Dartford crossing charging

Merlin5

Merlin5

Merlin5

Soldato
Joined
17 Aug 2009
Posts
18,758
Location
Finchley, London
Watch out if you're going across the bridge or through the tunnel.

I went through the dartford tunnel thursday evening (21st) and paid the £2.50 online around 10pm that same night before the deadline at midnight on the 22nd. I went across the bridge yesterday morning (23rd) and through the tunnel again that evening. The deadline is midnight 24th. So at 11pm on the 24th I paid another £5 online.

I then went to check paid crossings and was surprised to see that the first payment I made of £2.50 on thursday (for thursday) had been put against the morning crossing I'd made on the 23rd.

So I just called dartcharge who fortunately are open to midnight 7 days a week, and he said his system shows I hadn't paid for thursday's crossing before the friday deadline and that a penalty charge notice was about to be issued. Unbelievable. I said to him well your system is wrong and my email receipt and the payment date on your website proves I paid it on the 21st. Anyway, he made necessary adjustments and corrected it all so that the penalty notice wouldn't be sent.

How ridiculous. It's enough of a PITA having to pay their stupid crossing charge, and then they get it wrong. I wonder how many people get PCNs sent to them in error when they've done everything correctly. A government website that can't get their **** together.
 
You said it, it's a pita. I remember when they first opened the bridge, they said once it had paid for itself it would become free. Of course that never happened.
 
rebel rebel said:
You said it, it's a pita. I remember when they first opened the bridge, they said once it had paid for itself it would become free. Of course that never happened.
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I remember that too. Their excuse now is that it needs constant maintenance. But it's just a cash cow for them.
 
Merlin5 said:
I remember that too. Their excuse now is that it needs constant maintenance. But it's just a cash cow for them.
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Yeah they could probably pay for the maintenance from one months income. Just looking at the details now, in 2016/2017 it took in £204 million, £92 million of that was in fines!
 
I expect they're aware of it but don't care to resolve it as it brings in money from people that rather than contest it, pay the fine and claim it on expenses.

I had 3 days parking in an NCP in Cardiff last month, paid in advance a week prior and left 6 minutes before the booking expired. I then got a fine week later for not being inside my booking times which I then contested. That was then thrown out for some generic reason and I had no way of contacting them other than a further appeal process.

Then went through POPLA who oversee parking appeals and NCP dropped the charge. I've still no idea what they think they got me on other than trying it on with a paying customer.

I'm fairly convinced they just throw fines at random people because they know some people can't be bothered to contest them.
 
Yea this isn't a new thing, I know of a few people falling foul of this.

It is crap, not in the fact of the problem itself, it's that they are clearly aware of it and don't fix it.

Edit: if they were a bank and it was found they were giving fines out unnecessary, they would get a huge fine.
 
I went over the Dartford bridge (well the tunnel) for the first time after picking up my new car, I was so excited I completely forgot to pay. Anyway a few days later I remembered and paid online and thought that was that.

Few days after that a PCN arrived in the post. It had a wicked picture of my car so I framed it.

I rang up and they were nice enough - they saw my payment but said it was too late to allocate it to my car, so I'd have to pay again (and they'd drop the extra charges), then refund my first payment.

Lol.

I was sceptical of this but I did get a refund of my first payment!
 
thewanted said:
Why would you not setup a Dartford Crossing account, top it up and pay £1.67 per crossing instead of £2.50, and relieve yourself of all of this stress?
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Exactly this. Even if you only use it once every six months, it's worth doing. I did this years ago when the Dart Tag was introduced and I've had an account ever since. I generally go over/under a couple of times a month now and it's just so much easier. It helps that my morning crossing is before 06:00 so it's free.
rebel rebel said:
I remember when they first opened the bridge, they said once it had paid for itself it would become free. Of course that never happened.
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They got around this by renaming it from a 'toll' to a 'fee'. They did what they said, stopped charging a toll. Of course, that's totally ridiculous.
 
Yea, I set up an account and have an auto-top up set.

Through business we go that way three times a year to Brands Hatch, takes all the hassle out of it
 
As a company, we have engineers crossing the bridge/driving the tunnel all the time - We have it set up to automatically take payment when we pass through - But even then we've had issues with that system and have been sent penalties when we've already been charged for the crossing. It doesn't give me a lot of confidence in their admin department that's for sure, and they've actually been quite abusive over the phone to some of our office staff in the past.

There shouldn't even be a toll on that crossing anymore anyways! It was only meant to be a toll until they paid for the cost of the crossing. They must make a mint on it.
 
thewanted said:
Why would you not setup a Dartford Crossing account, top it up and pay £1.67 per crossing instead of £2.50, and relieve yourself of all of this stress?
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Not really worth it for me. It costs £10 to set the account up and I only used £7.50 of crossings which I'll claim back as an expense. Other than that I'll probably not use the crossing again for a long time.
 
Just a scam like the ANPR car parks where they issue you a ticket based on you entering the first time round and leaving the second time even though you have left and re-entered in between.
 
Used the Dart Crossing (both ways) a while back and totally forgot to pay online - so I received a PCN. Lo and behold, once I went to pay it was still the same price anyway, what a waste of paper!
 
We had a total nightmare with them a year ago when we sold one of our cars. They must have contacted the dvla before the change of ownership had been processed so we explained that we no longer owned it etc. Etc. And if they contacted the dvla again they'd see this. They flat out refused.
We had to then chase the dvla for them who confirmed that we weren't the owner on that day and they still refused to accept it as it didn't state the specific date that we weren't the owner from in their correspondance.
 
Dis86 said:
We had a total nightmare with them a year ago when we sold one of our cars. They must have contacted the dvla before the change of ownership had been processed so we explained that we no longer owned it etc. Etc. And if they contacted the dvla again they'd see this. They flat out refused.
We had to then chase the dvla for them who confirmed that we weren't the owner on that day and they still refused to accept it as it didn't state the specific date that we weren't the owner from in their correspondance.
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Did you still end up having to pay dart charge then?

I just called them again to make sure the person I spoke to last night had actually sorted things properly.
Spoke to some real unhelpful moron who just gave short answers. He said it shows I made two crossings and that I've been refunded £2.50. I said "what are you talking about, I made 3 crossings and never got told about any refund." He said I'll have to email them if I want any more information. I said "eh? Why should I email dart charge for your **** ups. They sent me email confirmation of my payments, why wouldn't they email me if they were going to refund me?"

In the end I just put the phone down on the idiot, rang back and spoke to a polite helpful woman who told me all my 3 payments had now been correctly allocated to all 3 crossings and that I won't receive any PCNs. I told her they need to sort out their website errors to which she agreed and said she would pass it on to her superiors.
 
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