Free Traffic Legal Advice

Hi all,
Recently I was travelling to Derby and decided to park at Copeland Street car park. The parking lot was filled when I was arrived and it took me 15 minutes to find a space and a further 5 minutes to use they payment machine. I am now informed that I am being fined 100 pounds for not paying for parking on time, and on appeal it was rejected for not reading the terms and conditions stating that I had 5 minutes to pay on entry.

I think this is frankly unreasonable and as I will be passing by Derby tomorrow I will try and get some photos of the signage available, but I was wondering if you could provide some advice about where I stand legally (ie if I should just pay the PCN and be content with filing complaints about their predatory practices or take the risk of appealing it further to the IAS).

Incidentally I also note a lot of one star reviews on Google and Parkopedia about their predatory business practices - wish I had been aware of them before visiting!

(unfortunately the upload folder was full so I was unable to upload a copy of the PCN/appeal response)

Edit:
I have uploaded the PCN and appeal here below
Album: https://imgur.com/a/sgIUEm2
Images:

I will try my best to upload photos of the parking signage tomorrow.

AN appel to the IAS is an exercise in futility although others will suggest otherwise. The most likely way this will be concluded is in the ultimate dispute resolution service, the county court.

Do not pay into this scam. The charge for exceeding the 5 minutes time limit on paying even though payment in full was made is an unlawful penalty. If/when a Letter of Claim (LoC) is issued we can provide guidance on how to deal with this. In the meantime you can safely ignore all debt collector letters.

would it be possible to walk me through the standard sort of process that I would need to go through after I get a rejection from the IAS?

Once the IAS reject, it's up to Excel to take action. What will happen first is that you will get a flurry of letters from debt collectors - these are written to sound scary, but these debt collectors are ultimately powerless, and can be ignored.

If Excel wish to take the matter to court, they (or more accurately their solicitors) will likely issue a Letter of Claim. If you get such a letter, or you get a claim form from the county court, come back here promptly for advice.

In particular, I would like to avoid having any impact on my credit score as while I have the time to make it not worth their while to shake me down for money, I would also like to avoid taking unnecessary financial costs if necessary (especially as I plan to take out a mortgage at some time in the next few years).

Providing you keep on top of the process, there is essentially no risk of your credit score being impacted. Even if you were to lose in court (which doesn't happen very often), then provided you paid up promptly, the CCJ is removed from the public record, and there is nothing to impact your credit score.

The main thing to be mindful of, is if you move house before the matter is concluded, write to Excel to inform them of your new address for service.

Happy to receive a PM/email if needed.

Where possible we try to keep correspondence on the thread, rather than via private message. This allows multiple people to offer assistance, and means that others who visit the forum can read your thread and gain information that may help them in their own case.