Excel Parking Fine - Warren Street Stockport

Lopside

Hi,

I am very annoyed at these people. I park at this car park daily and always pay and have history to show this - it is £3.70 per 12 hours. However, on 24-Sep-21 I forgot to pay. They sent a fine through but by the time I had received it I was not eligible for the £60 fine and was told I had to pay £100. I appealed explaining that I was a regular and it was a mistake, I had recently lost my dad and wasn't really with it to be honest and it was a simple and understandable mistake - obviously they don't care. They rejected the appeal and said if I didn't pay in 14 days it would increase to £170. I didn't pay and it is now at £170.

They have now sent a LETTER BEFORE CLAIM for which they are demanding £170 be paid by 09-Feb-22. I really feel like they are trying it on and I cannot see this as justifiable behaviour - it's not like I am trying to evade paying the original ticket - mistakes happen don't they!?

Please advice on what I can do about this.

Thanks in advance

Coupon-mad

Well, never mind annoyed, you should never be parking in an Excel car park.  This is not a company to ever park with, not even if the site is convenient.

Absolutely avoid them like the plague!

Excel are (by all accounts for well over a decade) unreasonable, greedy and aggressive ex-clampers, always looking to fine people and they don't give a toss if you are a regular or your mitigating circumstances.  In our very long experience, firms like this rinse and laugh at the public.

Stop parking with them.  Even if you have to walk further, park on street or look for a non-private, Council car park and you will be far more fairly treated.

Yes they will sue you.  I don't see any defence, except to remove the false added £70 but then if you lose in court you'd pay £200 anyway.

However, NO-ONE here would tell you to pay the likes of Excel £170, it is just extortionate. 

This is why parking charges should be lower and the false added 'costs' should be banned, because you are now stuck between a rock and a hard place.  We say don't pay, but we don't necessarily see you winning in court unless they muck up the evidence.

Please tell us you will boycott their car park now, forever, and leave a bad review on Parkopedia, etc.

Snakes_Belly

Even if you had offered the parking tariff immediately after the event the charge would have already been initiated. It is a pity that car parks don't operate like the Dart tunnel or merseyflow whereby you have a certain time to make payment. 

They rejected the appeal and said if I didn't pay in 14 days it would increase to £170. I didn't pay and it is now at £170.

Did they really increase the claim by £70.00 if you did not pay in 14 days after the appeal? If so what reason did they give and what had they done in 14 days that warranted a £70.00 increase?

I made the mistake of thinking that they were reasonable people and I will now never park in an Excel or VCS car park. I would pay more first or walk further. They have recently taken over a couple of car parks in a small city near to where I live and a petition has been started to have them removed.

I would write to your MP.   

Redx

My relative received a PCN from Excel about 8 or 9 years ago , Ashton Retail Park , they didn't even follow the landowner authority so lost at POPLA , we have avoided their car parks ever since !! Including the Peel centre which was notorious for PCNs

Both car parks are now using different parking companies , ECP and Care parking

Excel tend to lose contracts dye to their aggressive intransigent attitude , because the retailers suffer

D_P_Dance

It is not a fine, pleease read the newbies.

...  I didn't pay and it is now at £170

They have added what appears to be an extra unlawful amount of £70 for debt collection.

This amounts to double recovery and Judges all over the country are dismissing these spurious additions. Indeed some judges have dismissed entire claims because of this. Read this and complain to Trading Standards and your MP,

Excel v Wilkinson

At the Bradford County Court, District Judge Claire Jackson (now HHJ Jackson, a Specialist Civil Circuit Judge) decided to hear a 'test case' a few months ago, where £60 had been added to a parking charge despite Judges up and down the country repeatedly disallowing that sum and warning parking firms not to waste court time with such spurious claims.   That case was Excel v Wilkinson: G4QZ465V, heard in July 2020 and leave to appeal was refused and that route was not pursued.  The Judge concluded that such claims are proceedings with 'an improper collateral purpose'.   This Judge - and others who have since copied her words and struck dozens of cases out in late 2020 and into 2021 - went into significant detail and concluded that parking operators (such as this Claimant) are seeking to circumvent CPR 27.14 as well as breaching the Consumer Rights Act 2015.   DJ Hickinbottom has recently struck more cases out in that court area, stating: ''I find that striking out this claim is the only appropriate manner in which the disapproval of the court can be shown''.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/16qovzulab1szem/G4QZ465V Excel v Wilkinson.pdf?dl=0

However, VCS appealed this so it may not apply in all cases, read this

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ntksx9g7177ahyg/VCS v Percy v1 Amendments (2).pdf?dl=0Also read this

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6279348/witness-statements-2-transcripts-re-parking-firms-false-costs-recorder-cohen-qc-judgment-2021/p1

Also consider complaining to The SRA about the solicitor, if one is involved They are fully aware of the unlawful nature of most of thse additions yet persist in adding them..

https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/