Money Claim online response

Todd_J_Bonzalez_the_Third

Hello all, looking for some advice if possible. I've gone to Money Claim online to complete an acknowledgement of service for a claim from DCB Legal on behalf of Eurocarparks.

I'm well within the 14 days but I have the following message:

"A bar has been put in place on this claim. You cannot respond to the claim at this time."

Any ideas why this might be?

Gr1pr

Post the Issue date from the top right of the claim form below

The bar would be to stop dcb legal obtaining judgment

Todd_J_Bonzalez_the_Third

Thanks. Issue date is 23 April, 2026. And on the overleaf it says you must respond within 14 days of the day of service, with the day of service taken as five days from the issue date.

Gr1pr

Perhaps its due to maintenance over the weekend or a fault, but they are now closed until Tuesday, so try again on Tuesday morning, your AOS deadline is 4pm on 12th May

In the meantime draft your defence based on the template defence

Todd_J_Bonzalez_the_Third

OK thanks very much for the help. I could of course post the AOS couldn't I, or do you not advise that, or should I do both?

Gr1pr

You could download the form, fill it in and email it to the AOS email address in the defence template thread first Post, which i was going to suggest next week if you had no success on Tuesday, checking for the auto response email back from the CNBC ( they are not open until Tuesday anyway. )

Le_Kirk

With an issue date of 23/04/26 and providing you complete(d) the AoS after 28/04/26 and before or on 12/05/26 your defence deadline date is 4.00 p.m. on 26/05/26

Todd_J_Bonzalez_the_Third

Hello all, if someone could mark my homework or make any helpful suggestions, i would be grateful, I appreciate it's probably a bit too long. Given the amount involved I think it will go to court, so an honest opinion on if this is a 'non-runner', would be appreciated.

A) Summary

1. I am the defendant, driver and registered keeper of the vehicle XXXXXX.

2. The particulars of claim supplied is for four alleged parking contraventions, between 20 August and 6 September, 2024. The dates/times are not given in the particulars of claim.

3. On each occasion I parked my car in this car park as I was working nearby and believed I had paid for parking.

4. Payment for parking on business is paid for by my employer, so there was, or is, no monetary incentive for me not to pay. I can provide evidence of this in my employment contract.

• 5. The basis of my defence is that Euro Car Park’s own payment systems, did not enable me to enter any contract to park.
• 6. I was a genuine customer who tried to pay, thought I had paid, but whose contract with Euro Car Parks was frustrated by their faulty phone technology and faulty ticket machine.

7. Further, I have evidence on each occasion of my attempts to pay, and was given a ticket which meant I believed I had paid.

8. I apologise for taking up the judge’s time with this defence, which is necessarily long, concerning four parking tickets and notwithstanding my repeated attempts to resolve this matter over many months.

9. I submit this claim should be struck out.

B. The Facts – Parking charge notices on August 20, 29 and September 6

1. The same circumstances arise for each of the three parking charges on August 20, August 29 and September 6, 2024; the circumstance of the other charge, on August 28 are slightly different but I believe is supporting evidence for my defence for the other occasions.

2. The defendant parked at Browncross Street on each of the three occasions on August 20, 29th and September 6, 20204.

• 3.I went to the machine, put my car registration number in, selected the hours to park and received a ticket from the machine and went to work having parked my car.

4. Later, for each of these occasions, I received a £100 parking charge notice for non-payment, the letter’s only arriving after I had parked there repeatedly, believing I had paid.

5. I then inspected the tickets issued from the machine (as I have to keep these to claim expenses for parking and which I still possess and can supply to the court).

6. I believed these to be parking tickets purchased for parking.

• 7. Each ticket is the exact same shape, size, appearance and texture as a ‘valid’ parking ticket.
• 8. The ticket issued on each occasion is almost identical to a ‘paid’ ticket when the transaction completes. I can supply as evidence both versions, showing how they have almost the exact same appearance.

9. The ticket states, in 3mm script, “void transaction receipt” which in itself is meaningless and an oxymoron.

10. The ticket also asks the recipient, not withstanding it is a ‘void transaction receipt’ to display the ticket on the dashboard.

11. On each ticket is also printed a number in pounds and pence, along with the time, date, card number and reference numbers. The bottom of the ticket states ‘Not a parking ticket’ as does the receipt you get when payment completes correctly. This clearly looks like a receipt for parking.

