ULEZ Penalty Scam

colmad

Can you please advise or help on a matters we are getting absolutely nowhere?

My son, who is a local Painter and decorator here in Southport, received an ULEZ penalty notice some weeks ago saying that he owed a penalty as he driven through the ULEZ zone in a vehicle that should not do so. My son has never driven in London and has not visited London for many years. His vehicle was, and still is, off the road for major repairs and has been off the road for many months. However it was returned to my son late last week and delivered to his home.

On Monday he came out to find that the van had been clamped and there was a notice pinned to the windscreen. On opening it he was informed that to release the clamp and avoid the van being confiscated and towed away, he would have to pay £700 there and then, or at the latest the following day. He explained to the driver/bailiff that he had contacted the ULEZ office and sent an explanation to challenge the penalty but was told that as they had been instructed to recover the £700 or take the vehicle, there was nothing he could do.

When my son showed the driver the image in the penalty notice the diver agreed that the van was not my son's, as it had different wheels and no roof rack, which my son's vehicle has. However, the driver said there was nothing he could do as he had to car on instructions, The driver also said that he could see that there had been another offence using the same van and false number plates and that he should expect another penalty notice very soon. He also said he was doing this type of job for ULEZ several times a week and that his colleagues were doing the same throughout the country. He then left and said he would come back the following day for either the £700 or to take the van.

To help my son, I paid the £700 to the bailiffs company and we were instructed to contact various bodies to be sure that no further offences that were committed would end up being sent to my son. However almost every contact he has tried to sort things out with has been uninterested, evasive or very unhelpful, so there is no way that we can get back the £700 at this moment in time.

He contacted the Metropolitan Police for a crime number, which he obtained, but was told on the phone that using cloned plates was not a criminal offence, (which amazes me) and as it was a civil case they could not help.

So we are now completely in limbo with no way we can get back the £700 we were told to pay, even though my son is a completely innocent party in this. To add insult to injury we have been old that out of the £700 there will be a £112 deduction to pay for the bailiff's callout expenses.

This is a complete injustice and we, like many, many other people it seems, are having to pay out massive fines for something we did not do. And even if we manage to get the money back it will be less a substantial amount, £112, again for something we did not do.

The contact bodies that we were given to help us retrieve the money paid out and to stop further fines coming through are each telling us that we should be contacting the other bodies. All of them are shifting the blame and are no help at all. So we cannot find a way stop the second offence that is in the pipeline coming out, If the second offence comes through that will mean another £700 paying out and another £112 pound call out fee, (which we cannot retrieve apparently) and, of course, this could happen over and over if the driver using my son's cloned plates, does this on a regular, or even daily, basis.

If you multiply this by the number of times per week this is happening across the country then ULEZ and London City Council are making a fortune out of totally innocent people and the bailiff companies are also making a fortune. It seems the onus is on the innocent party to prove their innocence and, of course, anybody involved that we have contacted are unhelpful as can be.

I have tried messaging Transport For London via their website, their Twitter or X account, their Facebook page and their Instagram page but have heard nothing. My sons has spent hours and hours on the hone as we are getting no help at all.

I wonder if anyone else has been in the same situation and how they resolved it.

daveyjp

"he had contacted the ULEZ office and sent an explanation to challenge".

And how did that resolve itself?  They either accepted the challenge or they didn't.

Mildly_Miffed

Where's the "scam"?

Your son's reg was photographed entering the ULEZ.

He believes it to have been a clone.

He didn't raise anything with TfL or their agents until matters had escalated to debt collection and clamping, even though several letters will have been posted to the registered keeper over the months before this point was reached.

Nobody is going to deal with you on this - it is your son's issue to resolve.

Car_54

colmad said:

He contacted the Metropolitan Police for a crime number, which he obtained, but was told on the phone that using cloned plates was not a criminal offence, (which amazes me) and as it was a civil case they could not help.

You're right to be amazed. It is a criminal offence not to display a vehicle's registration mark [Vehicle Excise and Registration Act 1994, s42], or to hide or obscure the number [s43].

Since the purpose was to avoid paying a ULEZ charge, it was also fraud, which is considerably more serious. If (presumably) it was also to avoid speeding charges, it was perverting the course of justice too.

cw8825

colmad said:

Can you please advise or help on a matters we are getting absolutely nowhere?

My son, who is a local Painter and decorator here in Southport, received an ULEZ penalty notice some weeks ago saying that he owed a penalty as he driven through the ULEZ zone in a vehicle that should not do so. My son has never driven in London and has not visited London for many years. His vehicle was, and still is, off the road for major repairs and has been off the road for many months. However it was returned to my son late last week and delivered to his home.

