Summary: The Ombudsman cannot investigate Mr X’s complaint about Transport for London’s policy for dealing with appeals to penalty charge notices where the motorist has fallen victim to an online scam. This is because Mr X’s injustice lay in the penalty charge notice issued to him and he has now appealed against this. Transport for London has also agreed to deal with the issue in future by allowing affected motorists to pay the daily charge rather than the full cost of the penalty charge.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains about Transport for London’s (TfL’s) refusal to cancel penalty charge notices (PCNs) where a motorist has paid charges via a third party website and the company does not pass their payment to TfL.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal. We may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal but cannot investigate if the person has already appealed. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
4. London Tribunals (previously known as the Parking and Traffic Appeals Service) considers parking and moving traffic offence appeals for London.

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How I considered this complaint

5. I reviewed Mr X’s complaint, made enquiries of TfL and considered its response. I shared my draft decision with Mr X and invited his comments.

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What I found

6. TfL issued Mr X a PCN for entering the ultra low emission zone without paying the charge. Mr X says he paid the charge via a third party website and now realises he was scammed. The company did not pass Mr X’s payment to TfL so TfL recorded Mr X as having committed a contravention and sent him a PCN.
7. Mr X made representations against the PCN but TfL refused them. He complained to the Ombudsman that it should use its discretion to cancel PCNs and allow motorists to pay at the daily rate of £12.50.
8. The Ombudsman cannot investigate this complaint. Although Mr X is essentially complaining about a matter of policy, his personal injustice lies in the PCN issued by TfL. TfL confirms Mr X has appealed against the PCN and it decided not to contest his appeal. The PCN has therefore been cancelled.
9. TfL has also explained that it has now adopted a policy to accept payment for PCNs issued in the circumstances described about at the normal daily charge rate of £12.50. This is the outcome Mr X wanted and it is unlikely we could achieve anything more for him.

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Final decision

10. The Ombudsman cannot investigate this complaint. This is because Mr X has appealed against the PCN issued to him by TfL and it has agreed to allow motorists scammed by fraudulent websites to pay only the daily charge, as Mr X wanted.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman