Excel Parking ordered to pay £10,240 in five-minute parking rule row

[u/llama_fresh]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2040xy9yn6o

[u/newnortherner21]

There should be laws about parking payment, which if a company failed to observe should carry a penalty personally for the owners. Or perhaps a month of no charges.

Starting with the ability to pay without any app.

[u/Appropriate-Kale7834 → u/newnortherner21]

it's called the small claims court.

A parking fine is not a penalty charge notice.

[u/nekrovulpes → u/Appropriate-Kale7834]

Their strategy nowadays is to ignore appeals and fast track to CCJs, since the Tories removed the clause that requires a person to acknowledge they are facing a judgement. They can push it to that stage regardless if you appeal etc. They can do it without you even knowing you had a ticket.

It didn't used to be like this, but now, it is. Things changed.

That means the person gets a court order to pay, and the only defence they would have is to show up in person to dispute the judgement in court. Which naturally most people are not going to have the time, or inclination, nor confidence to do, and end up just paying it.

It's quite literally an extortion racket.

[u/newnortherner21 → u/nekrovulpes]

The possibility of CCJs is why there should be a clear law about what is allowed.

[u/Melodic-Lake-790 → u/nekrovulpes]

My granddad got a parking ticket, because my uncle dropped him off at hospital and parked in the wrong place.

Totally fair, but my granddad just ignored the letters about the charge and the parking company refused to speak to my mum, who has an LPA for him. They've given my granddad a CCJ instead of accepting payment from my mum.

It's utterly ridiculous

[u/Bladders_ → u/Melodic-Lake-790]

Once I've paid my mortgage off I'll take all the ccjs they can give 😝

[u/SchoolForSedition → u/Appropriate-Kale7834]

If it’s a private company it’s not a fine. It’s supposedly compensation for breach of contract. But penalty clauses in contracts are illegal in England and Wales (at least) so they like to give the idea it’s a “fine”.

[u/Informal_Drawing → u/SchoolForSedition]

If it's not actually a fine it should be illegal to call it a fine.

[u/jimicus → u/Informal_Drawing]

They don't. They use the word "fee" or "charge" (in the sense of "you can either pay a charge of £1.50 to park using our app. Or you can pay a charge of £100 if you don't.")

The law was changed to make this perfectly okay when they outlawed clamping and towing.

[u/newnortherner21 → u/SchoolForSedition]

Higher payment than normal can be called whatever you like, to a person asked to pay more, they will consider it a fine.

[u/Hatanta → u/newnortherner21]

A fine is literally a charge levied by a statutory body. A private company passing a charge off as a "fine" is misrepresenting it.

[u/Captain-Griffen → u/Appropriate-Kale7834]

The UK by and large does not use punitive damages, and you're generally covering your own costs in small claims.

I'd change that for businesses. If they don't follow the law, they should have punitive damages and have to pay all costs incurred. I'd also then trigger an audit (at their cost) of similar cases and, if found to be systemic, ban the directors for life.

If found to be systematic and wilful, then the entire company goes into public ownership, all dividends and extracted money going back as long as the crime was happening is claimed as proceeds of crimes, and this applies to all connected crimes as well.

We need to shut down criminal enterprises, not reward them.

[u/iMightBeEric → u/Appropriate-Kale7834]

This wastes the courts’ time and can cause immense stress to people in the interim. It’s also not free to go to small claims and the courts have better things to do.

I fully agree with u/newnortherner21 we need strong deterrents at source for predatory unfair practices (so therefore need a code of conduct that relates to what can and can’t be charged for).

[u/whatmichaelsays → u/newnortherner21]

In some circumstances, this can happen as the DVLA has the power to suspend parking companies from accessing its database. The whole business model relies on being able to access that data.

[u/I_ALWAYS_UPVOTE_CATS → u/newnortherner21]

the ability to pay without any app

Ah the old 'convenience fee' for being forced to use a service that is exponentially less convenient than just using a machine.

[u/somedave]

Parking apps are such garbage. There are about 20 different ones and they are often used in places with poor phone signal. To suggest someone pays in 5 minutes of parking when they have to (in some cases) download a new app, enter card details, enter their number plate etc is unreasonable at the best of times. Add in any problems with signal or the apps server etc and it becomes even worse.

Edit: also forced updates to the app you already have but haven't used in a while.

[u/Radiant_Fondant_4097 → u/somedave]

Ohh this is an enormous bugbear, you know you’re in for a good day when you have to register a goddamn account with the parking service having to fill out a page of details on a tiny phone screen and remember the login.

And yet in some podunk car park space in Blackpool of all places, I found one where it’s just a site where you simply punch in your reg, time, and Apple Pay that shit and off you pop.

