TFL / London Congestion charge

Sandtree

pj67_2 said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

pj67_2 said:

Has anyone experienced disputes with TFL over Congestion charge bills?

To cut a long story short, I moved home in late 2020. When I sold my car (which was registered on Autopay for the Congestion charge) I forgot to cancel the autopay which automatically charges £15 to your credit card each time you enter the CC zone.

The car changed hands again last September (2021) and the vehicle went in and out of town 56 times. I've had to pay £840 to close my autopay account.

TFL have been totally unreasonable in my opinion.
I'm appealing these charges but have no confidence in them being reasonable. Their mantra so far is "computer says no".

They won't tell me the current registered owner's details (data protection) & say they haven't been charging the current owner and me at the same time.

Were you the registered keeper of the vehicle at the time of the trips into London?  As I understand it, the system doesn't charge you just because you left the autopay account unchanged, it charges the registered keeper of the vehicle.  If you haven't changed the registered keeper, even if you had closed the autopay account, you would have received the fixed penalty notices at your registered address.

No, i wasn`t the registered keeper, i had sold the car over a year previous.
Forgetting to cancel my autopay account (an oversight and an easy thing to forget) shouldn`t mean i`m either a/ paying for some chancer to go into town 56 times or b/ TFL are collecting twice*

*they deny this but how can i verify that? They then withold the current owner`s ID (who must have been getting a lot of fines now that i`m not paying it, under data protection nonsense. Protecting who exactly?

Getting a lot of fines for not paying what? You are paying their TFL fees so no fines there. 

Given the TFL charge is maximum of once per day and not per time then 56 days means that the reason it got to £840 is because you not only forgot to remove the vehicle from your account but also means you have failed to check your bank account either else this could have been stopped before it got to £840... with most accounts at least one statement will have been produced in that time so there is another lesson learnt.


Remembering that TFL is basically bankrupt why do you think they should lose the £840 for your compounded mistakes? Anything they give would be a pure gesture of goodwill which right now they really dont have the money to fund material goodwill

Chris_English

pj67_2 said:

Chris_English said:

pj67_2 said:

Has anyone experienced disputes with TFL over Congestion charge bills?

To cut a long story short, I moved home in late 2020. When I sold my car (which was registered on Autopay for the Congestion charge) I forgot to cancel the autopay which automatically charges £15 to your credit card each time you enter the CC zone.

The car changed hands again last September (2021) and the vehicle went in and out of town 56 times. I've had to pay £840 to close my autopay account.

TFL have been totally unreasonable in my opinion.
I'm appealing these charges but have no confidence in them being reasonable. Their mantra so far is "computer says no".

They won't tell me the current registered owner's details (data protection) & say they haven't been charging the current owner and me at the same time.

What's your argument for not being responsible for the payments? You set the car up on their system, you asked gthem to charge you automatically if the car entered the zone, and you set up an automatic payment to your account to ensure that you'd not get fined for fogetting to keep it in credit.

TFL have done nothing wrong, they have continued following the instructions that you agreed with them.

This isn't like a speeding fine; you're paying for that car to enter the congestion charging zone.

Blimey, who`s side are you on?
I came on here to seek some helpful advise and you sound like a TFL spokesman.
I fully intend to challenge TFL over this, they have been totally unreasonable

I’m not on anyone’s side, I’m just trying to patiently point out that TFL have done nothing wrong.

You’ve not even said why you think that you shouldn’t pay, or what outcome you are expecting here.

You just seem to want to blame someone else for something that was 100% you. Why would anyone else pay for your mistake?

lammy82

I think that TFL should have a process whereby if the vehicle has been sold and the registered keeper has changed, the previous owner who forgot to close their Autopay account can have the charges transferred to the new registered keeper. 

Assuming TFL are telling the truth in that they're not "double dipping", there is someone out there knowingly driving into the congestion charge zone and not paying for it, with no agreement between them and the OP for OP to pay for them.

Sandtree

lammy82 said:

I think that TFL should have a process whereby if the vehicle has been sold and the registered keeper has changed, the previous owner who forgot to close their Autopay account can have the charges transferred to the new registered keeper. 

Assuming TFL are telling the truth in that they're not "double dipping", there is someone out there knowingly driving into the congestion charge zone and not paying for it, with no agreement between them and the OP for OP to pay for them.

Their clause which states that if you are not the registered keeper that its your responsibility to let the keeper know you are paying for them does suggest there are circumstances where due to timing double payment is possible... though its not hard to design an IT system where this is very much the exception.

