First of all, thanks for the great forum and I am sorry that my first post is a request, it would have been nicer to have helped someone else first. In 2011, I received a parking notice from a privately owned car park. This was at st andrews retail park Hull (HU3 4EB). I initially disputed the notice by phone for the usual reasons that there is no contract and the car park is free for two hours, but also based on the sign and situation. I was only parked for about 10 mins as I popped into Wilko to get a fuse for the car. However, I had parked in a Taxi bay at the front of the car park. It doesn't look like it was part of the main car park at all and the standard Excel sign made no reference to not parking in a Taxi slot (not an official taxi rank, but a few spaces for taxis to wait), just the usual "Park within authorised bays, do not park to cause an obstruction, or obstruct other vehicles, entrances, exits, pedestrian walkways, doorways, emergency exits or emergency vehicle access." I disputed this by phone and then unfortunately ignored letters sent (which I have not kept all of them). I don't think that the sign is clear for parking in a taxi slot and there were no taxis. Also, it was a distress purchase. Now I have received a Claim Form (claimant Excel Parking) which appears to be from the County Court Business Centre (Northampton NN1 2LH). Also a letter from BW Legal titles Notice of County Court Claim Issued saying they have issued legal proceedings as I have failed to make a payment. The claim is £270 (£100 +£41.92 interest, court fees £25, Solicitors costs £104). They say they may enter a CCJ against me if I do not contact them or reply to the court claim. I am not sure what to do next. I don't want to go to court and this looks official. Does this mean that I already have a court claim against me? Any help appreciated and I am more than happy to donate to the site for any advice received. I hope that I have given enough information.

I parked in West Quay Retail park today 16/10/14 at 11:10. as I intended to shop at Maplin that is situated at this place. I parked right under the sign where the parking regulations where stated tho I couldnt read the small print as the sign is about 12 feet high and i wear varifocal glasses meaning i have to look through the bottom of them to read small text and I could not bend my neck far enough back to do this because of the height of the sign. in large print it clearly states 1 hour maximum stay with no return within 2 hours. I walked out of the car park at the back looking for a cash point and and then around the front into maplin, left to do more shopping in the town as I was well within the 1 hour, on returning to my car at 11:45 i had been issued a ticket with a time of 11:33 with reason for issue being Driver/passengers observed leaving site! The issuer was as I noticed the ticket issuing a ticket to another car, I informed him i had shopped at Maplin and showed him proof. he refused to cancel the ticket and actually informed me he knows of other issuers that have been sacked for such actions. I had misplaced my receipt from Maplin so went back to see if I could have a copy but purchased another item STILL WITHIN my 1 hour and returned to my car. At this point the issuer returned to me saying he had phoned his boss and I was instructed to follow PART 2 of my ticket. This is the story thus far. on returning home I phoned Maplin and informed them of the ticket saying I will no longer be shopping there if tickets are issued in such a manner. I dont believe I should have been given a ticket for the following reasons, I could not read all of the sign, I shopped on site and was well within the 1 hour!! Do I stand a chance of winning if I appeal? I have uploaded a photo of the sign from the car park. ticket was issued by UK CPS Ltd

