A man working overseas says he was threatened with having furniture seized from a property he doesn’t currently live in after the ‘Dart Charge’ failed to accept his £2.50 payment.

Digital nomad Paul Flockhart racked up a £424 fine after struggling to pay online for a journey he made over the Dartford Crossing last year.

The motorist had been travelling through the tunnel between Kent and Essex from his UK residency in Sandwich, headed towards Wolverhampton.

After driving for several hours, the 60-year-old attempted to pay the £2.50 charge online for the crossing his Maserati made on August 7 but says three of his credit cards were declined despite working earlier in the day.

He immediately raised a complaint wit the toll operators hoping to get the issue fixed promptly.

Paul told KentOnline: “I spent 10 minutes trying to pay and was told I should’ve called.

“My only option, they said, was to wait for the penalty to arrive and challenge it.

“I emailed back and said I am leaving the country, going back to the USA, and will never see the PCN.

“I asked for it to be emailed to me but due to data protection laws they said they couldn’t do that.”

Paul, who describes himself as a digital nomad, is constantly on the move owing to his job as an internet and social media marketing entrepreneur and author under the pen-name Andrew Wood.

Hopping from place to place, the 60-year-old shares his time between multiple locations including America, Thailand and the UK, and ventured around 60,000 miles across 26 countries last year.

It took more than two months of emailing back and forth before Paul finally saw the penalty charge notice for the first time in October – by which point the window to challenge the fine had expired.

Paul has previously had trouble with paying the Dart charge since they removed the physical tolls in 2014.

He added: “The first few times I went over I didn’t realise there was a charge.

“I saw the signs that said ‘Dart Charge’ but being from America I had no idea what that meant. I thought it was something for lorries.

“Think about it, if you’re a German or French tourist travelling for the first time and you see ‘Dart charge’ that means nothing to you.

“Luckily the first few times I went over I had a car with German number plates so either they didn’t send a fine or I just never saw it.

“The first crossing I made knowing about the charge I had a rental car. I tried to pay multiple times on the website, and it would not accept the car's registration number.

‘My only option, they said, was to wait for the penalty to arrive and challenge it.’

“I had to call on my US phone, wait forever, costing me $20, and then be told that the car was too new and not in their system. I should check back in two weeks to pay.”

But the overseas worker is not the only one to fall foul of technical faults with the Dart Charge.

In 2021 It was revealed more than £1 million could be owed to users of the Dartford Crossing whose accounts have been automatically closed due to inactivity.

Others have had threats from bailiffs to pay their fees after claiming to have encountered glitches and error messages with the system.

Paul has since paid the £424 after being threatened himself with having furniture removed from his property in Sandwich, which he is currently renting out.

He said: “My tenant was getting letters and notices through their door since January and was stressing out about how they might have their stuff taken.

“They kept saying they have the legal right to go into the house and take anything.

“It was only because my tenant was stressing out that I paid the fee otherwise I wouldn’t.”

Angry about the experience, Paul wrote a blog entry about the incident in which he labelled the crossing as “the extortion bridge”.

National Highways said on the day of Paul’s journey, 26,084 payments were made via the website and there were no reported issues.

A spokesman said: “Dart Charge is successfully speeding up journeys at the Dartford Crossing and giving drivers more flexibility about how and when they pay the crossing charge.

"We work hard to strike the right balance between being absolutely clear that people need to pay their Dart Charge while giving them maximum opportunity to avoid a penalty.

“Non-payment is being followed up fairly and appropriately, using all legal means, both in the UK and abroad.

“In this case, Mr Flockhart was given numerous opportunities to engage in the process to avoid a penalty, but failed to do so.”