The
terms and conditions have changed.
Virginia
E-Zpass, the company that manages the electronic tolling system for
the tunnels, added another item to its eye wrenching agreement.
The
additional item – 13th, by the way – is called Account
Inactivity. The new agreement with the additional language went into
effect Oct. 1.
The
revised agreement follows criticism by Va. Secretary of
Transportation of Transportation Aubrey Layne about the billing practices of Elizabeth River Crossings, a consortium of construction and
financial conglomerates, Skanska and Macquerie.
The
consortium is overhauling the Downtown Tunnel, installing a second
tube at the Mid-Town Tunnel beneath the Elizabeth River between
Norfolk and Portsmouth and extending the Martin Luther King Freeway
from the Mid-Town Tunnel to Interstate-264.
Is there a correlation between Layne's remarks and a revised agreement? You decide, readers.
Is there a correlation between Layne's remarks and a revised agreement? You decide, readers.
Here's
the language, in italics, inserted into the agreement, which did not exist in an
earlier version.
Users
who do not use their account for toll payment for period of six
months may be subject to account closure.
In
other words, the decision to close your account is not your decision.
It is the decision of someone else. That someone else could be
Elizabeth River Crossings LLC, Virginia E-ZPass or the Virginia Dept. of
Transportation, or perhaps all three. But which one will decide is
for you to guess or to attempt to find out. Did someone once say that
this deal was transparent to The Public?
Users
who fail to return their transponders shall be subject to the
lost/stolen fee and further collection procedures and legal
action by the Commonwealth of Virginia to collect any
outstanding balance.
The costs to you, if you don't obey the rules, is $10 for a standard transponder and $20 for a flex transponder.
If you don't pay, the bills will be sent to a debt collector (more
money) and possible legal action by your government (even more
money). So, your government, funded by you, the tax payer, will prosecute you for fees and for a
lost or stolen transponder for a consortium of private companies headquartered in other countries.
Any
unclaimed balance will be treated as unclaimed property in accordance
with the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
In
other words, neither ERC nor Virginia E-Zpass nor the Virginia Dept.
of Transportation will make any effort to find you and send you your
money. Nor does the agreement spell out how long you have to retrieve
your money. Seven months? A year?
Yes,
the terms and conditions of the agreement can be changed by the
E-Zpass Center at any time, presumably at the command of ERC or the Commonwealth
of Virginia. You are supposed to receive a written notice either by
email or by mail and the E-Zpass User “shall be deemed to have
received notice 10 days after the notice is emailed or deposited with
the United States Postal Service.”
These are the rules, laid down by lawyers and corporate Mandarins and sanctified by our government.
I'm still waiting for my notice.
I'm still waiting for my notice.
Disgusting. They make it not worth it. What if you only travel once a year? You'll go past a tool booth with an inactive pass.. you can't back up if it doesn't work, so you're getting charged for toll violation. I guess you're getting billed for not returning the transponder (which you didn't even know was inactive).
ReplyDeleteAnd if you don't use one of these, you're stuck in the other lines, which sometimes get backed up for up to an hour ADDITIONAL of your time wasted. Even 'communist' China doesn't abuse travelers this bad.
Bull shit!