Thread: Paid Up.

do not believe everything you read in the papers.

no ppc has ever won in court

dx

Originally Posted by Soulthief

Hi All,

A few weeks ago I received an Excel parking charge Notice.
Not knowing any better I paid up £60 via their web site.
I've now received a letter from them asking for an additional £40 as I didn't pay in time and am now subject to the full cost of £100.

In their dreams, they see you as a mug who has already paid so think you will be nice and hand over some more money.


I have a couple of questions and would like the opinions and views of the people here.
The advice that I've read is not to pay a penny and don't enter into any dialogue with them. Ummm, bit too late for that as I've already partially paid.

The advice to ignore evrything else still stands.

So I guess the advice would be not to pay them the other £40 and to ignore any demands for it?

Correct.

I've seen links to newspaper articles and such where people have been taken to court by PPCs and won.
But, I was wondering, if there has ever been a case where someone has taken a PPC to court?

Don't know.

In my case, where my car was was parked was 3 hours free parking. This was overrun by 10 minutes for which I was charged £100. This equates to a charge for parking of £600 per hour. A little excessive to say the least.
This charge was paid by me because the parking charge Notice looked like an official fine document and threatened court action if I didn't pay.

Having now done a bit of research I believe that the charge is unlawful under the Unfair Trading Act in that it is excessive and was obtained by using coercion.

So, basically, I'd like my £60 back !
If I wrote to them and asked nicely, explaining my position and reasons, do you think they would return it ?
Hmmmmm, didn't think so, lol !



What if I took them to court ?
Has anybody tried this before ?
Would I stand a chance of winning ?
After all, they do seem to be charging excessive charges and the tradings acts are supposed to protect consumers.
Does anybody know how much it would cost to take them to court ?

About £30 on MCOL online I would think.

If I did, and won, would this set a precedent (think that's the correct legal term) so that others could reclaim money they too had been conned out of?

No, county court does not set a precedent.

Thanks for reading and I welcome any advice

regards

Also, have a look at AL27 thread titled, 'Taking SIP to county court', he is about to take a PPC to court for the return of money paid. Might be of use to you maybe you could swap ideas, worth a PM to Al at least to let him know your interest.
regards