Excel Ticket

[Tirnanog]

Sorry not very comp literate so prob posting this in wrong place but here goes.

6th Aug rec final demand £100 for ignoring PCN issued 1st July at 12.38 (PCN allegedly sent in post)

Never rec PCN and went to car and found the Pay/display ticket I had bought, however I had put in 1 character out of 6 wrongly which had confused their ANR cameras.

Wrote with copy of ticket; they acknowledged I had bought a ticket and would cancel PCN.........oh, they had admin costs of £10 and unless I paid this they would proceed with the PCN for £100 (original was £60 I never rec it and apparently this is very common but of course most people wont have a display ticket from 5 weeks ago)

Wrote back to say thank you for acknowledging that I had bought a ticket (ad not run out of time) and I would not be blackmailed into giving them £10

Rec letter back explaining how it was all my fault and reiterating that I must pay £10 or they will pursue the PCN

Am about to tell them to go to court; any comments?

[crem]

 

Am about to tell them to go to court; any comments?

 

Seems like a reasonable course of action.

[Barnsley Boy]

Tirnanog,

 

Sounds like Excel to me - am I right?

[Tirnanog]

Barnsley Boy

Of course its Excel, in the George Street park in Wakefield!!

How did you guess???!!! Have you had dealings with them?

[crem]

I think you can safely ignore anything from them now and sleep easy.

 

I would be interested to see how they would explain to a court that thye agreed you had bought a ticket (making their charge invoice unnecesary) but that they would continue to pursue this invalid charge unless you pay them an admin fee!

 

Either the invoice was valid, or it wasn't. In this case it wasn't and they can't change that fact based on you paying another invalid charge or not.

[Tirnanog]

Thanks crem; are you a knowedgable person in these matters as it begins to seem a lot of aggro for £10 but am furious as I didnt commit the offence in the first place and am sure the printing of exact reg on ticket is not a legal requirement?

[Tirnanog]

Sorry crem, sent mine before I saw your second message; thanks very muc feel easier now

[letshelp]

Hi Tirnanog,

There was never any 'offence' committed;)

[Tirnanog]

Thanks for your help crem and letshelp; my only reservation is that one has to display a "valid" ticket - can they argue that because the reg printed on the ticket wast exact the tickt isnot valid? To give you the exact scenario my wife, insead of entering A123BCD had put n PCD123.

I understand why their cameras couldnt get a matc but they had no trouble identifying it when I produced the ticket. This then opens up the bigger picture of my never receiving the PCN so that I would never have had the opportunity to pay the original £60 and if the pay ticket hadnt fallen under the car seat I would have had to pay £100 without a leg to stand on and I understand from various things posted on the internet including from BBC Watchdog programme that this scenario is by no means oncommon. Any for better or for worse thanks to you giving me a bit of confidence (I know from divorce experience that the law can be a very funny thing) I have told them to go ahead to court. Mind you they probably read all this!!!!!!!!

[Al27]

I think you're getting confused with proper council tickets.

 

Private companies have no power in law to charge financial penalties. They can only claim back their actual losses.

 

If you parked without a permit, which has to be purchased, they're entitled to the money they've lost from you not buying one. What's that? £1? £5? By all means send them this sum, but since they won't go to court over such a small amount, there's nothing they can do.

 

If you had a permit, parked outside a marked bay, did the hokey kokey etc. etc. they have no powers to give you a £60 or £100 fine.

[letshelp]

Hi Tirnanog,

Once again I have to fully agree with the advice from Al, don't get tied up with their cameras and your ticket, and where and when, how you parked, in its simplest form, IT DOESN'T MATTER, what you have is an unenforceable invoice, it is no more than that, if you pay, you contribute to the thieving **** and encourage them to harass others.

They will never, ever take you to court especially as they have already admitted you had a ticket.

regards

[Tirnanog]

Hi letshelp

Thanks for your input; however I see from previous forums regarding this company (Excel) that they have in the past taken people to court. The reason I am so furious about this is because I am not trying to weasel out of a PCN that might have been deserved; I had bought a ticket and still have it and despite acknowledging that I had bought a ticket they are trying t blackmail me into giving them £10 admin costs or they will proceed with the PCN which is absobloodywellutely ridiculous. I am going to write to the local paper to see if I can generate some publicity to warn people about this crowd nd their dubious practices.