12. Like most motorists, you are in a hurry, punch in your details, hold your card to the machine and it spits out a ticket and you take it, believing you have paid for parking. Nothing on the interface of the machine tells you the transaction has not worked, nothing on the ticket tells the motorist the parking tariff has not paid and what to do next in those circumstances.

13. I submit this is clearly unfair to the motorist and the signage on the tickets totally inadequate, especially for someone such as myself, with quite poor eyesight.

14. The first time a motorist will realise a payment has not completed is when a parking charge notice arrives.

15. I submit consumer law puts the onus on Euro Car Parks to notify the driver that payment has not completed, either through the display on the ticket machine or using a clearly legible ticket to that effect and not by issuing an almost identical ticket to one where payment has completed.

16. I was not aware the credit card had not been debited. I used the same card later, on each of the three days, on occasion literally minutes later, in shops without any issues, so the only reasonable explanation is a fault with the car park payment machine and its failed payment tickets being indecipherable from payment completed ones.

17. This car park/ticket machine does seem to frequently cause payment issues, judging by the number of complaints in online posts of this or very similar problems at this location, something Euro Car parks must be aware off.

18. Non-receipts looking like receipts or tickets are a known issue. Euro Car Parks proudly display on their parking charge notices they are member of the British Parking Association (BPA).

19. The BPA code of practice states at 6.2: “a ‘payment failed’ slip should be designed so that it is not liable to be mistaken for a parking tariff receipt.”

20. I ask Euro Car Parks to prove in what way their parking tickets comply with this code of practice.

21. The code states contact details of the car parking company should be available on the payment machine or close by for queries about making payment and reports of malfunctioning pay machine equipment. At this car park there is a telephone number which when rang, puts you through to an automated response giving only details about how to pay parking charge notices.

22. I will ask the judge in this case at the court hearing to please look closely at the two ticket versions, which I will supply; they are virtually identical and many a motorist, like myself, will have walked away from the machine having legitimately believed they have paid for parking. How can parking management companies issue PCN’s to motorists on this basis?

23. I also submit Euro Car Park’s tickets contravene the Consumer Rights Act Part 2 Section 68 in that it is not legible or intelligible, and the Consumer Protection From Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 in that the ticket caused the driver to believe parking had been paid for and not at risk of a parking charge in the hundreds of pounds.

23. Part 2, Section 68 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA) dictates that all written consumer contract terms and consumer notices must be transparent. This means that any terms or notices presented to a consumer must be legible and written in plain and intelligible language. Clearly, Euro Car Parks ‘void transaction’ receipt and valid receipts do not comply.

24. Further, section 71 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, creates a statutory duty upon Courts to consider the test of fairness and requirements for prominence of terms and 'consumer notices' and the duties of open and fair dealing in good faith with consumers.

25. This has all been explained to Euro Car Parks/DCB Legal, multiple times and I have offered to pay for the parking on each occasion, multiple times, but neither have engaged in good faith and instead refused offers or ignored my appeals, instead issuing automated demands for exaggerated claims for money.

C) Parking charge notice on August 28, 2024.

1. On this occasion, I attempted to pay using the phone app, PayByPhone. The parking charge notice shows I arrived at Browncross Street car park at 9.24am and left at 11.59am. I understood I had paid via the phone app, but later received a parking charge notice.

2. I appealed on the basis the phone app had not completed the payment at the correct time and the charge issued was invalid. The basis of the appeal was again ignored.

3. As proof, I have a ‘PayByPhone’ email receipt for that day, which I can submit as evidence, showing I paid for parking, that is the transaction eventually completed, hours later, between 6.07pm and 10.07pm, the same day at a cost of £8.40.

4. By that time I was not at Browncross Street and would have been nowhere near there as Euro Car Parks own ANPR logs would show. It is clear the phone app has not updated and only taken payment hours later when I have left the car park, despite my paying for parking on the same day, at the same car park, but hours later, in the evening.

5. I do not know why the payment was only taken hours after I had left the car park. I submit the motorist having paid for parking at that car park through a phone app should not be held responsible for the payment only to complete hours later. The fault lies either with Euro Car Parks or PayByPhone or both.

6. I have a receipt and other time-stamped photographic evidence of all this.

7. As technology is being used increasingly in parking payment, monitoring and enforcement, I submit it is up to the providers to ensure their equipment is working properly rather than burden motorists with unjustified parking charges.

