TfL cancels ULEZ enforcement against Blackpool resident pursued over stranger’s fines

Transport for London has cancelled enforcement over four unpaid ULEZ penalties after a credit search wrongly identified a Blackpool resident as the owner of a stranger’s car, according to a Guardian report published on Monday. TfL’s enforcement agent, CDER Group, paid the resident £500 after bailiffs had visited their home. The case shows how an error in tracing a debt can carry a penalty dispute as far as a threatened seizure of goods.

The resident, identified only as CW, told the Guardian that the vehicle had never belonged to them. Four enforcement notices from CDER arrived about two months before the report was published. CW said the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency confirmed that the vehicle had never been registered to either CW or their address.

How the mistaken link was made

CW sent that confirmation to CDER, according to the Guardian, but was told enforcement could not be stopped. After CW complained to TfL, CDER said TfL had rejected the evidence. The Guardian reported seeing an email in which TfL said it could not consider the DVLA confirmation valid and instructed the agent to continue enforcement.

The Guardian said CW supplied 13 years of payslips and eight years of bills while trying to show the debt was someone else’s. CW said the effort took such a toll that they were signed off work. Those documents were part of CW’s attempt to correct the identification, rather than evidence that CW had owned the vehicle.

TfL told the Guardian that its contracted enforcement agents use credit searches to find people liable for unpaid penalty charge notices. In this case, a search wrongly led the agent to conclude that CW owned the vehicle, a TfL spokesperson said. The account does not establish who supplied each item of data used in that search or why TfL initially rejected the DVLA confirmation.

Enforcement cancelled

After the Guardian intervened, TfL apologised and cancelled enforcement action, the paper reported. TfL responded on CDER’s behalf, and CDER paid CW £500 for the anguish it acknowledged causing. The reported resolution concerns the action against CW; it does not identify the driver or say what happened to the underlying penalties.

TransUnion declined to comment to the Guardian while the Financial Ombudsman Service investigated CW’s complaint about the agency’s conduct. The report gives no outcome for that complaint. It also does not publish the vehicle registration, the penalty notice dates or copies of the correspondence between CW, the DVLA, TfL and CDER. Those gaps limit what can be established about the original notices and the decision to reject CW’s evidence.

What the published procedures say

TfL’s published guidance says a penalty charge notice is normally sent to the registered keeper recorded by the DVLA. It lists not owning or keeping the vehicle at the time as a ground for challenging a notice, with supporting evidence. The guidance also describes later stages if a penalty remains unpaid, including an order for recovery and a possible warrant allowing an enforcement agent to recover the debt.

At the enforcement stage, TfL says an agent sends a notice showing the name and address on the warrant and the amount sought. An agent may visit if that notice is ignored. TfL names CDER Group among its enforcement agents. These are TfL’s general procedures; the Guardian’s account does not provide a complete record of which notices were issued, or when, in CW’s case.

Government guidance says a person who has never been a vehicle’s registered keeper can ask the DVLA for written proof. It says the DVLA will update its records and send a confirmation letter within four weeks. CW’s account illustrates why such confirmation mattered in this dispute: the agency said the car was never registered to CW or their address, yet enforcement continued until the case was raised with TfL by the Guardian.

The available accounts establish the resolution of CW’s case, but provide no measure of how often mistaken identity affects ULEZ enforcement. The Financial Ombudsman Service complaint concerning TransUnion remained unresolved in the Guardian’s report. TfL has not, in that account, explained precisely why it first regarded the DVLA confirmation as invalid.