Anonymous wrote:That is crazy. We move our EZpass from car to car, without issue. I believe only one vehicle is officially registered. As long as the pass has money in the account, it auto-deducts the toll without paying attention to the license plate.

- MD side

It doesn't always work that way. If you've been lucky so far, that's great, but my bother has gotten in trouble like the OP for lending someone his EZ pass.

I agree OP should have taken this more seriously and certainly not have let it get to 7000 bucks but the EZ Pass fines are seriously out of control and they start multiplying really quickly.

I think they are really fleecing the public. OP should have taken care of it but no one should be on the hook for 7000 dollars because they forgot to change a license plate over. That is the type of thing that could completely bankrupt some people and is just not proportional to the crime.

You should always register any car you are using..even a rental in case the transponder is not read! They just die after a while and you might not know it right away.

I just looked at my EZ Pass account online, and you can add vehicles easily. The reason the license plate has to match is in case the transponder doesn't work for some reason.

There are multiple stories on the news stations in the DC area about EZ Pass and most of them were people being irresponsible.

As someone said, the OP should have got multiple letters in the mail. If I had got one, I would have checked my online account immediately and seen what has been charged and what has not. The OP did not do this.

EZ Pass is not complicated. I even got them to turn OFF the automatic re-charge when the balance gets low. I don't want charges until I know I will be driving through a lot of tolls (I rarely use the 495/95 lanes in VA). I even get e-mail alerts when my balance is under $10.

I find it hard to believe that the husband wasn't given a reason for the online appeal to be denied. In addition, if he is always using these lanes, maybe he should leave earlier for work and in turn, save the family money.

Something similar happened to us but I caught it after we were fined 3 times.

Basically the transponder in our car wasn't being read and when they captured the license plate, it wasn't found in their system because we had gotten a new car and forgotten to let EZ Pass know the new license plate.

If you go through the toll booth and the transponder doesn't work, if the correct license plate is registered they will just charge the account the toll (no fine). But if the transponder doesn't work and the license plate is unknown to them, they treat you like you zooming through the gates trying not to pay the toll.

So I'm assuming that your DH kept going through the toll booth without knowing the transponder wasn't connecting with the booth and you didn't have the license plate registered. The question is - they are pretty fast to get a violation notice out to you when this happens....how the heck did you get to 50 violations before figuring out something was wrong?

Anonymous wrote:OP, as a lawyer, I suggest you don't go to court unless you have a better story to tell than the one you're relaying here. You will probably be in small claims court with a judge who doesn't have a lot of time and who can see through people trying to snow him, against a lawyer who does this all the time, and with a pretty low standard of proof. If you think you're in the right here, you need to be able to explain why in a compelling fashion in about 60 seconds or less. Otherwise, you will just wind up with a court order forcing you to pay the entire amount under threat of interest and more serious penalties. I'd see what I could negotiate. I'd also question my husband more extensively, because this does not make any sense.

I'm a lawyer and I agree. Negotiate it down with EZ pass. That is the best solution for you. You can hire a lawyer to negotiate it for you, but don't expect courts to be sympathetic.

How is this an "honest" mistake? After a few times you should have realized this mistake and had EZPass fix it. Maybe "EZ Pass hell for dumb ass mistake" is a better title.

Anonymous wrote:More than meets the eye

Yes, sounds like negligence.

OP, as a lawyer, I suggest you don't go to court unless you have a better story to tell than the one you're relaying here. You will probably be in small claims court with a judge who doesn't have a lot of time and who can see through people trying to snow him, against a lawyer who does this all the time, and with a pretty low standard of proof. If you think you're in the right here, you need to be able to explain why in a compelling fashion in about 60 seconds or less. Otherwise, you will just wind up with a court order forcing you to pay the entire amount under threat of interest and more serious penalties. I'd see what I could negotiate. I'd also question my husband more extensively, because this does not make any sense.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why does the license plate matter at all? If the EZpass is in the car properly, it reads that, not the license plate.

