Anyone know how TFL auto pay works?

[BewareTheBeardedDragon]

I've just set up auto pay for my car, and yesterday drove inside the ULEZ for the first time (since setting it up). My car is liable for ULEZ so I checked this morning to see that the payment has been registered but there is nothing showing except my annual £10 registration payment.

How long does it take for it to show up? I registered to take the stress out of remembering when to pay and now I'm even more stressed in case it doesn't work and I get a fine.

Argh.

I’m not sure if you are referring to ULEZ account or bank account

I’m not sure for ULEZ as my car is exempt, but I have a TFL auto pay set up for congestion charge and I think it charges to the account and then charges me at the end of the month.

as yesterday was the first it may not show straight away against your bank account

Thank @AuditAngel not my bank account. I went to my TFL autopay account. It shows that I am registered, and is showing a debit of £10 because I only set it up last week, so that's the registration fee, but it's not showing anything else. I expected it to show up fairly quickly that I'd driven in the zone yesterday. Does yours show that you've been in congestion charging area by the next day?
I've also registered for text alerts when a charge is made and I haven't had any message.

Just in case it helps anyone reading this in the future - I just spoke to TfL. You can't get a PCN while registered for autopay, and it takes up to 3 days for a charge for driving in whichever charging zone applies to your car to show on your autopay account. Also the text messages are not sent when you drive in the zone or when a charge is made, they are only sent if there's a problem with the payment method for the account.

Takes ages on my account. I drove in London in April and was charged 1st June.

Wow - that is a long time. I did it to make sure I wouldn't forget to pay and get a fine but the delay does make budgeting a bit of a nightmare if it's this long. Oh well, better than a pcn I suppose

You could set it up to pay by credit card instead of from your main bank account if you don't want to be surprised by payments coming out weeks after they were incurred.

Hi, I know this is an old post but I still don't know how this auto pay works! I've set it up and linked it to my credit card. When they want paying to they automatically take the money off the card or do they 'bill' me and then I have to see the bill and make the payment myself?

Be really careful with autopay. I'm fighting TFL at the moment because a series of 404 errors meant my autopay wasn't set up properly, and despite evidence out of my ears showing this to be true, we're headed for court, for driving into London once in a bloody decade!

Same happened to me last time. And there's that BS about having a payment card registered on your account but oh no! You have to set up a different account for autopay. Utter BS and scammery.