8. Browncross Street car park is poorly maintained and Euro Car Park’s equipment and systems, clearly antiquated and faulty. Its practice of issuing parking charges to motorists in such circumstances amounts, I submit, to simply spurious profiteering at the expense of motorists.

9. I submit, as in other parts of Manchester city centre, in my experience, wifi/mobile signals are ‘patchy’ due to the number of tall buildings that have recently been erected. I suspect this is the reason the payment has somehow been delayed, but I fail to see how it is fair for the motorist to be held responsible for a delayed payment transaction in this context.

(D) AMOUNT OF CLAIM

1. The claimant’s monetary claim is confusing to myself and unclear. It claims £680 for the parking tickets (£170 each) ‘and damages’.

2. The amount claimed is also stated as £771.76. I assume this is some sort of interest added, but the particulars state the terms are of an interest rate of 8 per cent ‘from the date hereof at a daily rate of £0.15 until judgement or sooner payment.’

3. It appears the claim is claiming for interest from an earlier date, but does not state which date, and/or damages amounting to £91.76.

4. A defendant being unable to understand what is being claimed and what is to be defended, I submit is enough to strike out such a claim under Civil Procedure Rules which the court will be familiar with.

5. I can see nowhere where there would be grounds for ‘damages’ in this litigation and no explanation or justification has been given.

6. If the claimant’s position is £280 is to be charged for automated letters demanding payment (notwithstanding my multiple appeals that were not engaged with) this is clearly an inflated sum and meant to penalise those motorists who simply do not pay up contested parking charge notices.

7. The case law on this point (EWHC 4023 (QB), HHJ Hegarty (whose decision was ratified by the Court of Appeal) held in paras 419-428 that 'admin costs' further inflating a £75 (discounted to £37.50) parking charge to £135 was disproportionate to the minor cost of template letters and 'would appear to be penal'.

8. In the Civil Procedure Rules, 16.4 it is stated particulars of claim must include (d)if the claimant is seeking provisional damages, a statement to that effect and the grounds for claiming them; and (2) If the claimant is seeking interest they must—

• (a) state whether they are doing so and
• (b) if the claim is for a specified amount of money, state
• (ii) the date from which it is claimed;
• (iii) the date to which it is calculated, which must not be later than the date on which the claim form is issued;
• (iv) the total amount of interest claimed to the date of calculation; and
• (v) the daily rate at which interest accrues after that date.

9. I submit the claimant’s particulars of claim are defective in all of the above respects.

10. The claim also exceeds the current BPA Code of Practice £100 maximum parking charge without justification or explanation.

11. Each of the claims also exceed the ‘maximum sum’ recoverable under Schedule 4 of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 ('POFA'); the explanatory notes to s4 (5) and (6) state: "The creditor may not make a claim against the keeper [...] for more than the amount of the unpaid parking related charges as they stood when the notice to the driver was issued,” – in each case, £100.

12. I submit Euro Car Parks/DCB Legal have not only, not acted within the letter of the law, they have not acted within the spirit of the law either. Exaggerated claims for impermissible sums and defective particulars of claim relating to monetary amounts and interest, are sufficient reason for judges to intervene and the court is invited to strike out the claim using its powers under CPR.

13. I have photographic and documentary evidence for all of the above. These items have been sent along with my multiple appeals to Euro Car Parks and DCB Legal. I have made multiple attempts to resolve this matter on reasonable terms without troubling the courts.  Thank you for your time reading this submission.                                                                                                                                                                                                           

            Statement of Truth

I believe that the facts stated in this defence are true.

Gr1pr

Do not use that draft above, start over ( it even uses the shorter statement of truth that was retired 5 years ago, and isn't used on MCOL anyway

ECP DCB Legal claim, 4 pcns without each one listed correctly and separately in the POC

Adapt the 10 paragraphs template defence in post 2 in the defence template thread in announcements near the top of the forum

Todd_J_Bonzalez_the_Third

Thanks very much for the reply. I don't understand this bit: "ECP DCB Legal claim, 4 pcns without each one listed correctly and separately in the POC"

I'm also struggling to find the defence template thread (I'm sorry, I find the forum a bit difficult to follow in parts). If you could post a link to it, or give me more information, it would be appreciated.

Gr1pr

Adapt the template defence by coupon mad in announcements near the top of the forum