On Monday he came out to find that the van had been clamped and there was a notice pinned to the windscreen. On opening it he was informed that to release the clamp and avoid the van being confiscated and towed away, he would have to pay £700 there and then, or at the latest the following day. He explained to the driver/bailiff that he had contacted the ULEZ office and sent an explanation to challenge the penalty but was told that as they had been instructed to recover the £700 or take the vehicle, there was nothing he could do.

When my son showed the driver the image in the penalty notice the diver agreed that the van was not my son's, as it had different wheels and no roof rack, which my son's vehicle has. However, the driver said there was nothing he could do as he had to car on instructions, The driver also said that he could see that there had been another offence using the same van and false number plates and that he should expect another penalty notice very soon. He also said he was doing this type of job for ULEZ several times a week and that his colleagues were doing the same throughout the country. He then left and said he would come back the following day for either the £700 or to take the van.

To help my son, I paid the £700 to the bailiffs company and we were instructed to contact various bodies to be sure that no further offences that were committed would end up being sent to my son. However almost every contact he has tried to sort things out with has been uninterested, evasive or very unhelpful, so there is no way that we can get back the £700 at this moment in time.

He contacted the Metropolitan Police for a crime number, which he obtained, but was told on the phone that using cloned plates was not a criminal offence, (which amazes me) and as it was a civil case they could not help.

So we are now completely in limbo with no way we can get back the £700 we were told to pay, even though my son is a completely innocent party in this. To add insult to injury we have been old that out of the £700 there will be a £112 deduction to pay for the bailiff's callout expenses.

This is a complete injustice and we, like many, many other people it seems, are having to pay out massive fines for something we did not do. And even if we manage to get the money back it will be less a substantial amount, £112, again for something we did not do.

The contact bodies that we were given to help us retrieve the money paid out and to stop further fines coming through are each telling us that we should be contacting the other bodies. All of them are shifting the blame and are no help at all. So we cannot find a way stop the second offence that is in the pipeline coming out, If the second offence comes through that will mean another £700 paying out and another £112 pound call out fee, (which we cannot retrieve apparently) and, of course, this could happen over and over if the driver using my son's cloned plates, does this on a regular, or even daily, basis.

If you multiply this by the number of times per week this is happening across the country then ULEZ and London City Council are making a fortune out of totally innocent people and the bailiff companies are also making a fortune. It seems the onus is on the innocent party to prove their innocence and, of course, anybody involved that we have contacted are unhelpful as can be.

I have tried messaging Transport For London via their website, their Twitter or X account, their Facebook page and their Instagram page but have heard nothing. My sons has spent hours and hours on the hone as we are getting no help at all.

I wonder if anyone else has been in the same situation and how they resolved it.

🤔 this doesn’t sound like a scam 


Is this the whole incident or just what you have been told from your son?

The fine would have been£160. £90 if laid within 2 weeks
to get from there go the bailiffs being involved seems to be a rather large escalation. 
I struggle to see it going from a fine notice to bailiffs in the space of a ‘few weeks’

You say the vehicle was off road for months. Was this explained because it seems rather easy to prove early on it was not his vehicle driving?
has this gone to court?
Why would they clamp it and return the next day? That’s duplication of work and costs
Did he actually speak to the net? Cloned plates is definitely an offence

NBLondon

cw8825 said:

Is this the whole incident or just what you have been told from your son?

The fine would have been£160. £90 if laid within 2 weeks
to get from there go the bailiffs being involved seems to be a rather large escalation. 
I struggle to see it going from a fine notice to bailiffs in the space of a ‘few weeks’

You say the vehicle was off road for months. Was this explained because it seems rather easy to prove early on it was not his vehicle driving?
has this gone to court?
Why would they clamp it and return the next day? That’s duplication of work and costs
Did he actually speak to the net? Cloned plates is definitely an offence

This...   I had my plates cloned a while back and I challenged it as soon as I got the first penalty notice.  (Easy to disprove as the fake car wasn't even the same colour!)  So if son got the first notice and the van was off the road at that time, that was his challenge and the process would have stopped.  So either he has ignored or not received multiple notices before the bailiffs turned up.

colmad

Thanks to everyone for their comments and advice. I went onto X (Twitter) and left a message on the Transport For London account and within 10 minutes I received a call, then an apology for the difficulties we'd had getting any sense or positive help from those we had contacted. The TFL person then explained what to do next, sending him photos of my son's van, via his personal email at TFL and he promised to get the matter resolved on Monday and a refund of the £700 (without bailiff's fee deduction), and would make sure records were amended so that no further penalties were attributed to my son.

So, seemingly, it has been resolved. But a big thank you again for your comments and advice.

Iceweasel

Well done - nice to hear of a positive result.