I'm doing it... promise! Thank you

Since my original post on here on 10 May, and following the advice of fellow CEL victims to ignore the demand for payment, I have heard nothing from them. Do I feel relieved? Do I heck as like. It feels like the Sword of Damacles is hanging over me... and I'm just waiting for the big drop of another demand or a solicitor letter or even a court notice... I totally agree that we should be able to ignore them because they are legally very grey, and I feel, in my case, that I have been totally victimised. However, the stress is terrible. I wish there was some way to sue them!

Thank you everyone for your reassurances. I have decided am going to ignore this demand for money. I think that if I'd been dangerously parked, or had used the car park inappropriately (e.g. parked there while I went off somewhere else entirely unrelated to the businesses on the site), or the car park had been full and my staying there so long had prevented someone else accessing the businesses I might feel that the demand had some validity.... but I did none of those things. I'm sure that businesses like CEL might have a useful role to fulfil if they applied common sense. And businesses and landowners who use the services of companies like CEL need to be mindful that the public are well able to go elsewhere for goods and services should they encounter such poor treatment as the sort I received at the hands of CEL last week!

Can I do that if.... I was actually in a CEL managed car park at the Goldstaone Retail Park in Hove for over the two hours their notices apparently state (the Enforcement Notice advises that my car was parked there from 08:50 - 12:30)... yet I never actually left the retail outlets on the site? I'd dropped my son off for a two hour exam he was sitting in Hove and rather than drive 13 miles back home and then have to drive all the way back an hour later to pick him up I decided to wander around the shops at the Goldstone have an early lunch in Burger King and read a book while I waited. I went in three superstores, ambled around and had a pretty relaxing morning. I'm afraid I never noticed any signs warning of remote car parking monitors and although I've actually been to that retail park on many previous occasions I've never stayed as long before. The car park wasn't full. It wasn't even half full... Then I get a Parking Contravention Enforcement Notice from CEL asking for £150 for parking my car in the carpark of the stores where I'd just spent a morning browsing and lunching! My only previous interaction with superstores that support this sort of car park restriction has been where they have installed BIG customer notices and ticket machines where you pay a token parking fee and then you get your voucher refunded at a tillpoint. If that sort of scheme had been in place I would never have: 1) Missed the notices specifying the limited time period and 2) Parked there at all - the local Coop superstore has a Costa Coffee and comfy seating which I'd have preferred to Burger King AND they have and a FREE car park! The Goldstone stores have lost my patronage after this. What I am VERY worried about though is the effect ignoring something like this might have on my credit rating??? I've never had a bad rating or not paid a debt ever before and I'm so nervous...