Forgot to pay Dartford Crossing charge

Bigwheels1111

My mate did not pay and the phone line was not helpful.

But if your first time, as was my friends.

When the fine turns up then give the fines teams a call.

They let him pay the £2.50 charge. No fine on top.

mdann52

jsoetaert said:

I appealed saying that their term exceeded the acceptable 28days set out in the gov guidelines and therefore could hardly hold my late payment against me. 

Was this a lease or rental car by any chance?

MattHR

jsoetaert said:

had a PCN sent 2 days ago. It was for a late payment (2 weeks instead of 24Hours) over 3 months ago. I appealed saying that their term exceeded the acceptable 28days set out in the gov guidelines and therefore could hardly hold my late payment against me. they rejected my claim but reduced the amount to £2.50 (the price of the crossing, how petty!) and upon enquiring, I can use the late payment for a future crossing. all good. I do wonder however why it takes over 3 months to send a PCN but replying to appeals just a few hours. I reckon they haven't got a leg to stand on with their PCNs but are just trying. The replies to appeals are probably by default waivers.

This post gave me a lot of hope as I was in a similar situation: I'd paid 9 days after crossing and they took 90 to issue the PCN. They've rejected it with the following rationale:

Reason for rejection

You told us that you paid for these crossing(s) on 29/08/2023. This payment was not made

until after midnight on the day following your crossing. In accordance with Regulation 8 of the

A282 Trunk Road (Dartford-Thurrock Crossing Charging Scheme) Order 2013, charges

should be paid in full before midnight on the day immediately following the day on which that

charge was imposed.

In your representation you also assert that the penalty charge notice (PCN) we issued to you

was received so late as to render it invalid. The Road User Charging Scheme (Penalty

Charges, Adjudication and Enforcement) (England) user Regulations 2013 provides the legal

framework by which PCNs are issued. The legislation does not specify any timescales

between a contravention and the serving of a PCN. The PCN we issued to you contains all

the required information as prescribed in the legislation, and adheres to the requirements of

the Interpretation Act 1978 (part 7) for serving notices by post.

This means we cannot accept the grounds (reasons) you gave us for representation, so this

letter is issued as a formal Notice of Rejection.

I'm probably going to pay and try to forget about it, though they are charging me for both ways so it's going to hurt.

In case any readers are considering an appeal against this kind of extortion but are concerned that their fines will increase from £37.50 to £72.50, it's worth mentioning that my 'date of service' has been changed to today's date. So even though it was not fruitful I haven't lost anything by trying to resist it.