[GuidoT]

I have moved such that you now have your own thread.

 

I have given you a title, let me know if you want it changed.

[Mossycat]

I'm in two minds about this one (don't get me wrong I hate PPC's and the way they operate), but......

 

Since you admit you did buy a ticket (albeit that you put incorrect details in) you have entered into a contract with them, part of that contract will be that you have read and understood the terms and conditions (usually displayed where you purchase a ticket so a defence that you did not see signage wouldn't stand up).

 

You did enter wrong details and as a result Excel have incurred work that they would otherwise not have had to do ie check what you said etc. Having checked out your story they concur but ask you to pay an admin charge (I must say that £10 is a reasonable figure given what others charge for simply passing on invoices).

 

If they go to Court for the full amount they will tell the registrar that you must have seen the terms and conditions and so were aware of the contract, they will look like good guys because although you have failed to comply with the terms and conditions they offered to let you off providing you paid a reasonable figure to cover the cost of the work that your error caused them.

 

This all seems reasonable to me and in my opinion they have a very strong case against you and I think it could well succeed.

 

(And before anyone accuses me of being a troll read my previous posts)

 

Mossy

[crem]

 

If they go to Court for the full amount they will tell the registrar that you must have seen the terms and conditions and so were aware of the contract, they will look like good guys because although you have failed to comply with the terms and conditions they offered to let you off providing you paid a reasonable figure to cover the cost of the work that your error caused them.

 

This all seems reasonable to me and in my opinion they have a very strong case against you and I think it could well succeed.

 

Mossy

 

I disagree that they will appear to be the good guys by simply offering to let you pay them money for reason B because reason A was a non starter.

 

I think a misspelling on the reg number will be viewed as a genuine error with no intention to mislead and therefore would not mean a court would uphold a demand for the extortionate amount requested.

[Mossycat]

Hi Crem

 

I'm not convinced that reason A is a non-starter. The OP entered into a contract (of that there is no dispute because they bought a ticket). The PPC will argue that the OP accepted the terms and conditions of the contract one of which is a penalty clause (penalty clauses are present in most contracts), so Dunlop wouldn't apply because it is no longer about fiscal loss (ie the parking revenue), but more precisely about breach of contract (the incorrect reg number). To that end they could pursue the full amount of the penalty clause but the OP has made representations which they needed to check out, this caused them work they would otherwise not have had to do and so are asking for the OP to cover that cost.

 

I'm not for one minute suggesting it was anything other than a genuine error by the OP, but that error no matter how genuine did result in Excel having to do some work and I don't think that £10 would be seen as unreasonable.

 

Much as it pains it I think on this one Excel do look like the good guys of the PPC's, because strictly speaking they could go for the full amount because the OP accepted the terms and conditions (one of which will no doubt be that it is their (the OP's) responsibility to ensure that details entered are correct and if not then purchase another ticket with the correct details on and send them both in for a refund on the incorrect one once you have left the car-park), as such a reasonable person would check the ticket at time of purchase, realise their mistake, purchase another and then seek refund on the incorrect one.

 

Mossy

[Tirnanog]

Hi Mossy

At the back of my mind is always the thought that this isnot worth the hassle for £10 but then I think of all the other people this must be hapening to who havent been fortunate enough to find the original ticket on the car floor 5 weeks after the event.

I understand what you are saying about entering into contracts etc and reading the regs but the PCN is for a "code 94" violation which requires me to buy a ticket for one hour or whatever to rent that little bit of tarmac and I did that. Sorry I made a mistake on the printing but if I make a mistake typing and click on the spellchecker it picks it up and says "did you mean this". Likewise if I google and put something in wrong it asks "Did you meann so and so". If excels equipment is cross checking numbers and tikets it will spew out a list of car numbers which apparently have not bought tickets; presumably it will also spew out a list of purchased tickets that dont correspond to the car numbers and an employee would then check through because believe me there are hundreds of people who enter their number slightly wrong. Have you tried using those things when there is a queue of people shuffling around behind you waiting to use it?

