Tolls May be Taking More Money From You

Recently, I've been noticing a pattern with the toll services. This has been my experiences with toll services in Florida, there may be similar issues with other states, but I'll be focusing on my experiences with them in Florida.

For the most part, my experiences with the toll service have been pleasant, so long as I don't have to get in contact with customer service. They are notoriously difficult to get a hold of when you need to get in contact with them for something that you are unable to take care of through their website. Here in Florida, we currently have two toll services: E-Pass and Sunpass. Just about everything can be taken care off through their websites, but there are a few issues that I find both annoying and infuriating.

With Sunpass, the biggest issue I have is that I can't create an account no matter what I do, because it gets rejected, so I can't pay the tolls for that particular service. And even if I manage to create one, it gets deleted within a minute of creation. Once you get to the verification page of the Sunpass website, it shows up with an "Error" or "Account does not exist" message. The only way to pay for it is to wait two to four weeks to receive a letter on the mail telling you that you have to pay those tolls. Which can be problematic, as you would not be able to tell how much money you would have until after you received that letter, as there would be no other way to know how much you owe the Sunpass toll services.

Now the E-Pass toll service has similar issues, but with some differences. While you can create an account and can log in to at any time you need to, you would actually have to change the password constantly as it always erases it, even if you log back in on the same day that you changed the password. Not five minutes after I changed my password once, did it get changed again. I had to reset the password again to log back in, in order to do what I needed to do in the E-Pass account.

Another thing that the toll services have been doing lately is, not warn you of low balances in your account. I used to receive E-Mails whenever my toll balance was low and I needed to reload it, but that has not been happening for the past few months, and my account ended up in the negative by about $30. I was not made aware this until I received a letter in the mail about three weeks after the low balance had appeared in my account, which was reviewed it seems on two weeks before I received the letter informing me of the low balance. Instead of informing me at the toll checks like it had been done in the years before, the automatic toll checks just kept telling me to go, even though I had no money in the account.

This may be an issue with the new system of paying with your license plate, and it may be confusing the system, that the toll services. While improvement in toll services is something that has been needed for a long time, it's problematic if the system cannot tell the difference between a license plate pay and an E-Pass/Sunpass pay. Not only is it double charging drivers and customers, it's also not informing them of low balances, not eve through the E-Mail of the customers.

If you use tolls a lot, in order for you not to lose money on tolls, I will recommend that you use a separate checking account specifically for tolls. Set up an Automatic weekly or monthly transfer from your main checking account into the checking account that you will use for tolls, and an automatic weekly or monthly transfer to your toll services account. Then set up a low balance alert for the checking account that you will be using for tolls, if you're like me, that usually does not have the time to be checking the toll services account or are forgetful and forget to check the account when you're supposed to check it.

This article is based off of my experience with toll services in Florida, things may be different in the state or country that you live in. This is not to be taken as news, just a warning and reminder to be careful when using toll services, wherever you may be.