A Cautionary Tale for drivers

Earlier this year I was charged over ￡250 by Transport for London because I was a member of the Congestion Charge autopay scheme.

It was for a car I'd sold two years previously.

After going through their long and tedious complaint proceedure for three months, and the Ombudsman, they have decided to reject my complaint because I hadn't removed the vehicle from their website when I sold it.

An oversight I admit - but someone who has my car now has had ￡250 free driving in London with a car I used to own.

I'm livid.

They say how would they know who to charge?

Well when they send a PCN to people they go through the DVLA to find a name an address - they could have done that.

It's not obvious on their website you need to remove your vehicle. It's in the very tiny T&Cs which is their get out clause. As I don't drive into London it's not something I had to register for my new car, so I wasn't visiting the TFL website.

So just a heads up if you sell your car - make sure you take it off anything you could have registsred it with - car parks, TFL, anything - or some robbing bastard will take your money and then claim it's your fault.