E-ZPass isn’t always easy — or accurate, it seems.
A problem at the Great Egg toll plaza caused drivers to be overcharged by nearly $2.
“We discovered that a cable on the gantry at (that) toll plaza was loose and was partially blocking a sensor on one of the lanes,” New Jersey Turnpike Authority spokesman Tom Feeney told BreakingAC.
As a result, passenger vehicles were being misidentified as two-axle trucks and were being charged at the Class 2 rate of $3.82 for peak hours and $3.72 during off-peak, instead of the normal $1.96, Feeney explained.
About 4.000 vehicles were mistakenly charged from Sept. 20 to 29, he said. That’s about 23 percent of all transactions at that toll plaza.
Users started noticing that they were being charged at higher rates when driving through the Great Egg toll plaza last month.
The mistake was caught about a week earlier than it likely would have after a radio station inquired about a caller’s complaint of the inaccurate toll, Feeney said.
Thanks to the call from 101.5 and a few other complaints, the authority had it investigated.
They found “a big, inexplicable spike in truck traffic, all in one lane, starting on the 20th,” Feeney said.
A toll technician found a dangling cable partially obscuring a sensor, and the problem was fixed.
The charges are being automatically fixed, so users do not need to call, he said.
Users are asked to confirm the charge has been corrected.
At least one customer who reached out to BreakingAC said that when they tried to fight the increased charged, they were told to “use the correct tag on the towing vehicle and register the trailer plate to your account.”
The car has no trailer, the customer said.
Turnpike Authority staff reached out to a manager at the New Jersey E-ZPass Customer Service Center, which is run be a contractor, Conduent, he said.
The E-ZPass Customer Service Center manager was then told to let their customer representatives know about the issue.
Conduent confirmed a note was in their system Sept. 30, Feeney said.
The problem normally would have been spotted during a routine review, which happens at the end of the month, he said.
The issue did raise other ongoing issues with E-ZPass local customers have shared with BreakingAC, including claims of tolls not recognizing that they were paid and customers incurring violations as a result, including $50 fines.
Feeney said that he would address any issues customers may be having.
“As always, I would be very interested in getting to the bottom of any legitimate problems people are having with the E-ZPass system,” he said.
Users should make sure that their accounts are always funded, he said.
If the balance goes below zero and someone goes through a toll, that is a violation, even if the account is active, Feeney explained.
“The question is not, ‘Is this account active?’ It’s, ‘Is this account funded?'” he said.
He suggested making sure that the credit card attached to the account is up-to-date and has not expired or may be rejected for any other reasons.
Anyone with issues can reach out to BreakingAC.
