E. Texas woman debited hundreds in toll charges for trips she never made

KLTV 7 ^ | May 23, 2016 | Cody Lillich

[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."

[fruser1]

Depends what way you’re going. You can take 1 south to 95 south near Trenton w/o toll down to Philly.

Crossing the Hudson is quite another story.

[BobL]

“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.”

I’m with you. I’ve been victimized by toll bills in the past. In my case, it was an out of state car with the same license plate. I guess they just read the characters and if they match a Texas plate, they send the bill to the Texan. They were nice about it and backed out the charges when I called. But the bills kept coming, so I finally stopped responding, and nothing happened. I think what happens if the person billed doesn’t pay is that they actually LOOK at the photo to verify the bill - which was all that was needed in my case. Never got a bill again after that.