N.Y. Times: A Couple Fights the Cost of a Crossing (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/nyregion/a-couple-fights-the-cost-of-a-crossing.html)
QuoteAs Barbara Jaffe-Rose drove up the West Side of Manhattan and approached the Henry Hudson Bridge last month, her mother, Hilde Jaffe, pulled out a few dollars to pay the toll. That, it turned out, was an impossibility. No one was in any of the booths. There were no baskets to drop money into.
QuoteA sign at the bridge read:
"Cashless Tolls
Keep Moving"
QuoteA few weeks after returning to California, Mr. Rose got a bill in the mail that said: "Toll Charge Notice." It came not from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the Henry Hudson Bridge, but from Dollar.
The tolls amounted to $4.88, or $2.44 for crossing the bridge each way.
But the invoice was for $34.88.
Dollar had charged a $15 "administration fee" for each of the tolls: that is, $30 to bill them $4.88.
Maybe it was a scam notice?
Quote"The bottom line," Mr. Rose said, "is that there is no way for a visitor in a rental car to avoid being charged 700 percent of the normal toll."
Remind me to never rent a car in a state where toll roads are a good option to get around then...
Quote from: Zeffy on August 30, 2014, 01:17:32 PM
Quote“The bottom line,” Mr. Rose said, “is that there is no way for a visitor in a rental car to avoid being charged 700 percent of the normal toll.”
Remind me to never rent a car in a state where toll roads are a good option to get around then...
You can almost always rent an E-ZPass or equivalent from the rental agency with the car for a couple extra bucks a day. Still sucks more than paying cash, but avoids the insane charges.
When I rented a car in NJ the day after the NYC meet, they offered me an E-ZPass at a reasonable price and warned me if I went through license plate tolling I'd have to pay an excessive fee. It was very clearly stated in the rental car contract. In this case, it sucks that all the manned booths were closed, but that's just a risk you take.
The article noted the driver was both a former New York resident and a current San Diego resident. She should've been familiar from her New York days with how many toll bridges are there, and from her experience in San Diego, the trend toward cash-less tolling (which has arrived in the next county over from her, and also the I-15 express lanes nearer to her).
Also, if she'd noticed the E-ZPass transponder on the windshield, she could've asked about how she could pay cash tolls rather than have them charged to the transponder (even if she intended to use a cash lane, if E-ZPass were accepted in that lane the toll would've been charged to Dollar anyway). Unless, of course, she lived in New York only in pre-E-ZPass days, and had no exposure to California's own toll road transponders.
Dollar's administrative fees seem on the high side, but IMO she also deserves some blame for not thinking through how to handle the tolls without going through Dollar and giving it another dive into her wallet.
Quote from: corco on August 30, 2014, 02:02:23 PM
You can almost always rent an E-ZPass or equivalent from the rental agency with the car for a couple extra bucks a day. Still sucks more than paying cash, but avoids the insane charges.
In this case, Dollar was charging $20 a day for use of its E-ZPass transponder, or $160 over an eight-day rental.
Of course, she was renting her car from a place on Manhattan, not exactly an oasis of reasonable prices.
To clear some points up here:
- the EZpass tags in rental cars (at least from Avis) come sealed in a no-read box, you have to deliberately slide it open in order to use it. If you don't slide it open, the tag won't read
- there is no way to pay cash at the bridge the couple crossed in their rental. It is New York's first AET facility and you either use EZpass or you get a bill in the mail
- it sounds from the story like the rental car ended up going through the bill-by-plate option, with no EZpass tag read. The toll in this case is $5 rather than $2.44 (since the MTA places a surcharge on it). So the actual rental agency fee here is $24.88, not $30.
- EZpass tags are not tied to a particular vehicle or plate number, so you can use your own in a rental car. Make sure it's working first, though, or you might rack up violations.
Moral of the story: if you're paying tolls in a rental car, get your own electronic tolling tag for the territory you're visiting and use it rather than using one from the rental agency. You can't get a fee-free NY EZpass to an out-of-state address without purchasing one directly from a cash toll lane, but you can get them from other jurisdictions. Which means you won't get the EZpass discount but that's better than paying the rental place's fees.
Quote from: Duke87 on August 30, 2014, 09:52:04 PM
- EZpass tags are not tied to a particular vehicle or plate number, so you can use your own in a rental car.
