SOMERS POINT – It started with a single post on a neighborhood social media network about two weeks ago. A driver noted he’d been overcharged when passing through the Great Egg toll plaza headed south along the Garden State Parkway.
The driver from Seaville posted about it as a warning.
“Check your E-ZPass…they have been reading tolls like you were towing a trailer. The toll should be $1.77-$1.96. We were being charged $3.72-$3.92.”
First, someone commented that the rates had risen in January 2022. Other users responded that the overcharging was beyond the official increase amount. Others pointed out that the rate was different depending on the lane.
A single post turned into a trickle of other drivers with similar overcharges in their accounts. September turned to October and an avalanche of Cape May County locals began to post about the overcharging.
Drivers began to document their attempts at getting the attention of tolling officials. Several posts pointed out that the chat feature on the E-ZPass website did not work. Others would try to submit tickets for help and receive a “not available message.”
Some even called upon help from their elected representatives to help remedy the unresponsiveness of the state office.
Drivers noted that while even once was wrong, many drivers are regular commuters, dealing with daily overcharges.
One driver even noted that she had bought a SunPass, the state of Florida’s version of the E-ZPass. She turned in her New Jersey E-ZPass transmitter for which she said she did not receive a refund. She said the SunPass was much more reliable and claimed that it worked up and down the East Coast.
As of Oct. 4, however, users began to receive refunds from the toll authority.
Tom Feeney, a spokesperson for the NJ Turnpike Authority which administers E-ZPass, responded to the Herald’s request for comment. Feeney explained the background of the situation and the steps the toll authority is taking to resolve the problem.
Feeney denied charges of being dismissive, suggesting that the complaints “led to us finding the problem, identifying the source, fixing the problem, and putting in motion a process to automatically correct all of the accounts that had been charged incorrectly because of the problem.”
Feeney said that refunds are being issued to restore driver accounts and that they won’t need to apply for a refund. The refunds are expected to be restored within a matter of days. He said it might take a bit longer for those with transponders from other states.
The toll authority says the problem came to their attention because of a call from a radio station host. Feeney said the manager of customer service kept him updated when the first complaints of overcharging were registered.
In response, the Turnpike Authority sent a toll tech to the plaza to respond to “an explicable spike in truck traffic, all in one lane.”
The conclusion? A cable tie had snapped in the overhead gantry, causing a sensor to malfunction. A dangling cable that sensed vehicle class had failed. As a result, passenger cars and trucks were being charged at the same rate as trucks.
Apparently, 23% of vehicles that traveled through the Great Egg plaza between Sept. 20 and Sept. 29 were classified incorrectly.
“That works out to about 4,000 vehicles a day for nine-plus days (about 40,000 total),” Feeney concluded.
Thoughts? Email csailer@cmcherald.com.
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