Dart Charge Issues

baza52

you could have phoned the UK and asked a friend to pay it for you. Im sure they would have waited until you got home for the £2.50

tho_2

Ah no worries. I tried to give you help with my last sentence. Tweet them. But I'm a "moron", so I'll shut up.

A moron who doesn't get fined mind. If your "so prepared" you'd have checked the traffic in advance and planned accordingly.

k3lvc

tho wrote: »

Ah no worries. I tried to give you help with my last sentence. Tweet them. But I'm a "moron", so I'll shut up.

A moron who doesn't get fined mind. If your "so prepared" you'd have checked the traffic in advance and planned accordingly.

Hadn't noticed you were a moron too :rotfl: - likewise I'm not the one with the penalty notice either

verityboo

With Dart charge you need to pay by the following evening. If not they rather generously send you a bill where on the first offence you just pay the standard fee. The letter states specifically how to pay this fee.

It sounds like the OP simply set up an account a week or 2 after the event and hoped somehow that the charge would have come from that money (even though the chrosing would not have shown on the account)

Personally I think this makes complete sense. If I bought a car and registered on our Dartcharge account I wouldn’t be very pleased if the money disappeared because of previous crossings which had not been paid for

All the OP had to do was read the letter they received or checked their account and they would have seen the money had not been taken

Mannion

@baza52
The first suggestion that actually proves to be a result of reading most of my post. I thank you for that.

you could have phoned the UK and asked a friend to pay it for you. I'm sure they would have waited until you got home for the £2.50

It would have cost significantly more to phone than to pay the charge. So reasonable to take a chance on the potential of a £35 hit. My problem is that the £35 ht was increased massively without any information warning about it.

If I were setting up a system where my primary objective was to get reasonable (and £2.50 is very reasonable) charges from the motorists willing to pay it without them incurring significant additional costs above their control - roaming charges included then I can't think of proposing less than 2 days grace as a sensible or optimum time period.

Its clear that many think that less than 2 days notice is fine for an unexpected charge and I recognise this now. I find it somewhat out of touch with most charging protocols however. I am also quite shocked that a significant percentage of posters have no issue with this. There is also a huge percentage of the population out there, however who think that such a restriction is purely aimed at boosting profits especially when it is part of an ill thought out system losing millions to foreign motorists.

Those happy with the system are entitled to their opinion as I am mine but they are not helping me progress my issue and they are missing the main point at hand regarding what happened after the warning letter. If I had had to pay the £35 alone I would have accepted it and paid it but also viewed it as unjust. So this point is ultimately irrelevant.

Mannion

k3lvc

I didn't actually call you a moron. Unless of course you are so out of touch with your online practices that you stick to your woeful web security advice. Do some reading or you will soon be significantly out of pocket.

A moron who doesn't get fined mind. If your "so prepared" you'd have checked the traffic in advance and planned accordingly.

Mahoosive assumption. If you end up delayed by a total of three hours and you make a flight you need to arrive at 3 hours early you are organised my friend. There was also no warning of these traffic issues in advance. Hence the 6 sat nav route changes which can only occur due to changing traffic conditions or didn't you read that bit.
Thanks for the Twitter comment it is appreciated.That doesn't make the other redundant pointless comments useful or insightful all of a sudden though. Credit where credit is due.

Mannion

@verity boo

It sounds like the OP simply set up an account a week or 2 after the event and hoped somehow that the charge would have come from that money (even though the chosing would not have shown on the account)

I have no idea what you mean by setting up an account. I made a payment as instructed to do so.
I followed the dart charge instructions on their web site using their system to the letter after googling the catchy name. This is all I had to go on.
I received a receipt with all the correct details anyone new to this fiasco would expect. I witnessed money leaving my bank account with information that seemed perfectly in accordance with what you would expect. I then receive a warning letter which says pay outstanding charges by a date significantly after the date that I have evidence for paying. There is NOTHING in the latter or the PCN that would suggest I have not paid for my crossing.
I think you may be making a whole host of assumptions here.

baza52

well you could have paid by phone prior to travelling. The nearest airport from dartford is at least a 20 minute drive. I appreciate you were driving but sureley someone else could have phoned?
The charge is very well publicised and is also very well signposted not to mention the signs painted on the road surface.(white C on a red circle background)

If you use the Dartford Crossing and don’t pay the Dart Charge, you’ll be liable for a £70 penalty charge sent to the address your vehicle is registered to. This’ll halve if you pay it within 28 days, but increase to £105 if you don’t pay. You’ll also have to pay the original fee.

So did you pay the fine AND the crossing fee within 28 days?

verityboo

Mannion wrote: »

@verity boo


I have no idea what you mean by setting up an account. I made a payment as instructed to do so.
I followed the dart charge instructions on their web site using their system to the letter after googling the catchy name. This is all I had to go on.
I received a receipt with all the correct details anyone new to this fiasco would expect. I witnessed money leaving my bank account with information that seemed perfectly in accordance with what you would expect. I then receive a warning letter which says pay outstanding charges by a date significantly after the date that I have evidence for paying. There is NOTHING in the latter or the PCN that would suggest I have not paid for my crossing.
I think you may be making a whole host of assumptions here.

Making no assumption. Have received one of the letters before and know how clear they are (forgot we hadn’t registered one of our cars on our account). When we received the letter I went to the specific payment page stated in the letter for such late payments, quoted the reference number in the letter and paid the standard fee.
You made a payment which would have been valid for the 24 hours or so and would not have been connected with your previous crossing
You only have yourself to blame for not reading the letter and following the instructions

Mannion

well you could have paid by phone prior to travelling

Thanks for continuing to read and reason this out. It is appreciated. There is no way this could have happened though. My original route would go nowhere near the crossing. I am unlikely to use the crossing for years if ever. Why on earth would I randomly start paying in advance for routes I don't intend to traverse? Do you suggest I also pay for any other UK chargeable routes on the 'off chance'?

The charge is very well publicised and is also very well signposted not to mention the signs painted on the road surface.(white C on a red circle background)

Not in Nottingham it isn't. Herein lies the problem the Dart-Charge system and obviously the users as well make a huge amount of assumptions regarding what other people totally disconnected from the crossing should no in advance. This is symptomatic of cowboy IT system design. No decent Business Requirements phase. It has already been established in the media that the whole project has been mishandled at every stage.

If you use the Dartford Crossing and don’t pay the Dart Charge, you’ll be liable for a £70 penalty charge sent to the address your vehicle is registered to. This’ll halve if you pay it within 28 days, but increase to £105 if you don’t pay. You’ll also have to pay the original fee.

I paid the initial £2.50 fee at the first opportunity within the UK which was always my intent. the first correspondence said that only had to pay the initial crossing fee by an extended date approximately 2 weeks in the future. All details are included in the initial post. Now I'm not sure who would pay when all the evidence they have available to them, which is quite substantial, points to the fact that they have already paid.

Its worth pointing out that to be clear absolutely no one would intentionally avoid paying £2.50 when there is a potential £35 or £70 fine. The £2.50 is totally reasonable. I would probably be happy to pay more if I'm 100% honest.