Woman tells how she suffers 'sleepless nights' over £32,000 in unpaid fines
A woman who said she was losing sleep over £32,000 in unpaid fines has had them cancelled.
The resident of Jarrow, South Tyneside, contacted her local MP earlier this month, as she was distressed about the massive fine of unpaid charges and added fees. She had started a new job that involved driving through the Tyne Tunnel, but her employer made a mistake with one digit on the registration plate.
Despite the employer being the account holder, the car's registered keeper received numerous fines through the Tyne Tunnel's automated system. The woman said the unpaid charges caused her a "great deal of stress and anxiety" and "sleepless nights".
Her employer tried to resolve the issue with Tyne Tunnel 2 several times, but they claimed they were unable to get the situation resolved. A spokesperson for TT2 said the UTCNs were issued correctly but they recognise that entering the wrong car registration was an "unintentional input error".
The spokesperson said the UTCNs were cancelled as a gesture of goodwill. The car's registered keeper says her mental health took a downward turn after seeing the debt mounting and she contacted Jarrow MP Kate Osborne's office seeking help, who got in touch with TT2.
Pet owners driving with dogs face £5,000 fine if they break these rules
Ms Osborne's office claims that following contact, £31,936 of charges were written off and the constituent's employer agreed to fund the remainder of the outstanding balance of around £805.50. Kate Osborne MP said: "I am delighted that these inaccurate outstanding toll charges and added fees have been settled.
"I've had a number of constituents contact me regarding inaccurate charging, but this instance of £32,000 was frankly ridiculous. I know this matter was causing a great deal of stress and anxiety, with both my constituent and her employer raising this with Tyne Tunnel without success, I am pleased that following my contact with Tyne Tunnel 2, they finally agreed to scrap the vast majority of the outstanding toll charges and penalties."
A spokesperson for TT2 said: "We refute the claim that the UTCNs were issued incorrectly - the UTCNs were issued correctly. When the tunnel-user received 11 unpaid toll charge notices (UTCNs), she contacted TT2 to query them, and it transpired that her employer (the account holder) had incorrectly entered her car registration. We recognised that this was an unintentional input error, by her employer, and cancelled of all of the UTCNs as a gesture of goodwill. From this point on wards we did not receive any further appeals.
"The tunnel-user's employer is responsible for ensuring all details on their account are correct and because her employer did not amend the reg number (as advised to the tunnel-user, by TT2) more UTCNs were incurred and a significant amount of correspondence was sent to the tunnel-user. TT2 is only permitted to issue UTCNs to the registered keeper of the vehicle and, unfortunately, due to GDPR legislation, we can only discuss UTCNs with the registered keeper.
"Therefore, TT2's hands were tied in terms of being able to bypass the tunnel-user (who we have subsequently discovered was unable to deal with the UTCNs due to poor mental health) and instead, communicate with her employer to find a resolution. We sympathise with the tunnel user and must stress that, had she reached out to us to appeal those UTCNs, we would have been able, and happy, to help. Once we were made aware of the situation, we wrote off the bulk of the debt."
* An AI tool was used to add an extra layer to the editing process for this story. You can report any errors to [email protected]
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