Well, not physically, but you are required to register your license plate number and vehicle. Some agencies don't allow you to transfer the transponder from one vehicle to another; others (like West Virginia, which is where mine is from ) does. However, you have to register the vehicle type and license plate number with them.
While you're required, it's basically to attach a license plate to your account. If the tag isn't read, they'll look up the license plate #, find your account, and charge it. In most cases, people don't even realize this happened.
If you take the EZ Pass into another vehicle, as long as it is read as you go thru the toll booth, everything's good. Your account will be credited with the appropriate toll.
Quote from: hbelkins on August 30, 2014, 10:49:41 PM
Quote from: Duke87 on August 30, 2014, 09:52:04 PM
- EZpass tags are not tied to a particular vehicle or plate number, so you can use your own in a rental car.
Well, not physically, but you are required to register your license plate number and vehicle. Some agencies don't allow you to transfer the transponder from one vehicle to another; others (like West Virginia, which is where mine is from ) does. However, you have to register the vehicle type and license plate number with them.
New York allows transfers. As the site is used for NYSTA, TBTA, and PANYNJ, I'd assume that all three can be transferred. When I registered my NYSTA one, they gave the option of adding additional vehicles. It isn't that hard to add/remove a car (even a rental) to/from your account. That being said, if the tag is read, they more than likely won't care.
I suppose other jurisdictions may do it differently. When I look at the EZpass account that I share with my parents (and have been tasked with managing since I know the most about this stuff :P), I see a list of registered vehicles and a list of tags on the account, but there is no association between tag and vehicle, and the number of tags does not have to match the number of vehicles. Normally tolls show up on the statement by tag number but in the event that the system fails to read a tag it shows up as incurred by the license plate number instead.
But even if your account requires you associate the tag with a particular vehicle, it will still work in any vehicle and you won't see any consequence unless the tag fails to read. I have a SunPass Mini which is registered as being associated with a car I no longer own. In theory it is supposed to be physically impossible to transfer the tag between vehicles since once stuck on the winshield it won't be reusable after being peeled off. But it still works if scotch taped to the windshield rather than peeled and stuck, which I of course did so I could remove it after I left Florida rather than leaving it sitting there advertising my tendency to travel to random passers-by.
But another benefit is that now I can reuse the same tag in my new car which I'm not normally supposed to do. SunPass of course will not let me change the registered vehicle on my account without ordering a new tag and paying a fee for it, but since my new car is going to have the same license plate number as my old car once all the bureaucratic loopdy-loo is done with, I see no reason to care. The system will have no way of recognizing that it isn't the same vehicle.
Funny, I have a SunPass Mini (one device) scotch-taped to my windshield and I have two cars registered to my SunPass account (mine and my wife's; our third car will never be drive to Florida, so it's irrelevant). Obviously under their "rules" since I have the Mini, I should only have one car on the account, right, since they know I only have the one transponder, but they haven't made an issue of it. Of course, it doesn't hurt that we always take my car when we go down there; last time my wife took hers to Florida was 2007 and I didn't have a SunPass then anyway.
I don't worry about leaving the SunPass in the car because there a number of gated apartment complexes near here that use Transcore gate openers that look very similar to the SunPass Mini and I assume people will think that's what it is.
Our Virginia E-ZPass account has two transponders and three cars on it. Neither transponder is tied to a particular car because the way Virginia operates the program (and I suspect most other E-ZPass member agencies do the same) is that we have a single pool of money that both transponders draw from regardless of whether one of them is using more of it. In other words, you have to put up $35 per transponder, but rather than having $35 "assigned" to each transponder, such than when "transponder A" drops below "its $35" they charge you, they just treat the whole $70 as available to both and you're charged when the account balance drops below $10 (at least I think it's $10). I don't believe our statement shows which transponder incurred a particular toll, either, though I may be mistaken on that (I'd have to log into the account, and I don't remember what the password is–on my PC I have it saved, but my PC is off for the weekend).
Going back to the original post, though, the question is, did the rental agreement address the toll charges somewhere? If so, he loses. It's longstanding black-letter law in all fifty states that you are charged with knowledge of a contract's contents if you accept the contract, regardless of whether you read it. The reporter who wrote that article clearly adopts the position a lot of 20-somethings take these days along the lines of, "Well, nobody reads that stuff, so they can't be expected to know." Too bad! It doesn't work that way. There are plenty of reported cases prior to the Internet of people signing paper contracts, not reading them, and getting burned by the terms they didn't bother to read. The only real difference in the Internet era is that a lot more people bind themselves to those sorts of agreements without reading them (consider things like the iTunes terms of service or a mobile-phone provider's service contract).
