A man has criticised the Tyne Tunnel company after he and his partner were left facing up to £300 in fines due to problems they say they have had with the company's new payment app.
Peter Rush says the app, which was launched in tandem with the controversial new payment system at the tunnel, did not continue the automatic top-up system he previously used to ensure his toll was paid.
Peter, who lives in Hadrian Park, also did not get any notification to say there was no money left in his account, meaning he and his partner Jenna Coyle had gone through the tunnel several times before the problem was noticed.
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While the Tyne Tunnel have said there is no issue with the app, Peter says he is not the only person to have the issue - other people have taken to social media to complain while the app has a rating of just one star on the Apple app store.
Many users have cited payment problems as one of the reasons behind their low rating.
Peter said: "It's ridiculous. I think they're being irresponsible.
"Me and my partner have always used the automatic top-up for the last year and a half. For some reason, when they changed everything over on the app, the automatic top-up stopped working.
"My partner uses the tunnel every day and we have about nine charges. I can't get my head around it. It could be a £300 bill."
Father-of-three Peter is in the process of appealing the decision, but has been forced to appeal each charge individually.
He wants to make others aware they could be being hit by fines without realising.
He continued: "It has happened to a lot of people, it's all over Facebook and it's happened to a lot of my friends.
"I just think people need to be aware of it. Luckily we're okay financially, but nobody wants a £300 bill.
"It's not fair. The only thing you can do is appeal the fine and you have to appeal every fine separately, then it takes 10 days for a decision.
"I would hold my hands up and say it was my fault if I was in the wrong."
Tyne Tunnels have said there is no known issue with auto-top up and customers should get automatic email notifications when any changes are made on their account, such as on the auto top-up system.
Chief Executive at TT2, Philip Smith, said: “We introduced auto top-up last year and it has proved extremely popular with customers.
"Once set up, accounts are automatically topped up with an amount set by the customer.
“Occasionally, a payment fails, which can be for a number of reasons outside of our control, such as an empty bank account or an expired card. When this happens, the auto top-up rule is cancelled and the customer gets an email informing them they need to top up their account, or re-activate the auto top-up rule.
“This is intentional because it is in the customer’s best interests that we do not keep trying to take payment from, for example, a bank account with insufficient funds in it.
“We are committed to ensuring customers receive fair treatment and we encourage customers who feel they have unfairly received an Unpaid Toll Charge Notice to appeal through our website or in writing to us.”
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