I was wrongly fined £275 for driving into ULEZ zone after my van was MISTAKEN for an older model
A BUSINESS owner was slapped with fines totalling £275 for driving into London's Ultra Low Emission Zone after his van was mistaken for an older model.
Bradley Wilkin, 59, a director of a burglar alarm company in Essex, discovered the money had been taken from his Transport for London (TfL) Auto Pay account for 22 ULEZ charges.
The zone was introduced in the capital in 2019 and extended last year.
But Bradley's two vans are less than four years old, making them exempt from the £12.50 daily charge.
The database used by TfL incorrectly assumed the diesel model was a 2013 van and so liable for the charge because it displayed a 2013 registration number.
However it was a personalised number plate of BM13 SEC, created to mimic the name of the Epping-based business, BMB Security.
Bradley said the number plate had previously been registered to a 2013 diesel Audi estate – which was not compliant with the ULEZ regulations – before it was transferred to his then-new diesel Citroen Berlingo van in 2019.
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The van and its registration plate were then set up on TfL’s Auto Pay system for the Congestion Charge so that the daily charge would be automatically paid and not incur any fines each time he drove into the capital for work.
But when the ULEZ came into force in central London, TfL had been incorrectly charging him £12.50 a day on top of the congestion charge each time the vehicle entered the zone’s boundary.
Bradley said he failed to notice this due to the automatic nature of the payment system.
He only became aware of the issue when the private number plate was removed from the 2019 model at the end of last year and replaced with another personalised registration – CA11 BMB.
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With the new registration legally applied to the 2019 van, the daily ULEZ charges stopped being billed to his account.
But when the old BM13 SEC plate was transferred to another brand-new Citroen van, which was purchased in December 2021, the ULEZ charges started to come in again.
Both vehicles had their personalised number plates correctly registered and removed via the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and copies of the V5 registration documents were sent to TfL when Bradley first raised the complaint in February.
He told : “I have emailed many times asking for a response. The only response I get is an email stating what is required to comply.
“One email told me that they get their information from the DVLA and I have to contact the DVLA to amend the records.
“I contacted the DVLA and they told me that the V5 is correct and the vehicle is compliant.
“The fact that the van showed as compliant when we reregistered with the CA11 BMB plate should have been a clue.”
Bradley says he has repeatedly called TfL since the end of February to rectify the situation, worrying he would continue to be charged to drive his new vehicle in the expanded ULEZ after it was extended to the North and South Circular Roads on October 25.
In response TfL issued him with a ticket number and said his case would be dealt with in 10 working days.
He then took the decision to remove the van with the BM13 SEC plate from TfL’s Auto Pay system and said he would wait to be issued with a £160 penalty charge each time he used it in the ULEZ.
He added he would then go to court over non-payment of fined in order to prove his case.
TfL has now agreed to reimburse the business owner with the full amount for the incorrect charges dating back to 2019.
A TfL spokesperson said: “We apologise to Mr Wilkin for the incorrect charges he incurred as a result of an error in our database, and for the difficulty he had in resolving this issue.
“We are refunding all of the money and have corrected our records.
“We have also reminded our contractor Capita of the need to resolve any issues of this nature swiftly in future.”
TfL added: “The issue here was an error in our systems which meant the records hadn't properly been updated.
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“We have a process for updating the private numbers plates in our database. There was an error with the system with Mr Wilkin's case.
“It's something we deal with regularly to make sure they're up to date, but there appears there was an error with this one.”
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