Excel parking - PCN for parking without payment (incorrect VRN)

shnk

Hi everyone,

1st post from a Newbie who was following some threads so far but decided he needs help. But first of all I wanted to say thanks to everyone who contributes here with knowledge, experience or general advice. You put a lot of minds at ease (including mine) with your free, after hours help.

Now back to business, I am afraid. I received a "PCN" from Excel (I know... I will send reviews online later) for an unpaid parking ticket. The bullet points are:

The Incident:

- parking was paid for, the time was correct and there was no late purchase or extended stay, 

- incorrect VRN entered - mixture of 2 VRN's from old and new car (exchanged ~2 months prior)

- there was no way to correct this - to my understanding, once you hit "enter" on the machine where incorrect VRN was used, you should expect PCN. Nice, thanks Excel! 

The Fallout:

- I did receive letters from Excel them, but they did look like scam and abuse, which makes me think it's the usual drill. I've seen payment for parking confirmed on the bank statement, so there was no communication from myself, (I am the registered keeper).

- I got involved when received a letter from Elms claiming they plan to take legal steps - nothing out of the ordinary, I was familiar with this forum by that point so roughly knew what to do

- I asked Elms to put the issue on hold whilst I seek legal advice, but I deny any debt etc. - it was granted (I will omit the fact that they made a typo in date of postponement - human errors do happen, right? )

- I also requested SAR from Excel including PDT data about transactions and redacted VRNs (got that after 27 days of 30 they had [i think] and it landed in SPAM so anyone who seeks help here and reads this - please be mindful of that)

- I plan to go all the way here, I feel I have a strong case and someone (Coupon-Mad?) mentioned Manchester judges are doing a good job knocking most of these cases out of the window so that is even more encouraging

Next steps:

- I received the Claim Form (Issued 28/02/2022) which I acknowledged as per your advice here within 14+5 days and denied any claim so got extra 14 days to submit my Defence - so not much time left, but I hope not much work left to be done at this stage

- To be certain I requested SAR 2nd time asking for confirmation of all payments made by one of the cards associated with my bank account on that day

- After <24 hrs (!) I received response with XLS file and one row showing the payment made by one of the cards mentioned on the date time in question and showing full VRN entered in the terminal

Questions:

I noticed that Coupon-Mad updated the generic Defence template in March 2022 (how luck am I dragging my feet with this! ) so here are my questions:

1) I wanted to copy-paste that template, and simply amend the 2-3 point to describe briefly what happened (below) and keep the rest intact - can you have a look and confirm my input in this Defence is OK? (I will obviously attach all cases mentioned) Should I elaborate more on some points?

2) I plan to expand on everything in WS (will be back here when it comes to this) but was wondering - has any of you here has any concerns I received an XLS file (which is an editable file) confirming that the payment was made but incorrect VRN used? I feel this should pass but started to spiral a bit: should I bulletproof my WS here with some file-checksum verification to prove what's attached to the WS is what I got from them and was not to mess around with?  No? Too much?

3) I think I read somewhere that around 2019/2020 there was a law change putting all "offences" stemming from incorrect VRN into one bag and these should be treated differently as there was good intention to pay, just a human error - can someone confirm? If true, could I include that in my Defence? I don't think it was covered in the template but I might be wrong.

Defence (partial, just my input on top of the template):

---

1. The Defendant denies that the Claimant is entitled to relief in the sum claimed, or at all. It is denied that any conduct by the driver gave rise to a ‘parking charge’ and it is denied that this Claimant (understood to have a bare licence as managers) has standing to sue or to form contracts in their own name at the location.

The facts as known to the Defendant:

2. It is admitted that the Defendant was the registered keeper of the vehicle in question but liability is denied. 

3. The Defendant admits that the car was parked on the date, time and place in question, but has proof of the Driver purchasing a parking ticket for the duration of two hours within the allowed ten minutes grace period since entering the car park on the date in question. The VRN entered was partially correct due to simple human error. The car with VRN XXXX XXX was purchased in June 2021 and due to local COVID-19 pandemic situation at that time, the car was rarely in use. The previous car, of which the Defendant was also registered keeper, was used for 3.5 years, and had VRN YYYY YYY. On the day of the incident the VRN entered on the PDT was a combination of both cars: XYXY XYX with no means on site to amend the error.

--- 

The rest will be straight from the template. Is that sufficient? Also, I am not a native eng. speaker, so hopefully you can take that into consideration during the constructive critique phase (I did try to remember about Defence vs Defense though!)

Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks!

shnk

P.S.
Ooof, just noticed how long this post is... apologies for the TMTR.

Le_Kirk

Yep, that should do and you can expand, back up and support with your WS and evidence.  Just be clear whether you are defending as KEEPER but NOT DRIVER or KEEPER AND DRIVER.  A useful point you make that there was no means to correct the VRM error at the PDT, which might be useful in your WS.

