A question about : Excel Parking Fine & Admin Charge Appeal Denied
During November & December my husband was in critical care at Sheffield as we were at the hospital for hours on end, day after day we went for food & parked at Broomhill Car Park.
December the 24th I was issued with 7 car parking fines... Parking without purchasing a valid Parking Ticket. You can imagine how upset I was. I found as many of the tickets I had purchased, scanned & presented a blue badge for appeal.
30th January I received a letter from Excel saying that they could see I had purchased a ticket on each occassion but as I had entered 13 & not the full license plate I was being charged Ј10 per ticket admin fee. So I searched for advice & found this forum. I submitted this appeal...
10-02-2015
FORMAL COMPLAINT
Parking Charge Numbers:Xxxxxxxx, Xxxxxxxxx,Xxxxxxxx,Xxxxxxx, Xxxxxxxxxx, Xxxxxxxx,Xxxxxxx
Vehicle Registration Number xxxxx
I wish to raise a formal complaint regarding the above parking charge.
The situation is that I raised an appeal with your company on 24-12-2015, within the time stipulated.
You replied on 30-01-2015 informing me that you require payment of an admin charge of Ј10 each pcn to cancel the parking charges before the 11-02-2015.
This is totally unacceptable under the circumstances, not only did I provide tickets which I have already paid for & which you have validated, I also provided a blue badge. You was informed that my husband was in critical care and had almost lost his life, so you know that it was a very traumatic time for me and my family. My husband is unable to work for quite sometime and we at the moment have'nt enough to live on let alone pay for your cancellation fees you are charging me for something your company is at fault for.
Furthermore you suggest in your correspondence to me that I failed to purchase valid tickets by not entering my full details of license plate. I would like to bring to your attention that your parking machine allowed me to purchase those tickets by entering 13 in which case if its not correctly validated surely the ticket machine shouldn't dispense tickets.
You must either accept my appeal and cancel the parking charge at no extra cost to me, or decline my appeal and issue a POPLA Code, in order for me to pursue the matter further.
I expect a response from you within 14 days. If you continue to ignore my appeal I will raise a formal complaint with Steve Clark of the BPA regarding your obstruction of the appeals process and your refusal to comply with the BPA Code of Practice. I will also copy that letter to the DVLA.
I trust that I have made myself clear.
Yours faithfully
I have now received a fine for Ј420 based on the grounds that I failed to purchase a valid ticket 7x & if I appeal to POPLA the full parking charges will be pursued by court/debt recovery. I havent got money at the minute to seek legal advice or pay for anyone to write me a winnng popla appeal. My husband is still recovering & I am at my wits end!!! Please can anyone help????
Best answers:
- First things first, don't panic. Take some time to read the Newbies sticky at the top if you have not done so.
You need to remove the details that will identify you in the post above - The PCN references and your licence plate. The PPCs read these forums!
Have they issued you with POPLA codes for the rejected appeals? You will need one per ticket and appeal each one individually to POPLA. If you havn't recieved the necessary POPLA codes, then you must complain to the BPA.
If you did get them, they may well have been in the letter of the 30th January, in which case you could be getting very close to the point that the codes will expire. Check that letter ASAP to see if the codes are in there, and come back and update this thread.
There is a good example of a POPLA appeal template in the Newbies sticky, just adapt one of those and post it here for the experts to look at and advise.
Hope this helps.. in the meantime someone more expert than I should be along to give you more complete advice. - As jim said .... do not panic, you will win each and every on of your appeals if you follow the advice on this forum.
Which includes removing idetifiying names numbers registrations ect.
AS mentioned the time scales are very important so do not delay.
Is this car park part of the hospital?
Ralph - Was it Excel that switched to the IPC as of January 1st? If yes, and assuming there were no POPLA codes on the appeal rejections ...
Dear Excel,
Ref. PCNs [...list them...]
Either accept my appeals and cancel the PCNs, or reject them and send me POPLA codes for each appeal, whereupon I will appeal your vexatious charges at POPLA and cost you Ј27 per appeal. (Yes - BPA was your ATA at the time of the parking events, therefore POPLA applies not IAS).
Any correspondence from you that is not either confirmation of cancellation, or rejection of appeals with POPLA codes, will be ignored. Indeed such correspondence from yourselves or your debt collector chums may be deemed harassment and pursued accordingly in the courts, with the Equality Act 2010 forming part of the claim evidence.
So there's your choice - it's cancel/POPLA or court ... and I don't fancy your chances in court!
Love&kisses,
[PRINT NAME]
PS - the way I read the OP, the PCNs may have been cancelled but only on the basis of an admin fee of Ј10 each being accepted ... so Ј70 they're looking for not Ј420. Seeking an admin fee is a breach of the BPA CoP ... they must either accept the appeals, or reject them and issue POPLA codes. There is no middle ground. - They have sent me the POPLA CODES todat but this is all double dutch to me I'm totally confused I have now got till the 3rd of March to make payments to them or submit POPLA APPEALS. However the letter states appeals must be made within 28 days from the date on the letter....
I'm not going to lie their tactics scare me!!! - Reading the Newbie section now Thanks xxx
- They really are pieces of !!!! aren't they, the PPC's.
Dont eat yourself up over this like I did, relax. The whole appeals process is pretty simple once you get used to it. When do you POPLA codes expire? - google POPLA code checker and let us know roughly, but not exactly, when the codes expire.
7 appeals too! Ј190 is nothing for a PPC, but still a nice way of giving them the middle finger. - Excellent!
So, what you need to do now is put together a POPLA appeal from the templates in the Newbies thread, and post it in this thread for the experts to pick over, with a view to getting them submitted by the end of this coming week.
Remember - this appeal will be on points of law only, and will be nothing to do with what happened on the day. - Excel have never yet won a POPLA case where you quote the following.
The charge is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss. Excel's breakdown of charges does not equal the parking charge, and there was no initial loss to Excel as a ticket was purchased, and in any case, the ticket fees are due the landowner not Excel.
If you were brave you could stick two fingers up at Excel and just go with that. Or this:
The charge is not a genuine pre-estimate of loss. - Thankyou so much to everyone for pointing me in the right direction. This morning I went live on the radio to tell my story. A solicitor has come forward & believes I have a very good case & is willing to support me free of charge in the popla, against excel & in court if needed. Totally restored my faith in people. I would also like to say that I wa at the hospital today & whilst up there I thought I would pay Broomhill Car Park a visit, the signage says nothing at all about entering a full license plate x
- Wow, what a result!
- Really well done
You should win this at POPLA
please consider calling the radio back when you have won , so they can spread the word
Ralph - Gonna be the first time PoPLA has seen an appeal written by a solicitor!
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