The tone of the article struck me as rather whiny on the whole.
Since Florida charges a $2.50 admin fee, New York must be four times better.
Rental car agencies levy an entirely different charge, but in absence of paying for the toll with cash, it does amount to a Screw You Fee.
When I took a Law and Society elective in college, contracts were introduced as an agreement created by negotiation between two people who had a meeting of the minds. The contracts talked about here aren't like that - the business is basically saying "agree to this or get lost". IMO that type of contract should be banned. Similarly, the idea behind fees is to cover the cost of something extra. Profiting from a fee (or using them to hide the true cost of something in fine print) should be banned. I would also ban the use of legalese and font sizes lower than 10pt. IMO, anything legally binding should be negotiated between two individuals of equal influence, written in plain English (5th grade reading level), and be as clear and brief as possible.
Quote from: vdeane on August 31, 2014, 11:28:11 AM
When I took a Law and Society elective in college, contracts were introduced as an agreement created by negotiation between two people who had a meeting of the minds. The contracts talked about here aren't like that - the business is basically saying "agree to this or get lost". IMO that type of contract should be banned. Similarly, the idea behind fees is to cover the cost of something extra. Profiting from a fee (or using them to hide the true cost of something in fine print) should be banned. I would also ban the use of legalese and font sizes lower than 10pt. IMO, anything legally binding should be negotiated between two individuals of equal influence, written in plain English (5th grade reading level), and be as clear and brief as possible.
Requiring transactions to be "negotiable" would jack up the cost of offering services, perhaps to the point of making things like car rentals prohibitively expensive. Among other issues, if you have the right to haggle over terms, exactly who will have the legal authority to make the changes you want? For a car rental company, certainly not the guy behind the counter, who gets just enough training to operate the company's computer, do what it says on variable terms such as price, and try to bulldoze you into getting a bigger car than you need or purchase unnecessary insurance coverages (so customers have to "just say no" a lot), but isn't trained well enough to keep his company from getting exploited by crafty customers with bad intentions if he has broad latitude to alter the company's standard rental contract. Maybe you can haggle with somebody in the company's corporate hierarchy or legal department, who will probably be "in the bathroom" or otherwise unavailable when you need to cut a deal, and in any case will have received advanced "just say no" training to make it as hard as possible for consumers to extract concessions.
Companies have competitive incentives to develop reputations for avoiding unnecessary fine print, to attract fine-print-hating customers. If you object to part of the fine print, or think there's too much of it, try to find a better deal elsewhere. I'd rather rely on that, than requiring all contracts to be customizable.
Same for legal or government micromanagement of ancillary fees. We have benefited enormously by largely doing away with that for airline prices.
Quote from: 1995hoo on August 31, 2014, 08:56:00 AMGoing back to the original post, though, the question is, did the rental agreement address the toll charges somewhere? If so, he loses. It's longstanding black-letter law in all fifty states that you are charged with knowledge of a contract's contents if you accept the contract, regardless of whether you read it. The reporter who wrote that article clearly adopts the position a lot of 20-somethings take these days along the lines of, "Well, nobody reads that stuff, so they can't be expected to know." Too bad! It doesn't work that way. There are plenty of reported cases prior to the Internet of people signing paper contracts, not reading them, and getting burned by the terms they didn't bother to read. The only real difference in the Internet era is that a lot more people bind themselves to those sorts of agreements without reading them (consider things like the iTunes terms of service or a mobile-phone provider's service contract).
Yes, the parol rule is part of the picture, but so is unconscionability and
contra proferentem. There have also been cases of contracts being ruled invalid when one of the contracting parties is not in a position to understand the terms.
I am actually happy the family complained. In law there is probably nothing that can be done, but it highlights what seems to be a pretty abusive fee structure since the family would have had to pay $40 minimum (assuming the rental car company even allowed them to choose a validity period for EZ-Pass use that was less than the total length of the rental) to avoid $30 in processing charges. Also, as more toll agencies abandon cash tolling, it becomes more burdensome to research the available payment methods for each toll facility, and the potential only increases for Catch-22 situations where people drive up to toll crossings without being told in advance that they cannot pay without being socked with heavy fees. Those who repose their faith in the self-correction of the market can hardly object to a spotlight being shined on bad actors.