KeithP

shnk said:

- I received the Claim Form (Issued 28/02/2022) which I acknowledged as per your advice here within 14+5 days and denied any claim so got extra 14 days to submit my Defence - so not much time left, but I hope not much work left to be done at this stage.

With a Claim Issue Date of 28th February, and having filed an Acknowledgment of Service in a timely manner, you have until 4pm on Monday 4th April 2022 to file your Defence.

As you say, not much time left, but plenty of time to produce a Defence.

To create a Defence, and then file a Defence by email, look at the second post in the NEWBIES thread.

Don't miss the deadline for filing a Defence.

Do not try and file a Defence via the MoneyClaimOnline website. Once an Acknowledgment of Service has been filed, the MCOL website should be treated as 'read only'.

shnk

@Le_Kirk thank you for your feedback, I'll make sure statement about defending as Keeper but not the Driver is on my Defence.

@KeithP thank you as well, I filed AOS on 13/03 so all should be good. I will aim to submit it today/tomorrow to the CCBCAQ email address leaving 4th APR as emergency last resort date.

Quick question on the email with the Defence attached - is it mandatory to make the print-sign-scan routine or can I simply save  the doc as PDF and add my actual signature via and PDF reader that offer the "sign" option? I don't feel it should be that much of a difference but wanted to make sure so I won't end up behind the schedule. 

Thanks again everyone!
shnk

shnk

Hi all,
back here for some advice. I sent my DQ (20th APR, 1 day before the deadline on the letter I got) to the same email address as my defence was sent to, doublechecked all the reference numbers I used, got the automated acknowledgement, but nothing appeared on the MCOL website. I can see that the last transactions are:

Your defence was received on 04/04/2022

DQ sent to you on 04/04/2022

DQ filed by claimant on 12/05/2022

Is that normal? Haven't received any communication since then. I know that in some threads, the usual advice was "it doesn't show up there immediately" but I was wondering if there's a any period after which this should be concerning OR if any new events are logged but my DQ is not filed, then I should chase this up?

I will give them a ring later today, but was wondering about what the forumites think or seen so far? So close to the finish line, don't want things go sideways.

Thanks!

-shnk

KeithP

That is nothing to worry about.

Not filing a DQ on time is one area where the courts are particularly lenient.

If the CCBC doesn't receive a DQ in time, or loses it or misfiles it, it will send a reminder giving a further seven days to file one.
This is spelt out in the CPRs somewhere.

Coupon-mad

Hang on, it doesn't say DQ filed by Defendant.  They lost your email so forward it again!

shnk

Hello all, quick update:
- they did lose my email with DQ, but I re-sent it, and it showed up on the MCOL website
- the case was transferred to Stockport County Court mid-May
- I received notice of allocation ~20th June with a deadline to submit defence on 19th JUL and court date 19th SEPT - 13 months after alleged infraction
- I received another settlement offer from Excel for ~190.00 GBP early July and...
- ... I just received a letter from Excel about discontinuance and copy of their Notice of Discontinuance sent to the court!

So it looks like another one bites the dust! All it took was *only* double-digit amount of hours of compulsive googling, going through this forum, working on paperwork and stressing out about all the what-ifs. But hey, they had to put a lot of work as well, after all this PCN was created of an automated parking camera shot, fuelled by a template letters, off the rack emails and automated notifications. So yeah, I guess we're even.

Still, a win is a win, so I'll take the W happily:) Thanks to everyone who chipped in on this thread so many others threads that helped me build my case. Keep up the good work! I will try to chip in as well to give a little back.

And to anyone who ends up here looking for some info or reassurance: if you feel you have a chance with your PCN, and the facts and/or logic is on your side, don't give up - you can make it. You can outlast them and in worst case scenario get this to court for the judges to stick it to them.

-shnk

Fruitcake

Excellent news, well done, and excellent work, which also deserves praise.

You did your research, used the information from the sticky Announcements, and only asked the minimum of perfectly sensible questions along the way. You have made the job of the regulars on this forum much easier by your actions, and ended up with a most excellent result.

Please help us further by coming back to the forum on a weekly basis as we are expecting the next public consultation about parking charges to be released sometime in the next few months. We need everyone who can to respond to this consultation, so please keep and eye out, and tell family and friends as well.

Castle

shnk said:

Hello all, quick update:
- they did lose my email with DQ, but I re-sent it, and it showed up on the MCOL website
- the case was transferred to Stockport County Court mid-May
- I received notice of allocation ~20th June with a deadline to submit defence on 19th JUL and court date 19th SEPT - 13 months after alleged infraction
- I received another settlement offer from Excel for ~190.00 GBP early July and...
- ... I just received a letter from Excel about discontinuance and copy of their Notice of Discontinuance sent to the court!

I'm assuming you mean Witness Statement.

Snakes_Belly

Well done on seeing this off