Last month Mrs FE and myself decided to visit our son who lives in the north. Our preferred route is to join the M25 (spits) travel anti-clockwise and cross over into Essex via the Dartford crossing. As most of you will know, the crossing has changed from a cash transaction at the toll booths to an electronic transaction linked to the car registration number.
A couple of days before we set off I duly registered at the Dart charge website and opted to pay £10 by debit card into an account to be set up for me. So far so good.
Imagine my chagrin when perusing my bank account statement I find that I’d been charged twice. One amount when I opened the account and one when I first crossed the crossing.
I was tempted to tear a strip of the company but luckily I put it of. (Too lazy).
Today I received an email with a link to a statement of my account. Yes, fair enough the two amounts were listed, but what was interesting was that the proviso was that if your account fell below a minimum of £10 they would take another £10 from your account.
How dare they, you say.
Well I won’t be saying anything. for the following reason.
Normally for a saloon car the charge is £2.50 for a one way crossing. Imagine my surprise to find that in the summary of crossings, I’d only been charged £1.67 per crossing. Apparently that is the discounted costs for local residents.
Now of course I’ve never lived in that area of Kent and in fact live in the opposite side of the county. Strange.
Until I perceived a reason for the lowered charge.
I bought the car from a dealer in Dartford.
So I don’t think I’ll complain.
Does this make me a bad man? Not in my mind. If they cock it up then that’s their fault.
