HELP!!! Being charged £230 for my husband using the Dartford Tunnel!!!

[Happyland8]

Please help.

I'm not a driver & have never driven on the dartford tunnel so none of this is making much sense to me.

DH is in the Army and is deployed just now. We moved house at the end of last year but today I accidentally had a parcel delivered to my old address, when I went to collect it, they had some mail for us.

Anyway, there were 2 letters saying that DH must pay £115 immediately as he has been charged for not paying to use the dartford tunnel. The incident happened back in April (just as our mail redirection stopped unfortunately) and now it's 2 fines of £115 which we really can't afford.

I can't believe a £2.50 toll road could escalate to this. It has also been reviewed in court without our knowledge so that's also a black mark against DH's name unless I can appeal this.

Has anyone been through this? I'm feeling so upset and stressed by this. We aren't home owners yet and I don't want this to affect us getting a mortgage and I just don't know what I'll do if they don't let us off with it

The Dart charge is hugely unfair on people who are not local. There are a few prominent signs but they are easily missed. If you don’t know to do it in advance it is very easy to imagine a situation where you wouldn’t be able to access the internet for 24 hours or would forget.

Was there any paperwork from the court @Happyland8?

The new occupants of my house (foreign with limited English) only handed me a few recent letters. So I've no idea if there were letters previously from the court.

do u mean mag court for a ccj-if its gone that far no point phoning dart charge

yo9u shold have the v5 even if its a lease

*of my old house

All I know is what's written here.

OP, you're looking for a flimsy bit of A5 folded paper which looks like this:

www.google.co.uk/search?tbm=isch&q=V5+document&chips=q:v5+document,g_4:v5+car&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi6_bv1tvzcAhVDCMAKHcdDDPwQ4lYILCgA&biw=1109&bih=547&dpr=1.25

When is the earliest you can get hold of DP, op?

How do you know it’s been “reviewed by the court”?

It should have your current address on the front as registered keeper. If it's your old address then he didn't update it.

I assume the letters went to your old address because your husband never updated his license with the DVLA.

The car will have been spotted as not having paid, and they'll have traced it to the lease company who'll have had your old address on record, which is why all the paperwork went there.

I think at this stage you just need to accept it, pay the fine and deal with the CCJ. The courts will argue you had plenty of chances to pay up and that it was your DH's fault for not updating his address (which also incurs a penalty of upto £1000).

A4 size i meant. (sorry. adding to confusion!)

When is the earliest you can get hold of DP, op?

Hopefully in the next couple of days.

I'm not feeling good about this one. I really think he won't have changed the address. He's a great guy but hopeless with that sort of thing. I should have done it really as I know what he's like but calling the leasing company never crossed my mind.

I've checked our filing cabinet and no vehicle registration document.

assume the letters went to your old address because your husband never updated his license with the DVLA.

It has NOTHING to do with his license.

How do you know it’s been “reviewed by the court”?

See the letter I uploaded.

It is quite difficult If you are out and about, DH went through it on the way to an event and rang me in a panic about paying this within 24 hours online, not everyone does everything from their phone, he said he couldn’t pay cash but I was at home so was able to go online and pay it for him but it can be quite stressful with a 24 hour limit.

Ring them up, and explain the situation nicely. If it’s his first time of forgetting, they’ll usually waive the charges and you just have to make payment for the actual crossing fee. I’ve done it before and they did it for me!

Complete the online appeal, I found it fairly easy, I paid mine five days late as I forgot and they wanted £170! But it was cleared on appeal

It has NOTHING to do with his license.

I know that. What I'm saying is his old license details will be registered with the lease company, so the Dart Charge people possibly got his address that way?

I haven't seen a letter uploaded.

I can’t see any uploaded letter.

WTF? You mean you can't chuck coins in that bucket anymore? What about folks who aren't on t'internet?

Don't know if it'll help you, OP, and there may be a simpler way to find out about the CCJ - but if you're worried about the CCJ, here's a .gov.uk page that gives info about CCJs and info on how to check the register (predictably, there's a fee involved, but it looks small)

www.gov.uk/county-court-judgments-ccj-for-debt/ccjs-and-your-credit-rating

Call them now Happyland
03003000120
You’re getting lots of conflicting advice here and there’s a chance it can all be sorted. Many pps have mentioned how reasonable they are.

Here's the letter: