ULEZ charges in error: more than two-thirds of mine are wrong!

KeithP

The Government has told local councils not to use ANPR cameras in council run car parks because the technology isn't reliable enough.

Yet here we have a statutory authority using this exact same technology to generate a vast income.

Lotus17racer

born_again said:

Part of the problem, are all the plates that are wrongly spaced or font, have a wrong colour screw to make a letter/number look like a different one. 

Mine are entirely legal. In all respects!! So the problem actually exists.

born_again

Lotus17racer said:

born_again said:

Part of the problem, are all the plates that are wrongly spaced or font, have a wrong colour screw to make a letter/number look like a different one. 

Mine are entirely legal. In all respects!! So the problem actually exists.

I was not implying your was anything but legal. 👍👍👍Just that many others are & can lead to exactly this problem.

[Deleted User]

They should add a checksum digit to number plates. Or a checksum barcode.

Skuj

I haven’t used my car in London since the expansion of Ulez, however I was charged once in January and twice in February. They always agree it’s not my car and are willing to credit my ULEZ account or send a cheque! I think this is fraud. Taking money from my account for trips I haven’t done, but won’t put it back in to my account. They must be raking it in!

Grumpy_chap

Skuj said:

I haven’t used my car in London since the expansion of Ulez, however I was charged once in January and twice in February. They always agree it’s not my car and are willing to credit my ULEZ account or send a cheque! I think this is fraud. Taking money from my account for trips I haven’t done, but won’t put it back in to my account. They must be raking it in!

Your post is inconsistent:
How are the errors occurring?  How are they determining it is not your car?  Has you number plate been cloned?

daveyjp

Most errors are due to misreads.  I've seen one post where a private reg received a failure to pay, the photo showed part of a reg of another vehicle which just happened to be the same as the private reg.  The private reg was on a coach, the plate was on a car!

bigkeef

daveyjp said:

Most errors are due to misreads.  I've seen one post where a private reg received a failure to pay, the photo showed part of a reg of another vehicle which just happened to be the same as the private reg.  The private reg was on a coach, the plate was on a car!

Just signed up to say I have been having a similar problem.  

My plate is a personalised plate in the format A12BCD, and over the past few months I have been charged ULEZ charges when I haven't entered the zone. Checking the pictures it is always the same car: SA12BCD, so the ANPR is consistently missing the first character of the number plate.

The car in the photos is a red VW estate, mine is a blue Citroen Berlingo, so there is obviously no sort of verification taking place,  And there is absolutely nothing non-standard about his number plates either (I have checked and his car is ULEZ-compliant so he isn't deliberately trying to avoid it).

Because it is on autopay and I have got it set up as a family account for all our vehicles I hadn't noticed these erroneous charges creeping in, but it has added up to quite a bit of money over the last few months.

Spoke to TFL this morning and they couldn't have been more helpful, but she has had to pass it "up the line" so will have to wait and see how much hassle it is to get it resolved.

FedUpwithBT

We rarely travel to London, but set up an autopay account after having received a PCN for not realising we'd travelled in the zone - seemed like a good idea.  

However, in the last seven months we have received 5 incorrect charges for our standard reg vehicle.  We knew on the dates in question we were nowhere near the zone, so contacted TFL-  when a human has reviewed the camera footage they have promptly confirmed the vehicle was not ours, apparently a similar reg picked up incorrectly by the automated system. 

We have raised a query as to why the money cannot be refunded to our bank - it's taken directly from your bank, incorrectly, then you have to wait while they raise a cheque and post it to you.  We intend to raise a formal complaint on both points as although we haven't had to fight with them over the charges, it's a waste of one's time to raise the investigations and ridiculous to be out of pocket, even temporarily, for something that has nothing to do with your vehicle. 

feduptotheendofmytether

Within 2 months of opening a ulez account we've been wrongly charged over £100. Such a lot of hassle. The sending of cheques as refunds? What century are they in?