[u/sindher → u/Radiant_Fondant_4097]

PayByPhone RingGo Horizon Evology Parking EasyPark

I have 5 different apps to park my car in various places around Newcastle. It’s an absolute disgrace

[u/grahammaharg → u/sindher]

The car park on Claremont Road has new ticket machines where you put your reg in and scan your card as you enter and then scan your card again as you leave and it's so much better.

Dunno if it's getting rolled out to other council car parks but it's great. Pay for exactly how much time you use and it's loads quicker.

[u/Radiant_Fondant_4097 → u/sindher]

I swear every time I want to use RingGo I have to set a new password, I constantly use a password manager every day but RingGo is like “Nope, incorrect credentials”

PayByPhone has very limited pay options but my beef is non existent phone signal. I got fined the other week as I parked up and went to my girlfriend’s apartment to get on the WiFi but got distracted.

[u/oggyb → u/Radiant_Fondant_4097]

This used to happen to me at work all the time. I wasn't there often enough in person to have a monthly pass, so I'd struggle to pay on the app outdoors, get frustrated, go into the office, then forget and return to a charge notice glued to my windscreen with alien ectoplasm.

[u/Ozington → u/sindher]

5? Amateur, I have 11. And often there isnt nearby signage (in London often times) to which one the council use just a number and I have to play log into each one, and test the parking code on the sign.

[u/jimicus → u/somedave]

Thing is, it really would be very easy to make this work for their customers:

1. They must have some sort of computer network for ANPR to work. Run a wifi access point off this so people parking have a means of connecting to the internet.
2. Put up a QR code that leads to a website where you can photograph your number plate and pay. The QR code includes the car park location, so there's no chance of mix-up there.

No app bullshit. No poor phone reception. No mis-typing of your registration number.

[u/mrminutehand → u/jimicus]

The companies know this, but unfortunately as with many other sectors, they rely on having little to no threat of oversight or consequences to doing this. If it's not regulated, companies will exploit it as much as possible until the day it does become regulated and they have to stop. Or, in the case of existing regulation but poor enforcement, break the rules until the first fine or court case.

To these companies, there's currently no incentive to make it easy. Predatory parking charges will be free money to them, essentially, until regulations change. Similar to before restaurant tips by card payment were fully regulated - plenty of restaurants would just take that tip themselves because only cash tips were protected.

[u/jimicus → u/mrminutehand]

Considering a lot of them evolved from clamping firms - which were famously full of cowboys at the best of times - the idea that self-regulation might work is patently absurd.

[u/cifala → u/somedave]

Even just things like finding a space, getting kids out the car, getting your coat on and umbrella out if it’s started pouring, five minutes is nothing for all that. There’s nothing reasonable at all about such a tiny payment window, it’s literally designed to get them £100 charges. I’m glad she won the case

[u/WiseBelt8935 → u/somedave]

I got fined. I was leaning on my car while filling in the form, and it asked for the 'brand'. I looked down and saw 'Atto' on the back of the car, so I wrote that down.

I managed to get out of it by referencing the Equality Act.

[u/B23vital → u/somedave]

Or the app forcing through an update, which without you cant use it, and its a new app so now you need to create an account, oh and sorry now you need to log in to your email and confirm your email. But sorry that emails not come through click here to send it again.

It shouldnt matter when you pay, so long as you pay inside the time your parked.

If its ANPR only, then simple, you pay before you leave.

If its tickets, you pay when parking and get 30minutes free to sort out parking.

Its really not hard and its a piss take the government just cant force through a set standard.

[u/pandaman777x]

There's zero justification for trying to "fine" someone for paying a little bit late if they're paying the day rate anyway. No loss of income for the operator it's just predatory greed

[u/Status-River436 → u/pandaman777x]

That's their business model, though.

They're in this line of work because they're pricks. Logic won't pass.

[u/IR2Freely → u/Status-River436]

Yep. There's a really easy way to sort this out. Allow paynent within 24hrs.

[u/Status-River436 → u/IR2Freely]

The fines are all part of their business.

[u/indigomm → u/pandaman777x]

You should get 24 hours to pay after leaving if the car park is barrierless. Collecting at the time is a hangover from when people paid cash into machines. If you're going to have an app, then at least make it easer for people to pay.

[u/llama_fresh]

I was looking for a map of car parks these crooks operate, I'd hate to accidentally fall foul of not being able to pay in 5 minutes, or even give them any business otherwise.

Edit: There's a list of their "partners" at the bottom of their home page, at least that's a start.

https://excelparkingservices.co.uk/

Pretty grim that among them there's a hospital, a council, a couple of universities and The Peel Group (which I know is pretty massive).

I wonder if any of these could be shamed into disassociating with such a company?

[u/jimicus → u/llama_fresh]

All the parking companies operate like this.

They approach organisations like hospitals and universities - places with a lot of parking spaces and even more people wanting to use them - and offer to manage it gratis.

Obviously that's appealing, because it'll get rid of any car park abuse and cost nothing.

The system is explicitly designed to be just usable enough that most people can't really complain that it was a problem while not being so well designed that they don't make any money.

