like that should include your WS and evidence too, because it's meant to be an agreed bundle, to assist the Judge.

You aren't late with your WS and evidence are you?  When's the hearing and what did the Notice of Allocation say about parties filing and serving evidence by xx days before?

This needs to go into your WS:

The log shows I paid £3.30 which was more than needed for the two hours I was there. It shows I paid for 4 hours in total. The VRM is identifiable and is my old vehicle plate I entered  in error.

...plus reminding the Judge that Excel's evidence shows the very numberplate that you told them to look for, at IAS appeal stage.

Under the IPC rules (exhibit X - published in the 'Get Your Reg Right' campaign) this event was an identified and known 'major keying error' and the payment made was known - in writing at IAS appeal stage - to relate to your car and more than covered the stay.

Have this as well, in your WS:

Effectively, the operator is trying to unreasonably punish the driver for a human error that the new statutory Code of Practice from the Government (published 7/2/22) says must result in full cancellation, because fair operators have systems that would not accept a VRM of a car not in the car park.  Secondly, the Government's published contraventions do not include 'paying a bit late before leaving an ANPR car park' because that would be an unfair term, leaving drivers in the impossible position at the barrier, of being exposed to £100 PCN whether they pay the tariff rate or not.  This consumer-unfriendly 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' term was not included in the allowed breaches because a driver must be allowed to pay for their stay whilst in the car park, otherwise they are treated the same as a bilker (non-payer) which cannot be right.

There is no Beavis-style 'legitimate interest' here and the Supreme Court held that a charge's purpose cannot be to simply 'punish a defaulter'.  There must be a legitimate interest; something compelling to justify charging a high sum, over and above any possible damages.

Here there is no commercial justification and the Claimant knows it has the payment for that car snd should have cancelled or offered a £20 settlement at appeal, as BPA AOS members do under their Code of Practice section on keying errors.  It's an unfair term under the CRA 2015 (see Schedule 2 examples) to apply a disproportionate penalty for minor default of a term.

QuincyCockers

Fruitcake said:

... and another thing. The IPC have a scheme called Get Your Reg Right, and as part of that they have been banging on about Typo Proof systems to prevent motorists from entering the wrong VRM.

Have a look at this tweet from the IPC.

The International Parking Community (IPC) on Twitter: "@_TheIPC's mantra is that no motorist should be marginalised - or humiliated! (See news article below) @_TheIPC's award nominated "Get Your Reg Right" campaign urges the manufacture of #typoproof #parking payment systems as a moral duty. #mondaythoughts https://t.co/izGqyc1wO0 https://t.co/ztH9lbYpX2" / Twitter

The International Parking Community (IPC)

@_TheIPC's mantra is that no motorist should be marginalised - or humiliated! (See news article below)

@_TheIPC's award nominated "Get Your Reg Right" campaign urges the manufacture of #typoproof #parking payment systems as a moral duty.

Note the key words, "humiliated" and "moral duty".

I suggest you include the proof that you entered an old VRM linked to the claimant's own proof that you entered it, then state that being penalised for entering an incorrect VRM goes against the IPC's own mantra as stated in that tweet.

The technology to prevent the VRM of a vehicle that was not in the car park at the time has been around for years. The only reason for not implementing it is to ensure motorists fail in order that the claimant can make money from motorist's genuine mistakes.

Excellent inclusion.

Ironically as a lorry driver sleeping over in a service station recently, my employer received notification that I hadn’t paid to stay when I had. I had lost the ticket but had proof of payment from my bank details. At the time the company were saying they checked the system but no payment was made. When hit with the proof they did “another” and found that the entry (by a cashier) included an “0” instead of an “O” and so they waived the charge.

It demonstrates that these minor mistakes must happen all the time and are being penalised. Secondly on the upside it does show that certain PPCs can use discretion.

Thanks for this information. I will include it.

QuincyCockers

Coupon-mad said:

It worries me that Excel appear to have sent a full bundle including your defence.  A bundle like that should include your WS and evidence too, because it's meant to be an agreed bundle, to assist the Judge.

You aren't late with your WS and evidence are you?  When's the hearing and what did the Notice of Allocation say about parties filing and serving evidence by xx days before?

This needs to go into your WS:

The log shows I paid £3.30 which was more than needed for the two hours I was there. It shows I paid for 4 hours in total. The VRM is identifiable and is my old vehicle plate I entered  in error.

...plus reminding the Judge that Excel's evidence shows the very numberplate that you told them to look for, at IAS appeal stage.

