DRIVER Adam Wakely is angry after the Dartford Crossing’s automated payment system wrongly billed his account twice in six weeks.

Mr Wakely, 33, of Hildaville Drive, Westcliff, uses the crossing about three times a week to visit his fiancee in Sittingbourne, Kent.

He is sick of having to battle to get his money back because of glitches with the electronic Dart Charge payment system.

An error meant one payment went into his Dart Charge account, as it should have done but then it took the money again – and it just vanished. The system automatically takes money from account holders’ bank accounts every time their Dart Charge balance dips below £10.

Mr Wakely said: “Last month, I had an automatic top-up because my balance went under £10.

“It took £40 from my account and added it to my balance one day – then took another £40, but it never appeared in my account.

“It took me four weeks of constantly ringing them up to get the money back, and even then, the only way I got a response was through Facebook, where a helpful gentleman called Dave asked for me to send evidence of my bank balance.

“Then they refunded £80 instead of £40, so I had to pay them £40 back. All I got was a paltry letter of apology ,which offered no real explanation.

“Then it happened again two weeks later, when I did another top-up. It might not be a lot of money to Sanef, which runs the system, but I haven’t got that kind of money to lose.

“Luckily it didn’t prevent any of my direct debits going out or land me with bank charges, but I worry about other people who don’t even notice this happening to them.

“You might have expected these kinds of problems when it stated, but it’s been going for two years now. It should have been sorted.”

About 170,000 crossings are made each day. A spokesman for Highways England, which owns the crossing, said: “We regret any such incident but are glad it has been sorted out.

“However, it must be placed in the context of the number of crossings made every day.

“Incidents such as this make up a very small minority of crossings and it should also be taken in the context of the increased speed of journey times since the start of Dart Charge.”