Shafted by congestion charge - Richard Turpin
Not expressing any opinion as to whether it\'s good or bad. What is UNFAIR is what happened to me tonight. Tried to pay £5 at 9.30PM. Could not get through. Carried on and the phone system would not accept my \"pin\" even though it worked before. I tried to speak to a human but was just cut off repeatedly. EVENTUALLY got through to a human at 11.45PM and paid £10 instead of £5 just because the system was jammed up. Makes you want to smash one of the cameras. That would cost the pink fluffy dice a lot more than the extra £5 they swindled out of me.
Shafted by congestion charge - HF
Not sure about this at all, being lucky enough not to have to drive in Central London.

I would have thought, Richard, that if you can prove (phone statements?) that you had been trying to get through to them and they were perpetually busy, then you would have a case. For the sake of a fiver, though, it's obviously not worth taking it too far.

Maybe have a search around, see if you can come up with enough people with similar stories?
HF
Shafted by congestion charge - amcluesent
Was the Internet site for payments not working?
Shafted by congestion charge - Richard Turpin
Internet was no doubt working but I went to dinner with friends directly from work and my computer is at home.
Shafted by congestion charge - volvoman
Heard a guy on the radio explain how he'd paid up front but not entered the zone that day so tried to claim a refund of his £5. He was told he could claim a full refund but there'd be an admin. charge of (purely co-incidentally you understand) £5 for doing so !!!!
Shafted by congestion charge - MarkyMarkD
Well for goodness sake, why the heck should they refund you if you are stupid enough to do this? It clearly costs effort and money to process a refund, so I quite agree with the effective refusal to make a refund in these circs.

How different is this to buying a plane ticket and not turning up? No refund in those circs normally either (with low cost flights anyway).
Shafted by congestion charge - Dave_TD
It's inconvenient, but it would seem to me that the responsibility falls on you to make sure you could pay the charge correctly. Having a meeting or dinner to attend wouldn't be a valid excuse, I would have thought, any more than using that excuse for not paying a parking meter after your time had expired.
I don't pay my charge until I've been into C London, because things can and often do change at the last minute and I'll wind up not going. But I haven't had a problem paying it at a shop either in London or near home yet, I live 40 miles from the city and there are 2 shops that I know of within 5 minutes' walk of my front door that take payment.
Shafted by congestion charge - volvoman
So how can you get ever a refund if the cost of getting it is the same as the charge being refunded ? Wouldn't it be fairer to simply have a no refund rule ?
Shafted by congestion charge - Rob the Bus
Volvoman - as I understand it, there is a no refund rule. I live about 200 miles from London so there is the chance I could be wrong but I\'m sure I read somewhere that if you pre-book your £5 charge but then don\'t use it - tough pink furry dice. Quite right too. As Dave the taxi driver says, don\'t pay until you know for sure that you\'re going into C London. BTW, don\'t think for one minute that I\'m a CC supporter. Far from it - I think it\'s the nastiest piece of back-door taxation ever to have been introduced in England.

I think it\'s outrageous that people are suggesting that it\'s Richard Turpin\'s own fault for having the temerity to go out to dinner with his friends. Richard has every right to expect to be able to pay his £5 as and when he wishes without fear of being \'fined\' for TfL\'s incompetence. If I were you, Richard, I\'d fight for your fiver. It may only be a tiny amount of money, but it\'s the principle. Just think how much extra Red Ken\'ll be making because his barmy CC hasn\'t been set up correctly - not only are we paying for something we\'ve already paid for several times over (the right to drive on the road) but now we\'re expected to contribute towards gross incompetence as well! The sooner Kongestion Ken gets the boot the better! I\'m going to have to get myself a new soapbox - I\'m wearing this one out!!!

Cheers guys

Never rub another man\'s rhubarb.
Shafted by congestion charge - Dynamic Dave
Never rub another man's rhubarb.


Huh??
Shafted by congestion charge - Rob the Bus
It's a quote from the first Batman film with Michael Keaton - Jack Nicholson as the Joker has the privilege of uttering it. I just like it because it sounds vaguely filthy! And I'm irredeemably puerile!!

Never rub another man's rhubarb.
Shafted by congestion charge - Dynamic Dave
Not sure how true, but read in the paper this morning that PM Tony Blair will pay his London Congestion Tax fines of £80 a day after forgetting to register his car for a residential discount.
Shafted by congestion charge - CM
I was with a foreign customer of mine on Fri and paid off his CC for him where he had parked his car (in a NCP). Free for all to use so you don't have to worry about tel/www etc.

I would say that it was not the clearest system