Under the IPC rules (exhibit X - published in the 'Get Your Reg Right' campaign) this event was an identified and known 'major keying error' and the payment made was known - in writing at IAS appeal stage - to relate to your car and more than covered the stay.

Have this as well, in your WS:

Effectively, the operator is trying to unreasonably punish the driver for a human error that the new statutory Code of Practice from the Government (published 7/2/22) says must result in full cancellation, because fair operators have systems that would not accept a VRM of a car not in the car park.  Secondly, the Government's published contraventions do not include 'paying a bit late before leaving an ANPR car park' because that would be an unfair term, leaving drivers in the impossible position at the barrier, of being exposed to £100 PCN whether they pay the tariff rate or not.  This consumer-unfriendly 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' term was not included in the allowed breaches because a driver must be allowed to pay for their stay whilst in the car park, otherwise they are treated the same as a bilker (non-payer) which cannot be right.

There is no Beavis-style 'legitimate interest' here and the Supreme Court held that a charge's purpose cannot be to simply 'punish a defaulter'.  There must be a legitimate interest; something compelling to justify charging a high sum, over and above any possible damages.

Here there is no commercial justification and the Claimant knows it has the payment for that car snd should have cancelled or offered a £20 settlement at appeal, as BPA AOS members do under their Code of Practice section on keying errors.  It's an unfair term under the CRA 2015 (see Schedule 2 examples) to apply a disproportionate penalty for minor default of a term.

I’ll upload it to Dropbox and send link shortly. I’m reading it now. Court case is 25th April. It will be telephone hearing. 

In short it says under Bundles;

any court bundle should be filed with the court 5 days prior to your hearing. Witness bundles … on the hearing day.

7) Each party must deliver to the other party and to the court office copies of all documents on which that party intends to rely at the hearing no later than fourteen days before the hearing.

I plan to send it all electronically. And I’ll ring the court tomorrow too to ensure I’ve done everything I’m supposed to.

Thanks too for the additional adages. 

Do I need to add the Beavis transcript and any other court cases? I have the Bradford case in my WS as extracted from jrhys. I need to add all the new changes too and will work on that today. 

Fruitcake

There's more, if you have time.

Will Hurley, the head of the IPC stated publicly at a Government oral hearing that the IPC's goal is 100% compliance by motorists. In my opinion it's 100% complete borax because that would put PPCs out of business, but he said it to the government, so it must be true.
He is also head of the IAS, so he, and the IPC are aware that many sites have a recurring problem with motorists entering an incorrect VRM. In order to achieve 100% compliance by motorists, the IPC needs to ensure 100% compliance by their members with regards to Get Your Reg Right in order to comply with their mantra as stated in that tweet above.

I suggest you aver that the IPC has failed in its stated duty to ensure motorists are not marginalised or humiliated, and so has the claimant.

QuincyCockers

Fruitcake said:

There's more, if you have time.

Will Hurley, the head of the IPC stated publicly at a Government oral hearing that the IPC's goal is 100% compliance by motorists. In my opinion it's 100% complete borax because that would put PPCs out of business, but he said it to the government, so it must be true.
He is also head of the IAS, so he, and the IPC are aware that many sites have a recurring problem with motorists entering an incorrect VRM. In order to achieve 100% compliance by motorists, the IPC needs to ensure 100% compliance by their members with regards to Get Your Reg Right in order to comply with their mantra as stated in that tweet above.

I suggest you aver that the IPC has failed in its stated duty to ensure motorists are not marginalised or humiliated, and so has the claimant.

Will add this too. I’ll be working on this throughout today. I plan to post tonight to court and claimant. I think that makes it a day early but not taking any chances and will call the court tomorrow.

I note the Claimant has got the name of the court wrong on their Witness Statement too.

I’ll point that out to the judge on the 25th. It’s confusing.

Many thanks

Fruitcake

Don't email it until tomorrow between 9 and 4. We have seen cases where it didn't get to the court for some reason outside normal working hours.
Remember to send it to the claimant as well as the court.

QuincyCockers

Fruitcake said:

Don't email it until tomorrow between 9 and 4. We have seen cases where it didn't get to the court for some reason outside normal working hours.
Remember to send it to the claimant as well as the court.

Ok thanks for that.

QuincyCockers

Here is the Notice of Allocation to the Small Track(Hearing) and the Notice of Transfer of Proceedings

https://www.dropbox.com/s/33qxq2ox0qulb94/Photos of NoAttST(Hearing).pdf?dl=0