Dartford Crossing Scam

Suzy_1

Hi Beautiful people 

I need advice on how to approach this so here it goes. 

I used the Dartford Crossing at the end of September 2 weeks ago. I went on Google to pay the crossing charge and paid £6 each way. 

Today I’ve received a PCN alleging that it wasn’t paid. So I went on their gov website and made a representation and sent the bank statement for the payment and the email copy I’ve received when I paid. 

I’ve realised something was not right when I read that it should have been £2.50 not £6 each way. As it was my first time using the crossing I didn’t know how much it should’ve been. Then went on Google and searched why it was that price I paid, guess what, all these articles came up about the Dartford Crossing scams. I was horrified. 

Now what do I do?

A) Do I write them an email explaining what happened?

Do I wait until they’ve replied and see what they say?

C) Or pay then appeal again

This is so frustrating. I know it’s only £12 but nevertheless these scammers are getting away with a lot. 

Thank you all in advance. 

Fruitcake

Since we specialise in parking charges from unregulated private parking companies here on MSE, you would be better taking this over to our friends on pepipoo.com as they are the experts in your filed.

You will need to sign up on pepipoo with a non-hotmail email address, read the FAQs, then post your query.

Half_way

They are usually ok if you make a mistake for first time users of the crossing.
What was the website that charges you £6?

DullGreyGuy

Fruitcake said:

Since we specialise in parking charges from unregulated private parking companies here on MSE, you would be better taking this over to our friends on pepipoo.com as they are the experts in your filed.

Given the immediate close down of anyone trying to discuss anything other than private parking charges shouldnt the sub-forum be renamed?

Fruitcake

DullGreyGuy said:

Fruitcake said:

Since we specialise in parking charges from unregulated private parking companies here on MSE, you would be better taking this over to our friends on pepipoo.com as they are the experts in your filed.

Given the immediate close down of anyone trying to discuss anything other than private parking charges shouldnt the sub-forum be renamed?

Posters have no control over the forum titles.
The regulars here have been trying to get MSE Towers to change the parking forum renamed for years to no avail. 

Coupon-mad

DullGreyGuy said:

Fruitcake said:

Since we specialise in parking charges from unregulated private parking companies here on MSE, you would be better taking this over to our friends on pepipoo.com as they are the experts in your filed.

Given the immediate close down of anyone trying to discuss anything other than private parking charges shouldnt the sub-forum be renamed?

I don't close people's queries down. Myself and a couple of others often answer Council PCN queries here. Happy to do so.

And signposting to a more relevant specialist forum for some queries is good. For example, with bailiff queries we signpost to bailiffadviceonline. 

That doesn't mean we aren't helping.  Doesn't mean we are closing people's horizons/chances down, quite the opposite.

I DON'T think the forum needs changing and am happy to chip in on Council cases, but pepipoo have more specialists in that area, that's all.

And this isn't about parking, it's a niche Dartford Crossing scam query about which we don't have experience.

Better that we say that, than guess.

DullGreyGuy

Coupon-mad said:
And this isn't about parking, it's a niche Dartford Crossing scam query about which we don't have experience.

Its about a motoring fine though... the section, a subset of Motoring and is about parking tickets, fines and parking... the name would be more helpfully be written as fines, parking and parking tickets else someone could missunderstand it to be parking tickets, parking fines and parking but that isnt the correct grammatical reading and should be evident by the list ending with "parking" as a discrete item.

The "scam" aspect is easy to deal with, its a chargeback to the payment card as the website has delivered the service it promised... havent seen the particular site the OP used but most technically speaking are poor value services rather than actually scams but clearly in this instance they havent paid up.

The OP is therefore left with the issue of the fine for non-payment which the title of this subforum suggests it would cover as a motoring fine but the first response, as on most of these, is go elsewhere.

Fruitcake

If we could change the name of this forum we would, but it is not within our gift.
If you feel it should be changed then you could contact the MSE admin team yourself. I have tried several times but have not succeeded. Indeed, I never even got a response.

Suzy_1

Half_way said:

They are usually ok if you make a mistake for first time users of the crossing.
What was the website that charges you £6?

It looked exactly like gov.uk/ dartcharge , when you googled that was the first website came on top. They’ve now removed it. It’s no longer there but there are several others e.i. dartfordcrossingpayment etc. 

Thanks. X

Suzy_1

Coupon-mad said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Fruitcake said:

Since we specialise in parking charges from unregulated private parking companies here on MSE, you would be better taking this over to our friends on pepipoo.com as they are the experts in your filed.

Given the immediate close down of anyone trying to discuss anything other than private parking charges shouldnt the sub-forum be renamed?

I don't close people's queries down. Myself and a couple of others often answer Council PCN queries here. Happy to do so.

And signposting to a more relevant specialist forum for some queries is good. For example, with bailiff queries we signpost to bailiffadviceonline. 

That doesn't mean we aren't helping.  Doesn't mean we are closing people's horizons/chances down, quite the opposite.

I DON'T think the forum needs changing and am happy to chip in on Council cases, but pepipoo have more specialists in that area, that's all.

And this isn't about parking, it's a niche Dartford Crossing scam query about which we don't have experience.

Better that we say that, than guess.

Thank you. I just need an advice regarding what you would do in these circumstances. I will check Pepipoo. 

Can I just say that I find this forum more user friendly and more helpful. Also I’ve had help regarding Private parking issues before from here therefore you were the first people I thought of asking. 

Thank you. 

Half_way

The name of the forum was recently debated, and while it primarily deals with private charges , it can assist with others either directly or by way of a referral.

 The overall name does help as it acts as a hook to bring people to help .

As for the Dart charge...

 For a first time mistake they have a record of being helpful ( as opposed to how the private parking world works)

The crossing itself is badly signed especially if you dont know about it, and or have never had the misfortune to drive in an area such as a congestion charge where the red C signs are unfamiliar - lets face it there are plenty of odd signs around some of which are not for the general motorist, but maintenance teams/rescue teams etc.

 The Signs stating Dart charge visit us online before midnight tomorrow are also / can be confusing for those who are making the exciting trip over the bridge, or through the tunnels for the first time ( odds on those first timers will be travelling south over the bridge as opposed to north through one of the tunnels and sitting in traffic from Kent/Essex )

 One thing i have noticed in the last few years though is a sign with the charges on

So advice would be to get in touch with them, provide evidence that you did pay ( receipts emails etc) all be it unknowingly to a scam site and if its a first time they should let you off, although you may need to pay the £2.50 per crossing fee.

There are a lot of fake government websites out there that will either charge you for what should be a free service, or overcharge you - always check before taking the plunge see how much it should cost or if there is a charge , search engine sites can be fooled into showing fake sites some of which will do worse than rip you oiff.

a government site will have dot gov dot uk in the address, sometimes followed by a /

For example this is the REAL dart charge site https://www.gov.uk/pay-dartford-crossing-charge where you can see the dot gov dot uk in the address followed by a slash

This is a FAKE CON dart charge site ( active at time of posting) https://www.dartfordcrossingcharges.co.uk/  No dot gov dot UK

 the real site charges £2.50 the fake one in this case charges £4.00

 the payment for the fake site goes to a card handler called stripe, who are legit, and may be able to ehlp get the fake site shut off - only problem is once one scam site goes another soon pops up