Good afternoon, I have been browsing complaints about Harlands and Xercise4less cancellations, as my wife and I have ongoing issues with them now. We were both enrolled as members back in 2014, as Corporate members on a rolling contract, due to the nature of our circumstances changing (her working most nights when I am at home, and me needing to be at home for childcare) we decided that we would cancel the gym membership as neither of us had been there for months. My wife called our gym, to cancel our membership with them, for them to tell her she had to do this online. She told me she had cancelled back in December 2015, but she can't remember ever getting an email confirmation from them. We then found out they had taken December payments, which we expected, but they then took another payment out in January, which should never have been taken. She then cancelled the direct debit, as we did not trust them not to take further payments. We received a letter about my membership the other week, demanding admin charges and reinstatement of my direct debit. This letter felt rather rude and abrupt, so me being me decided to reply to it as follows: Good evening, Obviously the direct debit has been cancelled due to the fact that I no longer wish to be a member of the gym chain. Therefore I will NOT be ringing you immediately to reinstate my direct debit. The gym no longer is able to cater to my needs, therefore I cancelled mine and my wife's membership there several weeks ago! Let me make this clear, the standard letter you send out, is in my opinion rude and abrupt, and threatening me with an admin fee - really?? Here it is, I will make my position clear and also advise you that if you feel the need to send me any further correspondence, then you will incur charges from me for my time. I am NOT a member of the gym anymore, and neither is my wife. The charges will be: For responding via letter to one of your letters £50 For having to call in to you £30 for the first 5 minutes, and £5 per minute thereafter (this includes been put on hold), and if one of your operatives hangs up on me then a penalty £100 will be charged For having to email you £25 For having to open correspondence from you £40 per letter Upon your receipt of this email, I expect the matter to be closed, and no further contact to be made by you, to me. They then replied back stating that as they had not entered into any contract with me, my charges would not be paid by them. I replied back stating that by replying to my email they were indeed accepting my Terms and Conditions clearly set out. I also tried to contact Xercise4less by Facebook, and they were not interested at all. My wife then got a letter about her membership, so again I emailed Harlands; Good evening Harlands Representative, Yet again I receive a letter from yourselves demanding money from me. I still have not received my cheque for £25 from an email dated 11 days ago. Therefore as stated in my email, a further £100 has been levied against you. This brings the total that you owe me to £150. By replying to my email, where I stated my terms and conditions of charges I would levy against you, you have accepted those terms and conditions. I suggest that you sort out my cheque for £150, as in 7 days you will be liable for a further £100 late payment fee, and every further week thereafter another £100. My complaint is being dealt with my Xercise4Less, so to incur no further charges, I suggest you do not contact me by email, letter, phone or in any other format. The fact of the matter is that you still owe me for my time that I have charged to you, and also a late payment fee. Sort this out sooner rather than later, or you will find you are charged a lot more... Have a nice day -----Original Message----- From: ICS Customer Service Sent: 12 February 2016 14:58 Subject: RE: RE: Your ref ****** Dear Mr ....... We thank you for your email. As we stated in our previous reply we have not entered in to a contractual agreement with yourself therefore we cannot be held to the charges you are attempting to levy against us. As Xercise 4 Less deal with all cancellations please contact them directly as there is nothing further we can do. For all Enquiries Call Harlands Office hours: Monday to Friday, 9am - 5pm Yours sincerely, Justin Harlands These guys really do not want to accept that we cancelled the way we were told to, my question is, where do I go from here as I am expecting further letters etc ?

Have read the other threads on site and else where about this car park. I read the parking notices like others and to be fair if it says for site users I missed that. The Biggest part says 1 hr only. Came back in less than 20 min and a ticket saying I'd been observed leaving the site, not sure how but I'm guessing there using CCTV as there were about 5 or 6 cars ticketed. Pay £100 fine but only £60 for paying quick. Well not much chance of that. There were only 10 cars in around a 100 space car park. Don't see that I have caused any inconvenience or affected trade for Staples and Maplin's which are the only shops on site; so I intend to just ignore it and not even appeal. Anybody think I'm misguided????? Comments appreciated.