We just went through this. Husband got a new car, I didn't update the car in our account, we traveled over Xmas and I started getting notices for unpaid tolls. I assumed our transponder wasn't working. Turns out, for the low speed tolls, it reads the transponder. For the higher speed tolls that are everywhere now, it is too fast to read the transponder so it snaps a pic of your license plate and then they match it to your EZ Pass account and debit your account. But, if your license plate is not updated, you get a notice in the mail for an unpaid toll. OP, I called as soon as I got the notices and resolved the issue. If you pay right away, there's no penalty and they just charge you the price of the toll that you went through. So how on earth did you wait until after you got 50 notices to do anything??

11:25 here. We got our violation immediately. 50 notices is a lot. You say he kept disputing them online...but didn't notice that after the first 10 went unresolved something more needed to be done? I'm sorry, but I think you guys really dropped the ball here.

Anonymous wrote:OP again - And yes, trust me, husband is in the DOG house, big time!! I take the metro to work... he takes the EZPass to work (this is his mess, I'm cleaning up) Very irresponsible for letting them rack up. We have 2 cars registered with EZPass..and he alternates between the 2 cars. He was aware of the fees, and kept disputing ONLINE. When you dispute online, there is no one on the other end telling us why the dispute was rejected. It was until I called that they told us the license plates were off.

Do you mean that your husband alternates which car he drives, but doesn't physically move the EZPass between them? So he was driving a car without the EZPass and expected to get an automatic toll at the EZPass-holder rate (which it will do if the car's license plate is registered to an account), but he kept getting the additional fine/toll for driving a car without a physical EZPass that wasn't registered? We had that happen once, and then I checked the account and realized what had happened (new license plate, hadn't updated EZPass account). I can see how this would happen, but not how he let it go on for so long without really examining the account settings!

Anonymous wrote:Why does the license plate matter at all? If the EZpass is in the car properly, it reads that, not the license plate.

We just went through this. Husband got a new car, I didn't update the car in our account, we traveled over Xmas and I started getting notices for unpaid tolls. I assumed our transponder wasn't working. Turns out, for the low speed tolls, it reads the transponder. For the higher speed tolls that are everywhere now, it is too fast to read the transponder so it snaps a pic of your license plate and then they match it to your EZ Pass account and debit your account. But, if your license plate is not updated, you get a notice in the mail for an unpaid toll. OP, I called as soon as I got the notices and resolved the issue. If you pay right away, there's no penalty and they just charge you the price of the toll that you went through. So how on earth did you wait until after you got 50 notices to do anything??

I am trying to have sympathy but the simple fact is that racking up 50+ violations before trying to sort it out is ridiculous and I'm not surprised they're not being terribly accommodating. You had ample warning that something wasn't right and did nothing until it resulted in a big bill. Obviously whatever it was wasn't fixed if it kept happening 50 times. I hope EZPass lets you guys off but they're under no obligation.

Anonymous wrote:Call local news. They have written about this and every day people getting whacked and it worked in changing Ez pass policy. I've used in wrong car plates too and they just changed over and fixed and billed me for the toll - no fee. This is immoral. Do NOT roll over and make sure your credit gets fixed when it's over. Write a note saying you will be calling Washington post wamu everyone. Say you are a working mom living paycheck to paycheck and will make your story known. Fight!

I agree with this. Yes, her husband screwed up, but also, EZPass should not be so complicated and it seems that they are taking advantage of residents with their complicated rules.

Anonymous wrote:OP again - And yes, trust me, husband is in the DOG house, big time!! I take the metro to work... he takes the EZPass to work (this is his mess, I'm cleaning up) Very irresponsible for letting them rack up. We have 2 cars registered with EZPass..and he alternates between the 2 cars. He was aware of the fees, and kept disputing ONLINE. When you dispute online, there is no one on the other end telling us why the dispute was rejected. It was until I called that they told us the license plates were off.

As other posters have pointed out, the EZPass can be transferred between cars of the same class--for 7000$ and a court visit, definitely worth your time and money to keep calling to reach a fair outcome (or maybe even visiting the office if they have a physical presence.)