"Infraction" on a rental van

[Sebastian Tombs]

Last December we rented a Transit from Intermarché and drove it back to London to pick up a load of our stuff. Today Intermarché have sent my wife a message saying there is an approx 130€ charge for an "infraction" in the UK.

Can we dispute this fine or will Intermarché just have paid it already and we just have to reimburse them?

We don't know what this "infraction" is yet, but I'd be bloody surprised if we'd broken any speed limits in that heap of ste, so maybe it's the Dart Charge. I registered the van number on my autopay account (it allows non-UK numbers) before we got to the UK, but they never took a payment, and a month later I removed it because I didn't want to be paying anyone else's charges on a rental van.

If it is the Dart Charge I reckon that's a reasonable grounds for dispute because I made a reasonable effort to pay it at the time.

[smokey mow]

As is often asked in this situation, what does the terms and conditions of your hire agreement for the van say about fines?

[Sebastian Tombs]

Only the general clause about infractions being the responsibility of the renter.
It doesn't go into details about the process.

[Sebastian Tombs]

We went off to Intermarché yesterday and it was indeed the Dart Charge. The Intermarché demanded €132 from us, and weren't going to give us the paperwork until we demanded it.
Then I started a dispute process online and hey presto it hadn't already been paid, and it was still only £70; they hadn't actually increased it yet.

Anyway, dispute is submitted, and the only question now is if it's accepted who are we going after to get our money back. (And I suppose, if it's not, who's lawn do we bang frozen sausages into and is Saucisse de Toulouse up to the job)

So lesson here is, despite the Dart Charge autopay account letting you put in French registrations into your saved vehicles it does no bloody good, they don't work and you get fined instead of charged. Don't bother with autopay, and just pay it explicitly online, and take screenshots. Or cross the Thames somewhere else.

[Sheepshanks]

Not clear from your post - have they paid the Dart charge? If they haven't, I understood that Dart are pretty good at waiving excess charges, and they should be able to see you did register the vehicle.

[Sebastian Tombs]

It doesn't look like they had. Of course they may try now. Be interesting to see what happens in the next few days and weeks.

[leyorkie]

All my French reg cars have worked on my DartCharge account and those of friends cars when I’ve included them.
No problems.
Did you register it as a car and is the charge for vans different? Just checked and it’s a different class