[u/MarrV → u/jimicus]

Ironically, if they don't have a contract with the landowners, which many don't because of the "doing it for free for them," then you can reject their invoice when it goes to POPLA.

[u/t8ne → u/jimicus]

CitiPark seems to be good to deal with, not that I had to do it often, one morning I chose the wrong option pay on exit vs prepay, they refunded the payment wrong payment after telling me to do a separate pre-pay booking.

[u/Protodankman → u/llama_fresh]

I got stung for £60 because I didn’t pay the £5 parking at one near where I used to work. I was in a rush when I arrived because there was traffic and it just slipped my mind. I paid it an hour later. Then got the fine as well, so they got both out of me. Turns out they had the 5 minute rule as well.

[u/WGSMA]

I would be fine with app parking if the Gov owned a monopoly on the app and that was the only one that could be used.

[u/cheapskatebiker → u/WGSMA]

Hahahaha they don't do that for water that is a necessity for life, and they will do that for a luxury goodnl like parking?

[u/Weird-Statistician]

Some common sense from a judge. These firms need to be pounded into oblivion.

[u/EdmundTheInsulter]

Previous legislation to create an independent regulator was passed but then shelved by the government and has never returned

[u/Responsible-Side4347]

Costs to "charity". No give that money to the lady for all the grief and bullying she and others endure because of these assholes.

[u/jimicus → u/Responsible-Side4347]

Her lawyer was working pro bono.

The parking company sued her to force her to pay up.

Putting pressure on people to pay when you think they owe you money is broadly tolerated.

[u/Responsible-Side4347 → u/jimicus]

Should still go to her, and then she can give half to the lawyer. They will stop this shit when it costs them money and lawyers know they will get paid out.

[u/thisaccountisironic → u/Responsible-Side4347]

This isn’t the US, you don’t get compensation for “stress” unless it’s medically diagnosed and you have evidence to link it directly to the other party’s actions

[u/Responsible-Side4347 → u/thisaccountisironic]

I didnt say it was legal, I said she "should". Should and the law in this country are 2 totaly different things.

[u/seecat46 → u/Responsible-Side4347]

The tudge ordered the company to pay her leagle cost, but since she had not had any due to her being represented pro bomo, the amount she would have paid on leagle fees was ordered to go to charity.

Miss Robinson had free legal representation at the hearing but the judge made a pro bono costs order, meaning Excel Parking will have to pay thousands in costs to a charity called the Access to Justice Foundation.

She found Excel's "conduct in relation to this litigation was both unreasonable and out of the norm", and therefore ordered the firm to pay the winning party's legal costs of £10,240.10.

[u/No_Reference3588]

£10k is not enough. These guys are crooks through and through.

[u/Impressive_Bed_287]

I used to work for these cunts. The MD's a prick and his brother's an even bigger prick. Warms my heart to hear they lost.

[u/TheInitialGod]

I'm all for issuing parking fines if someone didn't pay to park, but if they broke some arbitrary rule like this, fuck these companies.

The ones that issue fines (like this) for not paying quick enough, for not putting their number plate into a machine even though they've paid, for driving through a car park and out again without paying because you didn't park as there were no spaces available.... All of these companies can get in the bin.

[u/MySneakyAccount1489]

On the one hand, most motorists are clueless and unless you threaten them with fines and penalties they will drive and park like they own the place. On the other hand, the tactics these parking companies use are downright sinister. What is the solution?

[u/llama_fresh → u/MySneakyAccount1489]

There should at least be an area where you can pull over and read the terms and conditions before your number plate has been scanned.

I might be in the minority that would do this, but it seems a bit unfair that you've already accepted a contract after you've been channelled into an area like a sheep into a dip.

I had a situation like this when dropping someone off at an airport recently.

[u/MySneakyAccount1489 → u/llama_fresh]

There should at least be an area where you can pull over and read the terms and conditions before your number plate has been scanned.

That would be very hard to fit in a lot of urban areas, and besides there is already a legal requirement for clear signage which these crooks try and avoid in any way they can. I hope there is a regulatory solution but everything I can think of has already been tried.

[u/supercabbageuk]

I got caught out because I paid after 5 minutes by the time I'd got the kids out of the car and into a trampoline park, signed up and paid. I tried going to the ombudsman service who eventually declared in Excels favour, I looked into it and the ombudsman board are the same people who own the parent company of Excel. They're playing judge, jury and executioner.

In the end I paid the "reduced" £70 fee on top of whatever I paid for 3 hours parking because I didn't want to risk the potential financial burden. They're just bullies, fuck them.

[u/somedave → u/[deleted]]

Seems to have double posted this comment.

[u/577564842 → u/somedave]

So true that it had to be written twice.

[u/commonsense-innit]

business is business

they dont need rules or laws that harms profits

whatever next marxists and commies under the bed