The question is why should they? Refunding old charges, doing a DVLA search for the new owner, attempting recovery is all going to add costs to TFL and they may or may not receive the funds back after all that. Why should they, and therefore really you and I given TFL has been paid tax payers money to stay afloat, pay for the OPs mistake?

Chris_English

Sandtree said:

lammy82 said:

I think that TFL should have a process whereby if the vehicle has been sold and the registered keeper has changed, the previous owner who forgot to close their Autopay account can have the charges transferred to the new registered keeper. 

Assuming TFL are telling the truth in that they're not "double dipping", there is someone out there knowingly driving into the congestion charge zone and not paying for it, with no agreement between them and the OP for OP to pay for them.

Their clause which states that if you are not the registered keeper that its your responsibility to let the keeper know you are paying for them does suggest there are circumstances where due to timing double payment is possible... though its not hard to design an IT system where this is very much the exception.

The question is why should they? Refunding old charges, doing a DVLA search for the new owner, attempting recovery is all going to add costs to TFL and they may or may not receive the funds back after all that. Why should they, and therefore really you and I given TFL has been paid tax payers money to stay afloat, pay for the OPs mistake?

And the new owner is under no obligation to pay after the event.

This is just another case of someone wanting someone else to pay for their own mistake, and it’s completely unreasonable.

Sometimes we make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes cost money. Part of being an adult is taking responsibility for these mistakes and learning from them.

Has the OP now written a check-list for the next time they sell a car, to avoid making the same mistake again? I’d bet not.

jon81uk

lammy82 said:

I think that TFL should have a process whereby if the vehicle has been sold and the registered keeper has changed, the previous owner who forgot to close their Autopay account can have the charges transferred to the new registered keeper. 

Assuming TFL are telling the truth in that they're not "double dipping", there is someone out there knowingly driving into the congestion charge zone and not paying for it, with no agreement between them and the OP for OP to pay for them.

 But how do they know it is the owner who has the autopay account in the first place? Someone might be the registered keeper of a car, but both cars in the household are on one CC autopay account managed by one person.
There are many situations where the registered keeper might not be the one paying CC.

Sandtree

Chris_English said:
Has the OP now written a check-list for the next time they sell a car, to avoid making the same mistake again? I’d bet not.

Or even started checking the CC statement let alone monitoring transactions mid cycle?

NBLondon

lammy82 said:

I think that TFL should have a process whereby if the vehicle has been sold and the registered keeper has changed, the previous owner who forgot to close their Autopay account can have the charges transferred to the new registered keeper. 

Do you reckon it happens often enough to justify TfL setting up this process?  Who's going to tell TfL the contact details of the new RK?  Maybe the person selling the car could do that.

Assuming TFL are telling the truth in that they're not "double dipping", there is someone out there knowingly driving into the congestion charge zone and not paying for it, with no agreement between them and the OP for OP to pay for them.

Yep.  That's the person who owes the OP £840 then.  How does the OP find out who that is...   Perhaps they could start with who they sold the car to?  If it was a private sale - it might be the same individual.  But if the car went to a dealer or has since been sold on - the same Data Protection barrier will be there.

Hope the OP has checked for any other autopay - Dartford Crossing perhaps?

born_again

lammy82 said:

I think that TFL should have a process whereby if the vehicle has been sold and the registered keeper has changed, the previous owner who forgot to close their Autopay account can have the charges transferred to the new registered keeper. 

And how is that going to work unless the owner of the car informs them? Which is where the Op went wrong.

Or are you expecting TFL to check all cars registered keeper details are still the same on a regular basis? Even then as someone else pointed out some people will have auto pay set up for more than one vehicle, so the registered keep er is not the person paying.

Simple answer is people need to inform TFL of any changes. Not exactly hard is it.

Sandtree

born_again said:

lammy82 said:

I think that TFL should have a process whereby if the vehicle has been sold and the registered keeper has changed, the previous owner who forgot to close their Autopay account can have the charges transferred to the new registered keeper. 

And how is that going to work unless the owner of the car informs them? Which is where the Op went wrong.

Or are you expecting TFL to check all cars registered keeper details are still the same on a regular basis? Even then as someone else pointed out some people will have auto pay set up for more than one vehicle, so the registered keep er is not the person paying.

Simple answer is people need to inform TFL of any changes. Not exactly hard is it.

I assume its proposed to be retrospective for when they receive complaints like this rather than proactive... ie if the OP can evidence they sold the car before the fees were incurred then it TFL refund, do a DVLA check on the registered keeper for the date range when the fees were incurred and then attempt recovery from the registered keeper(s) identified.

Not saying it is how it should be or as it is but its theoretically workable.