HARLOW: MP welcomes congestion charge victory

2:03pm Tuesday 26th August 2008

HARLOW MP Bill Rammell got a result for a constituent when he stepped in to get a £100 congestion charge fine cancelled.

It centered around a case in which a man paid the charge by text message but accidentally typed one digit of his number plate incorrectly.

Payment - for a number plate which does not exist - was accepted by Transport for London's (TfL) system, but the man was still fined for non-payment.

Initially TfL refused to cancel the fine, but did so following intervention from Mr Rammell.

Mr Rammell said: "I would expect to see an electronic system in place which alerts customers if they have typed in their details wrongly, particularly for details such as car registration numbers which are located on a national database.

"I would expect it to be simple to identify when a car registration number has been wrongly entered for this reason.

"This would not be difficult to establish and would save customers from the shock of receiving notices of large fines when all they have done is follow the rules."

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