Congestion Charge 24hr window - please help break this down for me!

John_G_Jones

steedoc wrote: »

Because that gives you time to get home, turn on the computer and tap in your credit card? duh

You paid yet then, or are you going to keep whining on until you lose the reduced price?

Please remember, your banger means you will probably have to pay the pollution charge next time you come down.

Dean000000

Though for someone that claims that the 30 hours he had to pay was insufficient, he’s made a good go at returning back to this thread on a regular basis.

Hopefully there are no other pending charges / commitments you are neglecting in favour of posting here?

Spent half of that £80 I saved this afternoon op!. Carluccios, lamb ragu rigatoni, couple of drinks for me and a mate. Was delightful.

Take care xxx

unforeseen

Dean000000 wrote: »

Spent half of that £80 I saved this afternoon op!. Carluccios, lamb ragu rigatoni, couple of drinks for me and a mate. Was delightful.

Take care xxx

Lamb ragu rigatoni and drinks for 2 for £40. Your 'avin a larf!

AdrianC

unforeseen wrote: »

Lamb ragu rigatoni and drinks for 2 for £40. Your 'avin a larf!

£15 for the dish, "couple of drinks for me and a mate" could be one beer or glass of wine each. So, yep, eminently possible, even before any discounts or offers.

Dean000000

dry January, so it was actually 1nr coke & 1nr tea for me and one bottle of sparking water for the mate.


They had the chicken Milanese.


They were very grateful for me paying for their food & drink, but after explaining I was still £40 up resultant of paying my C charge wihin the permitted timescales they understood and thanked me.

Aylesbury_Duck

Dean000000 wrote: »

dry January, so it was actually 1nr coke & 1nr tea for me and one bottle of sparking water for the mate.


They had the chicken Milanese.


They were very grateful for me paying for their food & drink, but after explaining I was still £40 up resultant of paying my C charge wihin the permitted timescales they understood and thanked me.

Did you pay before you left the restaurant or did you go home, leave it a few days then try to pay online?

Dean000000

No I paid there and then, whilst it was still in my mind.

Had I have deferred it, it may have slipped my memory.....

Even worse, carluccios would have been out of pocket and may have had to spread my misgivings amongst the other customers - which really wouldnt have been fair to the vast majority....

[Deleted User]

Glad to see the thread has finally taken a sensible direction.

Did you enjoy the meal?

Dean000000

treboeth wrote: »

Glad to see the thread has finally taken a sensible direction.

Did you enjoy the meal?

It was delicious mate, and effectively free... so winning all round.

Thank you for asking

steedoc

well everyone, I think I am ready to sum up. I want to thank you all for input. I haven't actually paid yet, I was hoping one of you would pay it for me seeing as you all love the congestion charge so much, that's why I posted the scan. But nevermind! I am going to pay at the reduced rate because I don't want a bill for £240 hanging over me. But I will also be writing to the complaints department in Darlington and then potentially to the tribunal.

This is what we have learned...

i) people have immense trouble understanding my basic objection to my penalty, evidenced by the large quantity of chaff I have had to dodge throughout the discussion.

To clarify:
-I do not object to paying a congestion charge
-The CZ signage is visible and clearly shows when you are entering the zone
-I do not object to paying the charge via the internet, using a PC or smartphone
-I do not object to making the payment in a timely manner, either on the day of entering the zone or shortly after.
-There is no equivalence between using a zone where there is an understanding that one will pay 'after the fact', and charges to do with parking or dining in Carlucio's

(50% of this thread has been answers to questions I didn't ask, relating to the five points above)

ii) The substantive part of my complaint is that there is no good reason for TfL to impose a short time window to pay the congestion charge other than to catch out first-time users (especially from the provinces) and reap more revenues from PCNs.

The only poster who has come close to addressing the issue is Adrian, who hypothesized that the window has to set this tight as otherwise people would forget. This is the single only piece of logic generated back to me throughout the discussion, so thanks Adrian. The hypothesis is that people might forget to pay, therefore we have to impose a tight window of 24hrs.

What can I say, this is so senseless and brainless I could write a volume of philosophy about why this doesn't constitute an answer. But nevertheless it is an attempt to deal with the issue, and again I thank Adrian!

I have demonstrated that for first-time users of the system, seeing as there is no logical reason to assume a tight time window (30hrs), and because the payment window is not publicised on the signs or on the congestion charge website landing page, this PCN is not so much a penalty charge, but a BLANKET charge for hundreds and thousands of motorists every year, who are acting reasonably.

Further, because no good reason for the short payment window has been provided, one has to assume that TfL is acting in bad faith, imposing a tight window for the sole purpose of generating revenue from PCNs.

Actually, there was one other attempt at answering my question, and that was that 'they have to set a limit somewhere', as if they've just arbitrarily chosen 30 hours. Ahhhh.

Thanks and see you out there