I-TEAM gets answers for driver wrongly billed for Miami SunPass toll

News 4 JAX ^ | April 18, 2019 | Tarik Minor, Jodi Mohrmann and Eric Wallace

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

ACKSONVILLE, Fla. - The I-TEAM gets results for a Jacksonville driver who was puzzled after getting a bill in the mail from a toll road in Miami – as she doesn’t drive outside of Northeast Florida. What News4Jax learned highlights imperfections in the new, high-tech toll system coming to Jacksonville this year.

When Jacksonville’s tolls came down in 1989, drivers paid at the familiar toll booths along expressways around Jacksonville and across the state. Now, with the latest advances with the SunPass system, drivers can pay tolls electronically without stopping. This system is coming to Jacksonville’s First Coast Expressway and I-295 express lanes and is already in use along the Florida Turnpike and toll roads in the Tampa, Orlando and Miami areas.

It was one of those Miami-area toll roads that was the source of the problems for 70-year-old Gwendolyn Anderson when she received a toll-by-plate bill in the mail.

“I knew I hadn’t been to Miami, I had never driven to Miami,” Anderson told the I-TEAM.

According to a SunPass toll enforcement invoice, Anderson owed money for driving along a road managed by the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, as the invoice read, “The vehicle identified in this image is either registered, lease or was rented by you.” The invoice listed Anderson’s license plate, but the photo on the invoice showed an SUV that appeared to be a Hummer – which is not the type of car that Anderson drives.

The invoice was bewildering for Anderson and her daughter Sheryl who were worried someone had duplicated the plate for nefarious reasons.

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Just $723.00 dollars to 98.00%

[FreedomPoster]

Hmm, I should probably glance at that account every now and then.

[Repeal The 17th]

From the article:
“...they admit the system makes about 50,000 mistakes a month...”

[fruser1]

“they admit the system makes about 50,000 mistakes a month”

Nice.

[gunnut]

I received a ticket in the mail from Delaware (when I lived in Maryland) for failing to pay the toll at an automated exit ramp booth. There has a huge power outage in the area and the system was down except for the enforcement cameras. Literally hundreds of violations must have been generated that night but they sent out the tickets anyway.

[gunnut]

If any financial institution had that kind of error rate, Elizabeth Warren and her ilk would be screaming from the rooftops.

[texas booster]

The invoice sent to Gwendolyn Anderson listed a Florida license plate of 009 5QZ, which is the plate on her PT Cruiser. But a closer look at a higher-quality photo from the invoice showed the plate seen in Miami is actually 009 50Z – one character off...

In the Andersons’ case, a customer service representative investigated the dispute, confirmed the plate was misread and cleared the charge. An invoice was then reissued to the correct driver.

At least FDOT will assign someone to looks at complaints generated by the cameras.

What are the odds of NY, NJ or CA ever spending money on DOT employees actually working?

[Clay Moore]

I am running an antique plate from the same year as the vehicle was built on a street rod. In spite of having that plate registered since the 1980’s the state issued another plate with the same number to a dealer in Waco TX.

I have spent many hours on the phone trying to resolve it. I have driven all over creation getting documents and mailing it to them. They send me bills every month and I trash them. Some have added up to hundreds of dollars.

I could have explained this to my kid’s guinea pig in the time I have wasted trying to resolve this but I have yet to find anyone to talk to whose IQ is > or = to the guinea pig. Complete idiots!

I can’t fathom people that give these people a link to auto draft their bank account??

[Lisbon1940]

Do they still make license plates at the state penitentiary? Could be criminals causing the confusion.

[monkeyshine]

Why send a bill? How about something more efficient, like, tacking it onto the registration renewal? Or billing when it reaches $20 or something? I am sure most toll road users have some kind of billing/payment system set up in advance, but for the occasional toll road user sending a bill for single use sounds more expensive than it is worth.

Not a fan of toll roads but not my state, not my car...