The other thing that bugs me in all this is that if these people were honest they would send all their PCNs by recorded delivery so they have a pod. It is interesting to note that on the red notices that are the first thing you receive they say that "delays and losses in the post are at your own risk"; doesnt seem to apply to them though. I keep telling myself in all the arguments not to foret the basic fact; I bought a ticket which is what I was required to do and although I appeciate that they have paid a small fee to the DVLA for my details that does not give them the right to say "if you dont give us £10 we will pursue a PCN that we now know is incorrect".

So what now? Do I pay these bandits £10 for an easy life or do I stand up for the 100s of people who have had to pay. I dont know if you trawled back up through the thread but I have seen stuff from last Feb at least about Excel and on different sites as well and it is very common for victims to receive the penalty notice of £100 as the first indication of anything wrong.

[crem]

I still wouldn't pay them anything

[Barnsley Boy]

I wouldn't pay them anything either,

 

The only way that excel could recover their £10 is by spending a further £35 on an MCOL claim. There is no way on earth that anyone at Excel would be silly enough to do that.

 

As for it being the OP's fault, I don't accept that either. Excel's system should be sophisticated enough to cope with the odd punch error on data entry. A filter should have been applied at the processing centre prior to the DLVA RK information being obtained. The fact that excel could quicky resolve the issue after the OP complained speaks volumes.

 

What should the car park signs say?

 

Parking £1 / hr [extra charge of £60 applies for old people, dyslexics and technophobes]

 

The identical same issue came up at an excel car park in sheffield. After receiving advice from the forum, the OP there elected to write to excel saying put up or shut up or FOAD as Pin1onu so elequently puts it. Guess what.........nothing happened.

[Mossycat]

Hey up BarnsleyBoy

 

I usually learn something from you, so I'll ask it direct.

 

If Excel pursue the recovery of this amount through MCOL or County Court it is my understanding that they could add costs and interest (Section 15 of the 1969 County Court Act), so yes they would spend more money initially but if they win they recover that.

 

Or am I mistaken in my understanding

 

Take away the 'if's' and 'chances of' it making it to Court, I'm not for one minute suggesting Excel would go to Court I'm talking more of the semantics based on the facts (Yes I do accept people make genuine mistakes but if a consequence of a genuine mistake is that someone is genuinely put to work that they would otherwise not have had to do then I cannot see why it isn't a reasonable item of claim)

 

Jeez this sounds like I am arguing for and on behalf of a PCC which is a scary thought.

 

Mossy

[crem]

Jeez this sounds like I am arguing for and on behalf of a PCC which is a scary thought.

 

Mossy

 

 

It so does Mossy!!!!

 

I think you should seek an immediate antidote at the earliest time. I recommend you park in several PPC car parks this week and collect a minimum of 10 parking tickets. Receipt of such should redress the THEM/US balance you have clearly lost.

[Mossycat]

It so does Mossy!!!!

 

I think you should seek an immediate antidote at the earliest time. I recommend you park in several PPC car parks this week and collect a minimum of 10 parking tickets. Receipt of such should redress the THEM/US balance you have clearly lost.

 

Crem the irony here is that not only do I live in Wakefield but I have been trying for months to get a damn PPC (I've even posted on here asking for the best car-parks in West Yorkshire to get one at) because I have a cunning plan that I want to test out

 

Mossy

[letshelp]

I think any court, if by some miracle of fate this got that far, would simply look at the OP as making a genuine mistake without any intention to mislead.

I also think, (just realised thats twice today, need to slow down) a Judge would be very critical of anyone bringing an action against the op under the circumstances as described.

regards

[MrShed]

Mossy I think the easiest point is this.

 

Even if the OP did NOT comply with entering the correct number as per terms and conditions, and even if it can be proven the contract has been entered into, and the terms and conditions read, then they are only entitled to their ACTUAL loss due to this SPECIFIC breach.

 

How much has it cost them due to the OP writing the wrong number? Absolutely bog all.

[lamma]

people are allowed to make errors in this type of thing. A judge would very critical of Excel taking up court time for this in my view. and probably chuck them out. Does CPR say anything about the amount claimed, I would be surprised if it allowed claims for a tenner.