ULEZ unfair charges

iceangel8

I think this day and age if someone tries to register a car that's already registered an email should alert the previous owner to the fact then I would have realized.  But to leave it when charges have built up for a month and a month in advance before notifying me is ludicrous.  I know I made a stupid mistake but who remembers t&c from five years ago 

iceangel8

Times article she got her money back when she appealed why can't I 

Iam writing to you on behalf of my girlfriend, Sally, who is having some extremely frustrating dealings with Transport for London (TfL).

Sally lives in Essex, but to visit me where I live in Greenwich she has to drive within the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez). She used to drive an old Mercedes that was not Ulez-compliant and, as she didn’t want to forget to pay, she set up Auto Pay through her TfL account so that when she drove into the zone she was automatically charged.

She then sold her Mercedes last April to buy a Ulez-compliant car. The DVLA has confirmed that she is no longer the registered keeper of the Mercedes.

Fast-forward to September when Sally noticed that TfL had taken £690 from her bank account. She soon discovered that she was being charged daily Ulez and congestion fees for the car she had sold five months earlier. She doesn’t have to pay anything to drive her new car in the Ulez, so she forgot to update her account. She is a busy working mum who is juggling a three-hour daily commute and a full-time job, so this was a lapse of memory.

She immediately removed the car from her Ulez account and asked TfL to refund the £690, enclosing evidence from the DVLA to prove that she no longer owns the vehicle. But despite repeatedly chasing TfL about her appeal, it has not reimbursed her.

TfL then started pursuing her for another £200 in charges and has now passed this £200 to a debt collection agency. She has never experienced anything like this and is finding it really stressful.

When she called TfL, she was advised to pay the £200 so she can appeal afterwards.

She began to worry that someone would turn up on her doorstep while she is at work and either scare her teenage daughter or clamp her new car, so she paid the debt collector and is now out of pocket to the tune of £890. Sally is a hard-working mum and while she is very independent, the loss of this money has had a massive impact on her.

I am outraged by the way TfL has handled this. It seems intent on pursuing the path of least resistance instead of chasing the new registered keeper, whoever that may be. For all we know they could have paid the charges too, meaning TfL has been paid twice.

Simon, Greenwich

• A criminal cloned my number plate and racked up £260 in fines

Katherine Denham writes

How awful that Sally has been living in fear of her car being clamped or a knock on the door from bailiffs. She had gone out of her way to avoid Ulez charges by buying another car, making this £890 bill particularly painful.

TfL told me that it is the motorist’s responsibility to update their account after selling or buying a car. The same car can’t be registered to two TfL accounts, so until Sally removed the Mercedes, the new driver wouldn’t be able to add it to their own account. It’s also possible to pay the daily charge through TfL’s website, but when I asked if it would ever take two payments for the same car, it said it wouldn’t under any circumstances.

Sally was charged £12.50 a day for the Ulez zone and £15 a day for going through the congestion zone in central London. All these fees added up to £690, plus an extra £12.50 in June, although Sally hadn’t noticed that smaller payment.
TfL’s auto pay system bundles the daily charges into a single payment each month, so the bill that Sally got in September related to charges incurred in August. By the time she removed the car from her account in September, TfL hadn’t yet billed her for the charges incurred so far that month — another £200. She had also stopped the automatic payments, which is why TfL and its debt collector chased her for this money even after she removed the car from her account.

I thought it was unfair of TfL to keep chasing Sally while she was awaiting the verdict from her appeal and it agreed that the case should have been put on hold.

It said: “We apologise for any distress this has caused. All charges were correctly issued to the vehicle on her Auto Pay account. It is the responsibility of the account holder to remove any vehicles from their account and we urge all drivers to promptly remove any vehicle that they are no longer responsible for.”

Thankfully, TfL has decided to refund all the daily charges and the money she paid to the debt collector, giving her £902.50. She said: “I can’t thank you enough for helping me. This situation was overwhelming, especially when no one seemed to be listening. I am thankful that my lovely boyfriend recognised the injustice and wrote to you

flaneurs_lobster

iceangel8 said:

  I know I made a stupid mistake but who remembers t&c from five years ago 

Not many people will remember T&Cs from last week let alone five years ago. Many people do, however, check the active Direct Debits on their account(s) on a regular basis (say monthly) to make sure everything is still relevant.

LightFlare

Sounds like in the quoted article TfL refunded as a gesture of goodwill

They have decided in your case for whatever reason not to.

iceangel8

flaneurs_lobster said:

iceangel8 said:

  I know I made a stupid mistake but who remembers t&c from five years ago 

Not many people will remember T&Cs from last week let alone five years ago. Many people do, however, check the active Direct Debits on their account(s) on a regular basis (say monthly) to make sure everything is still relevant.

Even if I cancelled the direct debit I still have  to pay.  I have another outstanding payment of £70 for the month of October.  All I'm asking is that they don't invoice a month after the charges and let me know after a week of charges then I would have deregistered 

flaneurs_lobster

LightFlare said:

They have decided in your case for whatever reason not to.

Not called Sally or not having a "lovely boyfriend" called Simon?

iceangel8

flaneurs_lobster said:

LightFlare said:

They have decided in your case for whatever reason not to.

Not called Sally or not having a "lovely boyfriend" called Simon?

😂. I did email the journalist to find out how she got the refund but never heard anything.  I guess the publicity forced TFL to refund 

iceangel8

It's not fair as if you had a parking fine from your sold car TFL would charge the new driver why shouldn't it be the same for ULEZ charges 

flaneurs_lobster

iceangel8 said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

iceangel8 said:

  I know I made a stupid mistake but who remembers t&c from five years ago 

Not many people will remember T&Cs from last week let alone five years ago. Many people do, however, check the active Direct Debits on their account(s) on a regular basis (say monthly) to make sure everything is still relevant.

Even if I cancelled the direct debit I still have  to pay.  I have another outstanding payment of £70 for the month of October.  All I'm asking is that they don't invoice a month after the charges and let me know after a week of charges then I would have deregistered 

You miss my point, checking the DDs is a prompt to cancel/deregister whatever is causing the billing.

Just cancelling a DD is rarely a good idea since it just removes a payment method, not the underlying contractual obligation to pay.  

Ayr_Rage

iceangel8 said:

It's not fair as if you had a parking fine from your sold car TFL would charge the new driver why shouldn't it be the same for ULEZ charges 

Only if you had correctly informed DVLA of the change of ownership as required by law.

The fines are sent to the registered keeper.

As you have not informed the ULEZ system in a timely manner then all of this falls on you.

Sorry but it's time to take ownership of your mistake.