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Hank Investigates: Incorrectly Charged for EZPass Tolls:
Cynthia's red four-door sits in her Concord driveway. Exactly where it's been for weeks.
[...] "We were following the governor's order and we were not leaving," Cynthia said.
So when Cynthia got her April EZ Pass bill she was baffled. It said her car went through tolls in New York, a COVID hot spot.
[...] She was billed for 60 different tolls with charges totaling more than 600 dollars.
"It said we were on the Bronx, Whitestone Bridge, the Throgs Neck Bridge, and the RFK Bridge in New York City.
I'd never been on those bridges," Cynthia said.
Not a chance her car was in New York. She says she spent hours on the phone with EZ Pass trying to get the errors fixed.
[...] What happened? We found Cynthia's toll trouble is because of the way Massachusetts issues license plates—and a glitch in the EZ Pass system.
The problem is Massachusetts, one of the 17 states connected in the system, uses the same numbers on different types of plates. For example, there could be Mass passenger 1234, but also commercial 1234, Cape and Island 1234, Red Sox, Purple Heart, and more.
When a special plate like that gets an electronic toll, cameras snap a photo of it, and then it’s looked up in the EZ Pass shared system so the car can be charged.
But we found those files do not provide “plate type” information! So if commercial 1234, for instance, goes through, passenger 1234 could get the bill.
How in the world did anyone thing that giving the same license plate number to multiple vehicles was a good idea?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by datapharmer on Monday May 18 2020, @11:47AM (5 children)
Forget duplicate tags, I've gotten several charges sent to me repeatedly for $0.50 to $2.00 or so that simply can't be sorted out with the private company running this system. I get a nasty letter every few months and then dispute them every few months to no avail. The picture clearly shows a different plate number than the one the automatic reader detected. The tag it supposedly detected is for a temporary plate that I never took on a toll road and only used one day and has been expired for years and was issued to a truck (the picture shows a car). So despite point this out in their electronic dispute system, via phone, and by written letter I continue to receive the bills. I figure if it goes on long enough and they take it to court or something I'll counter sue for damages and lawyer fees, but so far for the lest few years it is just the same couple piddly bills over and over that clearly don't have anything to do with me to anyone that looked at them for even a half second.
My Dad did have to get the police and a lawyer involved for an automated plate reader where he received a traffic ticket in the mail from New York City. He's never driven to New York city, the vehicle was a different color than his and he had records that the car happened to be at the dealer's shop overnight getting service with surveillance footage of it being parked there. The answer when disputed initially (to my dad who was over 70): "Well sir just because you were in Florida at some point of the day means nothing... we don't know how fast you drive". Finally by getting a lawyer involved they admitted that maybe you couldn't actually drive a car on the interstate over 300 miles an hour across several consecutive states without stopping for gas and still have it parked in the spot long enough to have actually qualified for the parking infraction...
Why is the burden of proof for these fines so squarely on the accused?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @11:55AM (2 children)
> Why is the burden of proof for these fines so squarely on the accused?
My guess, people in general (and/or people in power) believe that "the computer" is always right. Anyone want to chime in on how we got to this place?
If grade schools had programming classes for everyone (even something very simple) that might eventually change this belief(??)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @02:15PM (1 child)
I think the classic sci-fi "short story" Computers Don't Argue [atariarchives.org] explains it pretty well. It's absurd, but you know that is going to happen someday. Someone will be executed because of computer error.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 18 2020, @02:29PM
I'd forgotten "Computers Don't Argue", thanks for that link.
We've gotten much better at these things in the last 50 odd years...now we have Swatting, much quicker, no need for all that correspondence (yes, this is sarcasm).
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday May 19 2020, @12:17AM
Because you're attacking a basic income stream.
I can't find it now, but there was an ad a while back about online credit card fraud/theft, where robbers burst into a bank and demand e.g., $52.18 and $34.77 , which is why a lot of this stuff goes unnoticed, ignored, or unreported.
On the other hand, I think this is the kind of thing local news investigates and reports on, especially on slow days.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2020, @05:50AM
I had a phone company chase me for months to pay for charges on a mobile phone plan I had cancelled. Repeated conversations along the lines of "What dates are these charges from in your system? April. May. June. Okay. According to your system what date was this account closed? March. Very good. Now explain why I am being charged for a service I cancelled."
Eventually I figured it out. When I switched phones it didn't update the SMS provider, so the phone company thought that it was still active. Turns out all you needed was their SMS configuration, plug it into your phone, and anyone could send SMS messages. Their system could detect activity. My number was last associated. They billed me.
In the end I sent them two cease and desist letters politely pointing out that they cancelled the service a month before the billed charges, and that the account had been finalised when closed. Eventually, months later, they gave up.
I do wonder how much they spent chasing me for a few dollars.