A grandmother was left stunned after being hit with a fine of more than £175 from the Tyne Tunnel – despite never having been to the North East.
The crossing has been the subject of a raft of complaints over recent months since making the switch to a new cashless system.
But the latest motorist to become exasperated with the new toll payment scheme has never even seen the Tyne Tunnel and had to google where it was.
Read more: Tyne Tunnel deny issue with new app as Hadrian Park couple face up to £300 in fines
Julie Barnett, from Kent, was confused when she received an Unpaid Toll Charge Notice (UTCN) from tunnel operator TT2 in December.
The 62-year-old, who lives on the Isle of Sheppey, says she has “never been north of the Thames” and is a total stranger to the North East – though she has “heard of Ant and Dec”.
She believes that the automatic cameras installed to capture the registration numbers of vehicles driving through the tunnel misread one plate, seemingly mistaking a U for an O, and wrongly recorded her car as having made a journey.
After immediately writing to TT2 to inform them of the error, Mrs Barnett received a letter of apology acknowledging the error on December 10.
But she then received a final payment reminder notice in January, after which she wrote to TT2 again and got no reply, and has now been sent an enforcement notice from debt collectors telling her that she owes a whopping £176.90.
Now that the toll plazas have been removed from the north side of the tunnel, car drivers must pay their £1.90 crossing fee by midnight the next day – either online, with a pre-paid account, over the phone, or in shops with PayPoint counters.
Those who fail to do so face a £60 penalty that will increase to £100, plus the original toll charge and extra administrative costs, if not settled within 28 days.
What do you think of the Tyne Tunnel payment system? Have your say in the comments section.
After Mrs Barnett got in touch with the Local Democracy Reporting Service, TT2 has said it will cancel her fine and blamed the problem on there being two UTCNs associated with her car rather than just the one that she had successfully appealed in December.
The retiree, who has two children and one grandson, said the experience had been “very stressful” and complained that TT2 “make it easy to pay, but not easy to contact them”.
She added: “I wrote to them in December to say this was not my car – the one in the picture has a different shape number plate to mine and if you look closely you can see it is a different registration.
“They apologised to me, but then I got a final payment reminder notice in January. I wrote to TT2 again but did not get a response this time.
“I thought it had been dealt with and they had forgotten about me, but then the next thing you know I am getting an enforcement notice telling me that I owe a lot of money – £176.90.
“It has all been quite distressing.”
A TT2 spokesperson said on Tuesday that, after investigating Mrs Barnett’s case, they found two UTCNs linked to her car – one that was cancelled in December and another that had been escalated to enforcement levels.
They added: “However, since she has now brought this to our attention, we are happy to confirm that we have cancelled the second UTCN.
“TT2 will always try to work with our customers to resolve any issues like this.”
Almost 13,000 people have backed a petition slamming “simply unacceptable” errors with the new payment system and a surge in motorists being hit with heavy fines, while a councillor last week labelled the switch to the ‘Tyne Pass’ project an “absolute disaster”.
Latest figures show that just 4.71% of drivers going through the tunnel are getting fined for non-payment of tolls, but that still amounts to around 55,000 penalties being issued per month.
