VCS private car park ticket 24/03/25 (operator out of contract)

kryten3000

IAS appeal window changed to 28 days to be consistent with the Single CoP.

Coupon-mad

QuizzicalMarmot said:

Some other salient info here - it's a private office car park.  We rent office space in the building served by the car park.  Our landlord for the office is the landowner for both the building and the car park.  We're on good terms with her and have had ongoing permission to park there for the best part of a decade.

Excel also had a raid on the car park last year resulting in lots of tickets getting issued to staff and then cancelled, it doesn't seem immediately relevant here but I can dredge up the details if needed.

...the first "ticket" was a privacy notice printed on paper with a blue trim, and the 20/02/25 date (but no other identifying data, nor a ticket code that could be acted on).  It looked exactly like the first pic in this thread: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6216394/myparkingcharge-ticket-your-help-please.  It wasn't in a ticket, it was just loose (and soaked through, as it was raining all day).

On the back it had tickboxes for VCS and Excel, and had the VCS box ticket.

The NTK arrived through the post to my home address, identifying my car and linking me to the Excel parking page.

Coupon-mad said:

Please show us both of those, including the envelope thingy the 'ticket' was in. Does it mimic a NTD?

Hi, finally got chance to sort this out.  Frustratingly I appear to misplaced the original Privacy Notice, but they were kind enough to provide photographic evidence on their own site, which I've downloaded for safe-keeping.  I've attached a cropped version showing that it is indeed as described, tucked into my windscreen without any envelope:

Also attached is the NTK (identifying details redacted):

Finally, a couple of other minor updates.  The landowner got back to me and confirmed that they'd had legal tussles trying to get the contract terminated, but were awaiting formal confirmation of it in writing soon, which could change things.  This might explain why they felt entitled to issue notices after the termination date, and in any case I don't know the exact details of the notice period yet (have asked).

I also noticed that my car park has multiple sets of signage, and the one directly alongside the bay is very badly faded indeed to the point of illegibility.  It also references parking for a company that has long-since moved out:

There is clearer signage in the same car park, but as this is literally adjacent to the bay I'm in, might constitute another avenue of defence.

I currently have until the 17th to submit an appeal to the IAS, so my current plan is to sit tight for a few weeks and hope the landowner can conclusively quash it all in that time, or at least give me more ammo as they negotiate with the parking services - and then possibly submit a low-expectations appeal to the IAS if not.  Many thanks to everyone who's posted here, I really appreciate it.

Thanks.

So VCS / Excel are still putting random pieces of paper on windscreens which just misleads drivers and gives them no right to appeal.

And that sign is appallingly bad. Good evidence for you as that was nearest to the car.

And they were 'sacked' in January for rogue ticketing of staff/patrons but have allegedly engineered a legal wrangle to carry on scamming for a few weeks longer?

There's no 'legitimate interest' to support this PCN then. No sign of the commercial justification that saved the PCN in ParkingEye v Beavis from being struck out as a penalty.

Classy, Excel.

Not a good year for Simon Renshaw-Smith so far...!

QuizzicalMarmot

That about sums it up.  I'm not privvy to all the precise details between landowner and Excel (or is it VCS, or are they effectively entirely one and the same?  This particular ticket is being presented as VCS), but there's no love lost there.  I think the current points in my defense are currently:

• I have and have always had permission to park in the car park from the land owner, so at the very top level even if a ticket and DVLA information request were issued on reasonable grounds, that permission trumps all.
• The signage bay I was parked in was illegible so the contract is void.
• What can be read also suggests parking for customers of a company that is no longer there, so the contract is void on those grounds too.
• What can be read suggests 1 hour parking anyway - although the PPC can argue I wasn't a customer in store (because I couldn't possibly be, the store not being there), they also cannot prove I had been there longer than a few minutes.  In actuality I had indeed been parked there only half an hour at the time of the ticket.
• The PPC were sacked in January, over a month before the alleged contravention date.
• The PPC also were contracted on a call-to-site policy, and the land owner did not call them to the site that morning.

Should I include/omit all/any of the above in a future IAS appeal?  And are there any important bits of wording/phrasing I should be careful to include or avoid?

Coupon-mad

I'd include all of it but don't say you were parked for half an hour.

QuizzicalMarmot

Just a quick update here.  I submitted the IAS appeal last friday and it was allowed today with the reason: "Operator Conceded.  The Operator conceded this appeal due to incorrectly issued.".  The ticket is now also completely gone from VCS' parking charge portal.

So, sanity can prevail and the IAS procedure did work for me in this instance.  Thanks so much everyone who helped advise here.  Frustrating it got this far, but very glad it didn't get pushed any further.

Coupon-mad

Great news.

Basically your evidence clobbered them!