Hi guys, apologies if this seems like a similar thread; please just link me a thread that has the same information that I need and I'll continue searching either-way. I've an issue with Harlands group about me freezing my membership during the Christmas period from the 19th of December until the 19th of February. I am 21, a student in Hull and I started my contract in October (paying on the 23rd every month). So 1 - I froze my contract on the 19th of December, swift process of me showing my ID and stating the dates I wanted the account to be frozen. 2 - I was not told about a 14-day-notice-period of having to pay the next month's bill if account is frozen within 14-days before the monthly payment is taken. 3 - I phoned Xcersice4less, and after them apologizing & explaining the 14-day notice period, they said I should expect £9.99 charge in the next few days between the 23rd until the end of the month. 4 - I deposited a tenner into the bank + £6 that the bank charged me for the previous rejected £9.99 5 - A charge of £34.99 was made on the 23rd, instead of the £9.99 fee expected which was rejected by my bank (as I only put in £16) 6 - I called Harlands and e-mailed them enquiring the situation; they said the payment will be returned to my bank (The statement shows the money being taken and then returned). 7 - I come back to hull to find out they are asking for £99+ in admin-fees - calling them once more - They claim they were never informed of my contract being frozen by the gym and these are charges for the months as well as administration. They are however willing to wipe it clean if the gym tells them this. 8 - I go to the Gym and speak to one operative, He offers me to pay £39.99 to restart my membership, even though the fault lies between Harlands and xcersice4less. He basically said, since I didn't pay December's charge, my account wasn't frozen at all. But I wasn't told this via the phone or by e-mail. Surely they should tell me if my account has not been frozen when I had submitted what I needed to submit. Ideally, I'd like to continue my membership without having to pay any admin fees and from the month that I started originally. I'm going to see the manager or person in charge of all this tomorrow. Any advice or what are my options if any? I feel I'm being wronged. Thank you immensely in advance.

Hi, Along with many others in this forum, I am experiencing trouble with the Harlands Group regarding payment and it has got to the point now where the payments have become a very serious problem. Before ringing them to put across what i feel is a very valid argument, I thought I would share my predicament on here for others to read who may have a better insight into the legalities of the issue. I was a member of Xercise4less in hull at the beginning of the year, whilst i was studying at university there. However, when my course finished in June, i moved back home and so wanted to cancel my subscription. I went to their website to find the best course of action, to which i found in their FAQ section that i should: It’s very simple, if you have fulfilled your commitment to the membership you have joined on, then simply place your 30 day cancellation notice in writing to the relevant club. After having problems with a previous gym a few years previously, I was pretty impressed that they hinted to no cancellation fee and so followed their instructions on quitting, sending them the following email and cancelling my direct debit: To: xercise4less@ harlandsgroup.co.uk Subject: Subscription cancellation Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 17:31:15 +0000 Hi there, This is just a courtesy email, as suggested on your website, to let you know that i have cancelled my direct debit with your gym. I have returned home after being at university in Hull and no longer require a gym membership. My details are given below: Name: (edited out) Postcode whilst at university: (edited out) Kindest regards, Tom Two days later i received a phone call from a member of xercise4less stating that i had cancelled my direct debit and she was going to help me reset it. I told her that I had moved home and was cancelling and that I had sent an email confirming this intention. Moreover, because I had cancelled my direct debit on the same day as paying for my June's payment, this had qualified me for the 30 days notice and that I had now left. She told me to hold on, before confirming to me that I had quit and that she would be happy to help me resign if i chose to do so in the future. I then rang a few days after to make sure this was confirmed, as i've said previously, i've had trouble with gyms regarding this issue before. It was confirmed I had indeed cancelled my membership. A week later, my girlfriend quit, although she was asked to pay a cancellation fee, and she also asked for confirmation that my sub had been cancelled, which they said it was. At this point, I was feeling pretty secure that my subscription had been terminated, after having 3 confirmations on separate occasions as well as sending my intentions to them via email. But it never is as simple as that!!! I've not heard anything all summer, no emails, no letters, nothing. However, two days ago i received an email from CRS debt collectors claiming i now owe £242!!!! £104 would be there charge, as well as the £140 odd pound i owe the gym!! Now i don't claim to know much about legal issues and consumer rights, but surely this is more than 3 gym members being far too incompetent to do their job properly, as well as having Harlands Group failing to notify me of this problem? What makes this even more disgusting is the £142 they're charging for 4 months subscription, which was priced at £9.99 whilst I was there.. even if this was an issue, i should only owe £40 plus admin costs.. As you can imagine, being only 22 and just out of university, this is a very daunting problem and, although I feel i am completely in the right, I know they wont just roll over on the phone and give up such a large amount of money. If any of you can help me with this, or offer any advice on what i should do, it would be greatly appreciated. I want to make sure my argument is solid before i ring them up. I look forward to your responses, Regards, Tom