Excel Parking and Puregym

bookreader89

Well that's good to know.

I have had a go at drafting point 3 on the defence template. Is this suitable?

3. The Defendant is a member of Puregym and was entitled to 2 hours free parking as part of their membership. The Defendant attended the gym and made numerous attempts to enter his registration number into the portal within the Puregym premises. However, the machine was faulty and not working. He was at the gym for 1 hour and 6 minutes. Nothing within the signage in the car park or the gym set out what to do in the event of a failure with the Puregym portal. Online advice from Puregym is to retain your activity log as evidence and to appeal if issued with a parking ticket. The Defendant appealed but the appeal was refused. The Defendant did not receive the appeal decision and was not aware of it until DCBL debt collectors contacted the Defendant claiming £170. Following discussions with the Claimant and an email setting out the facts to the debt collector, DCBL advised the Defendant that their client had instructed them to close the case and they would not be pursuing the balance. No further correspondence was received until receipt of the Claim form.

Coupon-mad

Yep but firstly he must deny the allegation which is specifically: 'parked without purchasing'. That term does not apply to gym users so he cannot have breached it.

Note that they have not pleaded that he failed to key in his VRM.

patient_dream

AGREED AS ABOVE

Le_Kirk

With an issue date of 05/02/26 and providing you complete(d) the AoS after 10/02/26 and before or on 24/02/26 your defence deadline date is 4.00 p.m. on 10/03/26

bookreader89

Good evening all. Apologises for not updating sooner. The matter proceeded all the way to the county court and a hearing took place yesterday. My son and I had both filed witness statements with exhibits including the email from DCBL advising they had been instructed to close the case 4 months before Excel issued the claim. The judge raised the issue of the email straight away, expressed his concern about it and told the paralegal for the claimant to go take instructions. She did and her instructions were to continue. We had a full hearing and I challenged the caselaw in the claimant's witness statement after reading so many threads on here where they had raised similar arguments before. I wouldn't have had a clue otherwise. In the end we won and the claim was dismissed.

The judge stated that he was dismissing it on the basis that the contract was frustrated as he accepted our evidence that the machine was not working so my son was unable to comply. He then stated that if he hadn't dismissed it for that reason it would have dismissed it for unfair terms under the CRA 2015 as there was no signage to indicate what gym users were to do if the vehicle registration portal wasn't working. He also said he would have dismissed it for equity because he accepted that the letter from DCBL had caused us prejudice.

We were just pleased that he dismissed it for any reason.

I just wanted to say a massive thanks to everyone on this site because we couldn't have done it without you. I have learned so much from you.

Two of our major supermarkets in the area have recently turned their car parks over to parking operators, one Horizon and the other ParkingEye. The signs in both car parks are misleading and both contain non return clauses which are not prominently displayed so goodness help you if you forget something and go back. This whole business sector is so corrupt and I blame the supermarkets too for allowing it. But forewarned is forearmed and they won't get my family again.

Huge thanks to you all and I'll be sure to post the order from the court when it comes.

Car1980

Superb. Did you get any costs?

Do you mean DCB Legal were told to close the file and they communicated this to you?

bookreader89

No he didn't issue costs. Yes DCBL sent us an email which stated that their client had instructed them to close the case and as such they would not be pursuing the balance further. We'd also never received the appeal decision letter which Excel stated they had sent by email but even at the hearing they never produced a copy of the email to show that it had been served on my son.

Coupon-mad

"The matter proceeded all the way to the county court and a hearing took place yesterday.

My son and I had both filed witness statements with exhibits including the email from DCBL advising they had been instructed to close the case 4 months before Excel issued the claim. The judge raised the issue of the email straight away, expressed his concern about it and told the paralegal for the claimant to go take instructions. She did and her instructions were to continue.

We had a full hearing and in the end we won and the claim was dismissed. 

The judge stated that he was dismissing it on the basis that the contract was frustrated as he accepted our evidence that the machine was not working so my son was unable to comply.

He then stated that if he hadn't dismissed it for that reason it would have dismissed it for unfair terms under the CRA 2015 as there was no signage to indicate what gym users were to do if the vehicle registration portal wasn't working.

He also said he would have dismissed it for equity because he accepted that the letter from DCBL had caused us prejudice.

We were just pleased that he dismissed it for any reason."

Brilliant news. Well done both of you!

Excel are the lowest of the low, IMHO.

ANOTHER EXCEL ONE BITES THE DUST!

😀

bookreader89

You guys deserve the thanks. We wouldn't have know where to start without this forum. Thank you so much 😄