Dormant Dart Tag
I have received a letter from Dart, the people who provide the Dart Tag for the Dartford crossing stating I had not used a Dart Tag for over 12 months and as per the terms and conditions I either should have returned the Tag or pay a £15 + VAT service fee!
The funny thing is they have not dated the letter and because they sent it to my (not so) new address since moving approximately a year ago I know the letter has to be sent fairly recently.
According to the letter I have 3 options now:
- If it’s lost then I can pay the £15 + VAT and receive a new one
- If I do not want to use it any more I can return it 14 days from the date of the letter… BUT THERE IS NO DATE! Otherwise the charge will be applied
- I can use the dormant tag within 30 days of the date of this letter (same logic applies above) or I will have to pay the service charge.
The date from last time I used the tag was 21/11/2008 which was quite some time ago and they have decided to send the letter after breaching the T&C 2 years later.
I am also curious to know if I have the Dart Tag and pass the barriers after 10 P.M when it’s free to cross. It doesn’t scan the Dart Tag but technically I was still using it.
Did you tell them your new address, how did they get it?
What happens if you leave it and have charge put on an account with insuffecient credit and no direct debit set up?
I did change my address because I believe it uses it when you want to top up your account.
As for the charge I’m not sure yet. I intend to use it within the 30 days as long as I can get to the crossing before 10 P.M but I will post an update once I get to that point.
Regards,
– Danny
Hi, I also received a letter…seems to me they are having a massive sweep of their database of un-used dart tags…mine hasn’t been used since, wait for it…2004 so 7 years before they contacted me…I’ve initially told them to poke it has the time elapsed is rediculas…i wouldn’t mind but i only chucked it 3 months ago after a clear out….
Did they put the charge of £15 onto the account or drop it?
I have just checked my account and it doesn’t look like they have charged me the £15. I have now used all my tags this year.
I will post back if I hear from them again.
Same here, over 7 years ago, sent a letter (fortunately to my parents address still).
My reply:
Dear Sirs,
With reference to your letter regarding Tag ******, please note that this was returned to you via Royal Mail postal service in March 2004. Sadly I am not able to recollect which postal box I used to return the item given that it was so long ago.
Whilst I fully understand that you would wish to recover any costs you feel are due I would like to highlight that at no point prior to this date have I been contacted and given that we are in excess of 7 years on from that point I had assumed it be received by yourselves.
I look forward to your early comments on this matter.
Their reply?…
We have extremely robust and audited processes and procedures for dealing with DART-Tags that are received in our office from any source (i.e, post, courier or handed in at the Customer Centre). Our first action is to test the DART-Tag to check if it is registered to an account. If it is, then it is deleted from that account before it is sent for cleaning and re-use. It’s impossible to re-use a tag if it is still registered to an account in our system. A further check is made on tags that are not suitable for re-use before being sent back to the manufacturer for recycling.
Under the terms and conditions you agreed to for this account you are responsible for the safe return of the DART-Tags if you no longer need them. If one of our Customers does not receive a DART-Tag that we send to them we accept this and pursue the loss with our couriers. In the circumstances you may have a claim against the courier you used to send the DART-Tags to us.
Although you advise us that you have returned the DART-Tag we have not received them in our office. We therefore have no alternative but to mark this as “lost” from your account and make a charge of £15.00 + VAT at the current rate.
We regret we are unable to enter into further correspondence regarding this matter.
My solicitor has written to them so I await the pathetic reply.
I find their statement very hard to believe if you have sent the tag back and they’re chasing you after more than 1.5 years (1 year for “dormant” DART Tag and 6 months to request the tag back sounds like a good grace period).
It seems the company has not enforced it’s own T&C and have finally decided to do so.
Fortunately as of now I still haven’t been charged for the dormant tag which I used at the crossing after receiving the letter. My plan is to switch between the 2 tags I have to keep them active because 1 of them isn’t used as much as the other but handy to have.
Ian, I wish you luck and please do keep us up-to-date with your case.
– Danny