Posted on 05/24/2016 8:08:43 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
TYLER, TX (KLTV) - An East Texas woman has a warning for anyone who uses Texas toll roads and uses the TxTag for billing.
Birgit Grubbs, of Athens, has used Toll 49 for years, but recently found out she was charged hundreds of dollars in tolls for trips she has never taken on roads in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. After trying to solve the problem herself by calling customer support and filing complaints and getting no resolution, she contacted us.
"I was like Holy Moly... there is no way that these charges are mine," Grubbs said.
She was shocked when she did a review of her TxTag bills after noticing them higher than normal. When she started to compare the bills with her detailed schedule, things did not add up.
"And I'm looking at these dates and I'm like there's no way that was my son's birthday. We weren't in Dallas," She said.
The charges showed up on several months on roads like the Dallas North Tollway, President George Bush Turnpike and North Tarrant Texpress Lanes. Most are trips Grubbs said she never made and some she said were just plain impossible to make.
One bill claimed she was on the Texpress lane in Bedford near State Highway 26 at 6:26 p.m. and two minutes later, she was billed on Toll 49 at the Saline Creek Toll Plaza, a location where she actually was traveling.
All of the disputed tolls added up for Grubbs.
"It all added up to $376.48," Grubbs said.
And that was money that was already taken out of her account, since she had her tag set up, like most do, to automatically replenish. TxTag often touts the automatic replenishment when selling the tags as a form of convenience. When the user's account gets to a certain amount, for example ten dollars, it will pull a pre-set amount from the customer's bank card or credit card to replenish the TxTag account.
After we made repeated inquiries to the Texas Department of Transportation and TxTag regarding Grubbs' toll issues, she got a call back with an unexpected answer.
"She called from TxTag, said that they finally reviewed some of the film from the charges and they could tell that they didn't match my car," Grubbs said. "What she told me was it was a temporary dealer tag... that may have contained characters similar to my license."
While TxTag was doing their own investigation into her account, we did our own investigation into what may have caused so many charges on one individuals account.
We searched Department of Motor Vehicles records for license plates or portions of license plates containing GRUBBS, which is what is on the customer's car. Birgit Grubbs is the only one in the state that returned in our searches.
Searches online for GRUBBS in Dallas and Fort Worth came up with an auto dealership group located in the Hurst-Euless-Bedford area, an area that had several charges in the bills we surveyed from Birgit Grubbs.
In one two-month period, several tolls showed up in very close proximity to Grubbs Nissan in Bedford. At that dealership, their cars are displayed with a temporary dealer plate in red font that says GRUBBS, the same letters that are contained in Birgit Grubbs' custom Dallas Cowboys license plate.
We spoke with Eric Grubbs, the president and CEO of the Grubbs Nissan in Bedford, who said he had not heard of the toll issue, but was surprised someone would be mistakenly billed.
He said with his dealership located on a toll road, his dealership spends thousands on tolls annually. He said the mistaken billing should not have happened, because when a car is sold off the lot, it is assigned a Texas Department of Motor Vehicles temporary owners tag with a number that is assigned to the new owner.
He said while his dealership does take vehicles on the toll lanes, they have their own vehicles with toll tags that are used.
Birgit Grubbs was shocked when we shared with her our findings and where the dealership was located.
"There you have it," she said. "And that was one of the most frequent charges that I had. Unbelievable."
She said without our help of reaching out to state agencies, she might still be fighting the charges.
"It's just you stepped in, and they pulled it and they looked at it and there's no telling how long it would have went on," Grubbs said.
TxTag contacted Birgit and told her the charges were more than what Grubbs had initially caught, and they would be refunding her more than $416.
Grubbs said she is remaining a TxTag customer but will change one way her account is managed.
"I said -- send me a bill in the mail and I'll pay it," Grubbs said that she told TxTag. "They're not getting any more money, They're not getting access to my account ever again... If it costs me a little bit more -- so be it."
