Dart Charge Issues

Mannion

OK Please go easy on me and hear me out. I believe that I did everything I could to pay for an unexpected Dart Charge crossing and I currently have a Charge Certificate issued against me to the tune of 105 pounds. I'll try and be brief and summarise the main points.
1. On a trip to the airport on 12/08/2017 for a family holiday I had to change routes 6 times to minimise horrendous traffic delays which still resulted in arriving at the airport over 2 hours later than planned. The final route change brought us onto the Dartmouth crossing.
2. By the time we realised we were on the crossing in a grid lock situation with several large trucks around it would have been impossible to turn around and if I'm honest it would have certainly meant missing the flight anyway.
3.At this stage I had never heard of a non toll booth method of payment for road use. We did notice a few signs talking about paying the Dart Charge whatever that was by midnight the following night. I remarked about 3 things at this stage. a) That's pretty vague and a novel approach but we might be liable for this although its certainly not clear and it so easily could have been. b) There was no way even with the best will in the world we would be able to make that payment securely on time. c) We would certainly try and pay as soon as possible on our return and hopefully that would be sufficient even though we weren't 100% sure we were required to.
4. I paid immediately on our return on 23/08 and fully expecting some annoying legal communications had resigned myself to thinking we may have to pay some charge although I felt it extremely unjust. I received an email a receipt in a PDF and took a screenshot when I paid. At no stage was there any information suggesting that there was an issue with my payment or any further payments required.
5. A Warning Letter with a PCN arrived a few days later dated 25/08 this stated in bold font that if I paid the original fee by 08/09 the PCN would be waived. This was also confirmed on the PCN. I was pleasantly surprised.
6. I've recently received a Charge Certificate saying that no payment has been received and that no appeal has been made. I am now due to pay 105 pounds with threats of further charge escalations and legal costs.
7. I have carried out some research and my payment is not registered against any crossing at the same time as my crossing having no payments registered against it.
Clearly speaking from some experience the database has at best been designed by a moron and at worst had deliberate loop holes and gaps designed in to generate confusion and ultimately profit.
8. I have phoned the 'help line' provided with the correspondence and received an inane read of the page description of how the system 'works' with absolutely no recognition of the fact that there are any flaws in it.
9. Even looking at the appeals procedure this scenario doesn't fall into any of the limited appeals categories.
If I were in this position again I would be forced to repeat exactly the same steps other than for the fact I would know about the conditions conveniently not included in the PCN correspondence.

Please excuse the typing. Mobile phone and big fingers.
I will ready myself for the responses helpful and otherwise. Thankyou for your time reading this anyway.

DUTR

Can you repost without all the drama?
Where you were going and what for is irrelevant, you used a toll road, pay the fee due, moan about it and move on, to me it's really that simple.

Lucky_Duck_2

I had a letter and an unimpressive photo of my car as your item 5, except it took them several months to get round to it. Had none of the problems you have experienced with getting the payment properly allocated.

waamo

Join Twitter and contact them. They are very reasonable if you use that medium.

soolin

Incidentally, it is the Dartford crossing, not Dartmouth if you were crossing the Thames. Have you paid the right charge- although I don't know if Dartmouth has any charges that you might have paid instead.

There were issues at one point with the website, but I'm on a couple of local forums and the issues seem to have cleared in the past year or so with no real reports of payments going astray if paid correctly.

You say you have a screen shot of the payment, does that definitely show payment attached to the correct registration and did the money leave your bank account?

Lucky_Duck_2

Dartmouth has two small ferrys crossing the estuary so unlikely to be there

spiro

So you knew you had to pay before midnight the day after you made the crossing, the obvious thing to do the next day was to Google Dartford Crossing and that would have got you to the page to pay the charge. You could then have paid it online and avoided all this.

Le_Kirk

spiro wrote: »

So you knew you had to pay before midnight the day after you made the crossing, the obvious thing to do the next day was to Google Dartford Crossing and that would have got you to the page to pay the charge. You could then have paid it online and avoided all this.

The signs say you can also pay by phone .............. but they helpfully don't say what the phone number is (even if you could write it down whilst driving and not all cars have passengers to assist) so I guess you would have to look it up on t'Internet and of course you have time to do that when you are already late for a flight!!

DUTR

Le_Kirk wrote: »

The signs say you can also pay by phone .............. but they helpfully don't say what the phone number is (even if you could write it down whilst driving and not all cars have passengers to assist) so I guess you would have to look it up on t'Internet and of course you have time to do that when you are already late for a flight!!

The OP wrote that he was going on a family holiday, so chances are there would have been a passenger with him, trouble with the post is that there are all sorts of reasons and excuses of why he couldn't shouldn't pay, sometimes people have to remember the world doesn't revolve around them and their episodes. The route to the airport, commute and timing should have been included into the holiday arrangements.

System

Mannion wrote: »

3.At this stage I had never heard of a non toll booth method of payment for road use. We did notice a few signs talking about paying the Dart Charge whatever that was by midnight the following night.

b) There was no way even with the best will in the world we would be able to make that payment securely on time

7. I have carried out some research and my payment is not registered against any crossing at the same time as my crossing having no payments registered against it.
Clearly speaking from some experience the database has at best been designed by a moron and at worst had deliberate loop holes and gaps designed in to generate confusion and ultimately profit.

You could have paid online using whatever free wifi you could find abroad with your mobile phone.

As for the claim of not being able to pay because you were late for the flight do you honestly expect anyone to believe that at any point in the following day you didn't have 5 minutes available to pay it?

The database works just fine. I've used it a few times since it has been live and never had an issue. I even paid for my son this summer when he had gone through it on his way to France - he just phoned me to say he'd been through it and asked if I could pay. I did that needing nothing more than the registration number of his car and I paid in advance for the return journey at the same time so he didn't have to remember to do it after a 15hr journey.

You seem to be wanting to blame them for a situation you created yourself with your belligerence and sheer bloody mindedness. Apparently even though it was signposted and you read them well enough to remark on them it is everyone else's fault but your own.

Hermione_Granger

Mannion wrote: »

We did notice a few signs talking about paying the Dart Charge whatever that was by midnight the following night. I remarked about 3 things at this stage. a) That's pretty vague and a novel approach but we might be liable for this although its certainly not clear and it so easily could have been.

I wouldn't call it vague. It's there many times in large letters:
"Pay by midnight tomorrow"