Dart Charge dormant accounts
Case reference FOI2024/00540
Received 9 July 2024
Published 19 August 2024
Request
I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request the following information from National Highways. Please can you provide me with:
* How many Dart Charge accounts are marked as ‘dormant’ solely due to inactivity as of 5 April 2024?
* How many accounts marked as dormant held credit as of 5 April 2024?
* How much credit in total is left in dormant accounts as of 5 April 2024?
* What was the average monetary value of the credit held in dormant accounts as of 5 April 2024?
* How many people requested to close an account between 6 April 2023 and 5 April 2024?
* How many people were you unable to refund after their account was closed? E.g. because their financial details weren’t up to date.
Response
I can confirm in accordance with Section 1 (1) (a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 that National Highways holds the requested information. Please find the information you are seeking below.
1) As at 5 April 2024 1,220 accounts were in a dormant status.
2) All 1,220 accounts held a level of credit.
3) £4,856.94 is currently held on accounts that are in a dormant status.
4) The average credit on customer accounts is £3.98
5) Between the period 28 July 2023 and 5 April 2024, 18,760 requests were received to close an account.
6) None, customers who ask for a refund are always refunded. To clarify, if a refund cannot be processed back to the original debit/credit card, because for example it has expired, a cheque is issued to the customer’s address registered to their account or the address provided by the customer as part of their refund request.
Advice and Assistance
An active account can become dormant when there has been no activity (a payment or a crossing) for a period of 12 months. When that happens customers are contacted using their preferred communication method (which they input into their profile) advising them to act within 90 days or their account will close. Action could be to top up their account, make a crossing, or simply inform us that they wish to keep their account open. All instructions are clearly contained within the communication sent to them.
When an account is closed, all customers automatically receive a refund via their original payment method. Should this not be possible then they will be issued a cheque.
Customers who believe they have a dormant account with credit in it can contact us to request a refund. We want to make getting in contact with us as stress-free as possible. We offer many ways to contact us, to suit everyone’s needs, including our 8am-8pm daily telephone service with current wait times of less than a minute, our website – which we continue to improve based on customer feedback - which offers 24/7 access to accounts, and we can also be contacted by post and by email.
We can identify customers’ accounts and possible refunds from various customer details; however, the account number is the quickest and simplest way.
If a customer has asked for their account to be closed, we will refund them following their instructions.
Documents
This is National Highways' response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
You can browse our other responses or make a new FOI request.