Good advice for all of us, regarding automatic bill paying systems which sweep money from our accounts. While its convienent, what if someone is overcharging you and takes your money before you can review the bill??
My 87 yr old neighbor in TX got a bill for two trips near Leander. She never goes further than the church, grocery store, or beauty shop. Leander is over 125 miles from here.
See, this is where there should have been a dealership who was aghast that Texas tolls charged someone for their tolls and would have been highly concerned to ensure that not only that she was reimbursed, but also something a bit extra for the hassle and inconvenience.
Instead, it was ‘Oh, no, that couldn’t happen, we have tags on every car, blah, blah blah.’
Seems to me if I was a lawyer in Texas who wouldn’t mind filing a few dozen nuisance lawsuits, I’d be on the phone to her.
I heard about a guy in Chicago who was ticked off at his neighbor, so he stole the guys IPASS out of his car and stuck it on an airport shuttle bus that goes thru a toll gate several times an hour. Rhousands of dollars in charges accumulted but were waived after it was clear the guy had been pranked.
Should change that vanity plate to something less ubiquitous like ASSMAN.
Toll roads are unTexan and maybe unAmerican with the exceptions of yankees.
Toll roads are the epitome of capitalism and quite American. To have a public / private consortium step in to fund the billions of dollars in up-front costs associated with road building to serve routes where public funding is not available on its own is a great solution and there ABSOLUTELY has to be a profit reward as an ROI.
Optional toll roads that provide more direct or faster moving routes are a convenience for which I am willing to pay. Thinking someone should put up the funds in the absence of a generous profit is un-American. Those who don’t like toll roads can avoid them.
Never give anyone access to your checking or savings accounts. Credit card, ok, and it’s easy to refute and get the amount credited back. Either I write the paper checks, or use a CC for payment.
The toll roads referenced, a Fascist partnership between elite ruling class insider private and governmental controlled corporations, with State Bureaucracies of appointed Public "Servants" are entirely unAmerican, unethical, immoral and criminal.
Six weeks after returning a lease vehicle to the dealership, I received a Toll Roads violation bill with penalties in the mail. I never used toll roads, but this one was right by the dealership. So ... some salesman used my returned car as a loaner and took it on the toll road figuring I’d get stuck with the charge. Dealers and car salesmen have very few ethics IMO.
I faxed the Toll Road agency a copy of the form that showed it had been returned to Tustin Lexus two weeks before the violation and was no longer my responsibility but there was never any apology for my inconvenience.
Access to billing information can be dangerous, while convenient.
Just had a charge to my AMEX card which AMEX claimed they never made.
Somebody made it.
In NJ can not enter or leave the state without paying tolls
WE ARE TRAPPED LIKE RATS ........!!!!
The Nissan dealer did nothing wrong.
It was the toll company’s cameras that took the photos and their personnel who made the errors.
I bought 5 autos from Grubb’s Nissan during the ‘80s-’90s.
The same think happens here in Hampton Roads.
Good advice....I never give anyone access to any of my bank accounts, period.
Just rename some bridges and tunnels: checkpoint Holland, Checkpoint Lincoln and Checkpoint Memorial Bridge. Of course once one gets to the other side hell holes, they have their own extortions.
I never understood how those states have financial problems with all the taxes and other fees. Property taxes in NJ are some of the highest in the nation. Add on sales and income taxes and one may as well be working for that state, without a pension of course though.
Funny, never had that problem driving the freeways here.
” To have a public / private consortium step in to fund the billions of dollars in up-front costs associated with road building to serve routes where public funding is not available on its own is a great solution and there ABSOLUTELY has to be a profit reward as an ROI.”
LOL. Tell that to people that have to live under the BACKROOM DEALS, many still secret, that, among other things, PREVENT the state from upgrading parallel roads. Roughly 40 cents per mile in this one case:
http://ontruck.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/407-rates.jpg
I’m glad this crap keeps failing and hopefully it ends once and for all.
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