Dartford Crossing - Nice little earner WTF
Discussion
Just received this email from Dart Charge - so they want everyone to have at least £10 in their account that they can sit on. How many account holders do they have, in excess of a million ?? Nice, whats the interest on 10 million quid even at todays rates
"NOTIFICATION OF LOW DART CHARGE ACCOUNT BALANCE
On 17/ 06/ 2016 your Dart Charge account balance is £9.90, which is below the minimum account balance threshold.
If you have Auto Top-Up enabled please ignore this email as we will take the funds automatically, otherwise you need to top-up your account. The easiest way to do this is on our website at www.gov.uk/dart-charge where you can also add Auto Top-Up to your account.
Please note that if your account balance goes below £0.00 it will be suspended and you will not be able to use your account to pay for further crossings. You will therefore not benefit from a discount.
Yours sincerely,
sign
Christian Copin
Dart Charge Service Delivery Manager
"NOTIFICATION OF LOW DART CHARGE ACCOUNT BALANCE
On 17/ 06/ 2016 your Dart Charge account balance is £9.90, which is below the minimum account balance threshold.
If you have Auto Top-Up enabled please ignore this email as we will take the funds automatically, otherwise you need to top-up your account. The easiest way to do this is on our website at www.gov.uk/dart-charge where you can also add Auto Top-Up to your account.
Please note that if your account balance goes below £0.00 it will be suspended and you will not be able to use your account to pay for further crossings. You will therefore not benefit from a discount.
Yours sincerely,
sign
Christian Copin
Dart Charge Service Delivery Manager
pheasant said:
Just received this email from Dart Charge - so they want everyone to have at least £10 in their account that they can sit on. How many account holders do they have, in excess of a million ?? Nice, whats the interest on 10 million quid even at todays rates
"NOTIFICATION OF LOW DART CHARGE ACCOUNT BALANCE
On 17/ 06/ 2016 your Dart Charge account balance is £9.90, which is below the minimum account balance threshold.
If you have Auto Top-Up enabled please ignore this email as we will take the funds automatically, otherwise you need to top-up your account. The easiest way to do this is on our website at www.gov.uk/dart-charge where you can also add Auto Top-Up to your account.
Please note that if your account balance goes below £0.00 it will be suspended and you will not be able to use your account to pay for further crossings. You will therefore not benefit from a discount.
Yours sincerely,
sign
Christian Copin
Dart Charge Service Delivery Manager
Does it really matter to you, as a single user?"NOTIFICATION OF LOW DART CHARGE ACCOUNT BALANCE
On 17/ 06/ 2016 your Dart Charge account balance is £9.90, which is below the minimum account balance threshold.
If you have Auto Top-Up enabled please ignore this email as we will take the funds automatically, otherwise you need to top-up your account. The easiest way to do this is on our website at www.gov.uk/dart-charge where you can also add Auto Top-Up to your account.
Please note that if your account balance goes below £0.00 it will be suspended and you will not be able to use your account to pay for further crossings. You will therefore not benefit from a discount.
Yours sincerely,
sign
Christian Copin
Dart Charge Service Delivery Manager
The cost to you would be the loss of any potential interest on your £10 that is deposited with them. What does that work out over a year, and how does that compare to the discount given?
Seems fair to me, you'd only ever have an account with auto top-up if you were using the crossing regularly.
They're saying if it drops below £10 they'll auto top it up. This is to prevent someone turning up at the barrier with an empty account and ending up with a fine.
If you don't have auto top up set you can just leave the account to deplete to zero and top it up when you choose.
They really aren't trying to sit on £10 of every users money in my view.
On a side point, I used the crossing for the first time in years a few weeks back and totally forgot to pay. They sent me a penalty charge letter but as it was my first offence I only had to cough up the price of the crossing. Very fair I think.
They're saying if it drops below £10 they'll auto top it up. This is to prevent someone turning up at the barrier with an empty account and ending up with a fine.
If you don't have auto top up set you can just leave the account to deplete to zero and top it up when you choose.
They really aren't trying to sit on £10 of every users money in my view.
On a side point, I used the crossing for the first time in years a few weeks back and totally forgot to pay. They sent me a penalty charge letter but as it was my first offence I only had to cough up the price of the crossing. Very fair I think.
There's certainly no *requirement* for anyone to maintain a minimum balance of £10. As occasional users of the crossing we run our account in manual topup mode, so if we want to let the balance run all the way down to £0 then that's our call. This has never happened yet, but there've been numerous times when the balance *has* been sat below £10 for a while, and I can't remember ever getting an email from them to suggest we top it up...
Of course, if you're a regular user of the crossing (e.g. someone using it a few times a day), then having the system able to maintain an automatic ten quid buffer in your account could well save you considerably more by avoiding non-payment fines - remember that applying a top-up takes a short period of time before the funds are available in your DC balance, so if the minimum top up threshold was reduced and you do a few crossings in a short period of time, you could find that by the time the next auto-top up had been processed your balance was already in the red.
Of course, if you're a regular user of the crossing (e.g. someone using it a few times a day), then having the system able to maintain an automatic ten quid buffer in your account could well save you considerably more by avoiding non-payment fines - remember that applying a top-up takes a short period of time before the funds are available in your DC balance, so if the minimum top up threshold was reduced and you do a few crossings in a short period of time, you could find that by the time the next auto-top up had been processed your balance was already in the red.
Or if you are a very infrequent user like myself you simply get it to auto-pay per trip to your credit card and don't worry about a pre-pay discount. Seems a reasonable set of options all-round and it has certainly improved traffic flow. Some people just need to get angry about any kind of change, irrespective of the overall benefits or their alternatives.
I was wondering what the payment rate on foreign registered vehicles is though, can't be worth the effort chasing them if they don't voluntarily pay. Previously they would have had 100% revenue capture. Any stats available yet ?
I was wondering what the payment rate on foreign registered vehicles is though, can't be worth the effort chasing them if they don't voluntarily pay. Previously they would have had 100% revenue capture. Any stats available yet ?
Edited by Speed 3 on Saturday 18th June 10:37
Speed 3 said:
I was wondering what the payment rate on foreign registered vehicles is though, can't be worth the effort chasing them if they don't voluntarily pay. Previously they would have had 100% revenue capture. Any stats available yet ?
According to Christian Copin's Linkedin profile they collect £160 million a year from 160,000 vehicles a day, so I don't suppose they worry about an odd one or two foreign drivers not paying up!He seems happy enough about it...
rb5er said:
Oooh handbags. Do you resemble him or something?
Not at all, I think someone who decides someone's a "
" purely because they have a better job than them is pathetic. You can dress up all you like that it's about the way they look, but that makes you even more pathetic and superficial. Simple really. 
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