Excel Parking multiple fines at Bakers road car park Uxbridge

lonew0lf

I need some advise please. 

After being displaced from our home due to a burst pipe, we have been living in temporary accommodation in Uxbridge, which does not offer parking. I have been purchasing weekly parking at Bakers Road Car Park run by Excel parking for my vehicle using the Ringo app. The Ringo app restricts purchases to seven days at a time, with no option for monthly payments or reminders when the session expires. I have made every effort to pay for parking on time and can provide proof of my regular payments. However there has been 3 instances in the 6 months I lived in the apartment where there has been a gap in parking bought. However, based on the suggestion of a telephone operator at the excel parking helpline I bought extra parking to compensate for the gaps where I have missed any days. 

On 18 March 2025, my car was vandalised while it was parked at this car park. However, I had already bought a 7 day parking for my car the day before. When I received the courtesy car on 28 April 2025, I tried to swap the and I paid for parking for both cars at the same time, even though only one was present. This resulted in 8 days of double payment, for which I have not received any refund or response despite raising it with the Excel parking. The operator maintains cameras only at entry and exit points, solely for issuing PCNs, and assumes no responsibility for security inside the car park. This is unfair to paying customers who expect a degree of safety for their vehicles.

Other instances arose where, due to the rigidity of the payment system, I paid for more parking than required. My requests to the operator for reimbursement have been ignored.

The stress of dealing with property damage and the vandalism incident contributed to my missing session renewals. The lack of reminders or flexibility in the app exacerbated the likelihood of unintentional errors.

On 12 May 2025, the car park failed to open on time, preventing us from retrieving our car. This caused us to spend on an Uber to drop my daughter to her school and also led my partner to miss a long-awaited hospital appointment. the operator has not replied to my complaint.

However, the operator has imposed £2380 of fines for missing parking sessions for 10 days over the past 6 months which would have cost me approximately £80.

I appealed to IAS who dismissed. What can I possibly do now? I cant possibly pay such a disproportionately high amount of £2380. 

Should i seek legal advise? Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

Coupon-mad

If you seek legal advice, either try Contestor Legal (Jackson Yamba) or Small Claims Advisor (David Carrod).

Search the forum. They are both experts in defending parking cases. CL will charge more than SCA but it's up to you. I also think you should tot up how much extra you paid for the double parking fees and when you acted on the 'helpline' suggestion and paid for yet more fees that they ignored. You could ask David or Jackson about adding a counterclaim for those wasted fees that they talked you into making.

But you don't definitely need legal advice.

You can defend a claim with our help.

We do this daily and we see wins 99% of the time. Even if you lost at a hearing next year, you would not pay anywhere near £2380 because Excel have exaggerated the amount by ten x 'fake' (disproportionate and unjustified) DRA fees. Judges aren't stupid!

As you wasted time on the (clearly non-impartial, by all accounts) IAS which fails consumers and has now thrown your case into the mix for a court claim, please also do your own response to the Government.

If you want to be part of the push to change things in future, it's very important that people like you tell the Government that:

a) you have no faith in POPLA or the IAS and that there must be the SINGLE APPEALS SERVICE that the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 *almost* promised. As long as it is independent and impartial (and only ONE appeals service, not two involved in a race to the bottom) that will give a real option to resolve disputed cases out of court. The IAS failed you.

Show the Government the IAS 'decision' in your case and get REALLY ANGRY that an appeals service owned by Will Hurley Ltd is allowed to 'decide' cases for IPC firms (the IPC Trade body being also owned by Will Hurley Ltd). This shouldn't be legal. 

b).  THAT THE ENRICHMENT OF 'DEBT RECOVERY FEES' MUST BE COMPLETELY BANNED. DISPUTED CASES ARE NOT SOLVED BY DEMANDING MORE MONEY.

c). Tell the MHCLG about your experience and the complete and utter waste of court resources caused on a grand scale by the likes of Excel who (you should tell the Government) tricked you when you acted upon the suggestion of a telephone operator at the Excel joke 'helpline' and bought extra parking to compensate for the gaps. 

Responses are invited to the Consultation now:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6617396/parking-code-of-practice-consultation-8-weeks-from-11th-july-2025/p1

We will discuss it on that thread further next week if you want ideas about responses.

Car1980

However, based on the suggestion of a telephone operator at the excel parking helpline I bought extra parking to compensate for the gaps where I have missed any days. 

There you go. Variation of contract.

Have a good think and try to remember what was agreed exactly for your witness statement.

Remember they have to disprove what you claim, so unless their recording is something different from what you say and they'd want to submit it to the court, I'd say they were snookered.

They should have put a NOM (no oral modification) clause on their signage.

The varied contract is still valid because there is still consideration. They receive money and you hire the parking space. The variation is merely a case of adjusting the payment timescale to one slightly later, so entirely within reason and with merit.

Coupon-mad

There are no fines involved anyway!

Do you have a claim form yet or just daft threatograms?

£2380 is more than ten x the already inflated £170 a pop, so exactly what letter has arrived? Sounds like they are ludicrously chasing 14 PCNs?

lonew0lf

sorry for the delay, my login wouldnt work and password reset wasnt coming in for some reason. 
So they have sent me 13 PCNs, multiple on some days. What they have been sending are letters from DBCL with various headers latest one saying notice of intended legal action and asking to pay. For one particular fine they have sent a letter from ELMS legal in addition to the DBCL letters to pay £170 for that particular fine. 

I am just worried, if this goes to court will that go against my credit rating and clearance as I need DBS clearance for my job and if this will affect that in any way. 

I have written a legal defence with all details, happy to share it. But I am not sure who to send it to. Is my only option to go for lawyers?

ChirpyChicken

The part about the ccj and dbs stuff i irrelevant 
Post up the defence please 
Did you contact SCA or CL

Car1980

lonew0lf said:

I am just worried, if this goes to court will that go against my credit rating and clearance as I need DBS clearance for my job and if this will affect that in any way. 

No. Your credit rating is only affected if you ignore the initial court claim letter OR you go all the way to a court hearing AND lose AND still fail to pay within 28 days.

And a CCJ would not appear on a DBS report anyway, as it is a civil and not criminal matter.

lonew0lf

ChirpyChicken said:

The part about the ccj and dbs stuff i irrelevant 
Post up the defence please 
Did you contact SCA or CL

ok thanks. I have reached out to David today. He hasnt responded yet.
Here is the link to the witness statement. Please suggest changes if needed. 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WyF9LAEkqaT-kE_2esYv3j8cZ1_ekTzkx2ysq-XMPJ4/edit?usp=sharing
I have not included the appendix (due to confidentiality) which has all the evidence to back up the statement

Coupon-mad

Remove this sub heading:

"Appeal Against Unjust Parking Charges"

And you don't sign off a witness statement 'kind regards'. It'll be chucked out if you don't sign it under a statement of truth!

A recent good WS was by @Feyla I think.