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Excel parking: broken machine, dodgy tickets, and proof their appeals procedure is a sham. Bring in Trading Standards...
On the 10/5/06 I arrived back to my car to find I had received a Parking Charge Notice issued by Excel Parking at the St Peter Retail Park in Mansfield Notts. Stating I had contravened code 82 which is Parked after the expiry of time in a pay and display car park. As I had paid £1 for 2 hours and arrived at the car park at 13.59 I was rather upset. When I looked at my ticket on my windscreen I realised I had been issued with a ticket that stated paid until 13.59 and the amount paid was £0.00. If I had not paid and just pressed the button on the ticket machine I would have been given a ticket for half an hour I concluded that their machine was faulty. In order to report this I had to ring their premium rate line and I was told to send them the ticket. This I did by recorded delivery and attached a letter, which I also emailed straight away. I received a letter back dated 19/5/06 saying they were unable to cancel the Parking notice, as it was my responsibility to ensure the amount had registered I rang up the CCTV section of Mansfield District Council and was told the Person who dealt with the requests was on holiday, however they would be able to provide me with proof of the time I arrived. On the 25/5/06 after ringing the CAB I was informed that Excel parking could waiver the Parking Notice if their machine was faulty and also if the Notice was incorrectly filled in so I sent a letter stating the above and where the Parking Charge notice was completed incorrectly and if they had checked their reconciliation of their machine they would find it would not tally up and could they provide this information to me. I was completely ignored and sent an intention to take me to court if I didn’t pay £100. I rang the CCTV section again and found that I had missed the date and could not have this information as it had gone, but they had one of Excel Parking Commercial people coming in and they would ask him to look at my case again. After about 2 weeks (the beginning of July 2006) I had not heard anything I rang Excel and spoke to an Alun Cockcroft who said they were going to write out and request my ticket, however he stated he would not be dealing with this case he seemed rather embarrassed when I said I had sent the ticket back recorded delivery. I never heard anything again until 23/1/07 when I received a letter back stating again they could not cancel the charge. I then contacted my MP’s office and they wrote me a letter in which I was again informed that I had to pay as no fault was reported on the 10th May 2006 (which I had), and he did not know who had informed Ms Penlington that CCTV would be available. He could not see it being one of Excel Parking staff and the letter was signed by Alun Cockcroft who was asked by the CCTV section of Mansfield District Council to look into my case again in the first place. I was amazed by his reply. They have now passed this all onto Commercial Collection Services who sent me a letter dated 24th April 2007, that if I do not pay £125 by 2/5/07 they are authorised to prepare documents for the issue of County Court proceedings. Is it lawful that there is no independent body of appeal as Excel Parking act as their own tribunal, which seems unethical?
You have not committed an offence. This is a parking charge supposedly invoked by a contract which is covered by civil law. Furthermore under any such contract Excel would have been required to provide machines which were capable of taking the money and properly producing a ticket.
Their ultimate redress would only be by bringing a case in the County Court and no judge would find for them under the circumstances they outline. Our advice, published elsewhere on Roadside Lawyer is to demand that they issue proceedings within 14 days or cease and desist from any further contact, sending the letter by registered post. This at least stops the spiralling additional charges they seek to impose and enables you top bring in the police should you be harassed by phone or mail by debt collectors.
We have found that they rarely (if ever) bring an action and on the one occasion they did, took it no further once a defence was filed -- (we cited their appeals procedure as a sham under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999).
Frankly Excel have been involved in sufficient dubious practices, many of them illegal, we would like to see them prosecuted and put out of business.
Given that you seem to have a perfect paper trail, plus have put one of their executives in the frame, I think you ought to be contacting Trading Standards with regard to your case. We receive sheaves of complaints every week on Private Parking companies and Excel are by far the worst transgressor using all manner of dubious practices. It amazes me that any council would choose to give them any responsibilities, especially when they have been the cause of substantial numbers of other complaints on other parking spaces in the same town.
There is some good news on the horizon regarding private parking companies:
Time runs out for rogue parking wardens
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