I also think the article raises a good point (though not one confined exclusively to toll pass-through clauses in car rental agreements) in the paragraph that discusses the "fantasies" of legal disclosure. Personally, there is a lot of stuff I just don't do online or with Internet-enabled devices partly because I just don't have the time to research my legal position. I don't have ebooks, for example, because I understand the contract between me and the public library when I check out an actual bound book, but I know I won't be able to get a book out of an ebook provider without being asked to wade through almost unreadable standard-form verbiage under time pressure. And this is without getting into the problem that contracts associated with digital devices and Internet services tend to have open-ended provisions that disfavor the end user, as people have discovered recently with Facebook and its social-media research projects that would fail to meet ethical standards if they were carried out in an academic setting.
Quote from: J N Winkler on August 31, 2014, 02:01:28 PM
I am actually happy the family complained. In law there is probably nothing that can be done, but it highlights what seems to be a pretty abusive fee structure since the family would have had to pay $40 minimum (assuming the rental car company even allowed them to choose a validity period for EZ-Pass use that was less than the total length of the rental) to avoid $30 in processing charges. Also, as more toll agencies abandon cash tolling, it becomes more burdensome to research the available payment methods for each toll facility, and the potential only increases for Catch-22 situations where people drive up to toll crossings without being told in advance that they cannot pay without being socked with heavy fees.
Part of the solution resides with the toll agencies. They can offer online "one-time toll payment" like the cashless toll roads in Orange County CA, where you have at least 48 hours to pay the toll yourself before the "pay-by-mail" system sends out a bill to the registered vehicle owner. I had to use that option on my trip to southern California earlier this month, when I fell behind schedule and needed to use toll CA 73 as a shortcut to make up for lost time, even though I had sworn I would never resort to that. I couldn't take down the URL shown on a sign where the toll booths once were, but I was able to find the toll agency's website, and pay the toll myself directly so it would not get charged to my car rental company. That involved a processing fee, but well south of $10 let alone what the rental company would have charged.
It's possible the one-time-toll-payment option in Orange County, near the couple's San Diego home, might've led them to assume that was also an option in the New York City area. Not true, but maybe it should be.
I've recounted my experience with ordering Peace Bridge E-ZPass tags before. (I had to order two, one for each vehicle as they were non-transferable, and they didn't arrive in time for my wife's trip, so I drove to Charleston and got a West Virginia tag, which is transferable between vehicles as long as said vehicles are registered to the account.)
So each agency does do it differently. Peace Bridge only allowed one vehicle per tag, while West Virginia allows more than one.
Quote from: oscar on August 31, 2014, 02:33:15 PM
Quote from: J N Winkler on August 31, 2014, 02:01:28 PM
I am actually happy the family complained. In law there is probably nothing that can be done, but it highlights what seems to be a pretty abusive fee structure since the family would have had to pay $40 minimum (assuming the rental car company even allowed them to choose a validity period for EZ-Pass use that was less than the total length of the rental) to avoid $30 in processing charges. Also, as more toll agencies abandon cash tolling, it becomes more burdensome to research the available payment methods for each toll facility, and the potential only increases for Catch-22 situations where people drive up to toll crossings without being told in advance that they cannot pay without being socked with heavy fees.
Part of the solution resides with the toll agencies. They can offer online "one-time toll payment" like the cashless toll roads in Orange County CA, where you have at least 48 hours to pay the toll yourself before the "pay-by-mail" system sends out a bill to the registered vehicle owner. I had to use that option on my trip to southern California earlier this month, when I fell behind schedule and needed to use toll CA 73 as a shortcut to make up for lost time, even though I had sworn I would never resort to that. I couldn't take down the URL shown on a sign where the toll booths once were, but I was able to find the toll agency's website, and pay the toll myself directly so it would not get charged to my car rental company. That involved a processing fee, but well south of $10 let alone what the rental company would have charged.
It's possible the one-time-toll-payment option in Orange County, near the couple's San Diego home, might've led them to assume that was also an option in the New York City area. Not true, but maybe it should be.
Or like ISTHA which gives you a full 7 days to pay. A full week. You just remember your plate number, car make/model, and toll plaza you went through. No extra admin fees, just the cash toll (twice the I-Pass toll).
There is no reason why, which cashless tolling, that an agency cannot give a grace period for an oops.
Quote from: oscar on August 31, 2014, 12:28:47 PM
Quote from: vdeane on August 31, 2014, 11:28:11 AM
When I took a Law and Society elective in college, contracts were introduced as an agreement created by negotiation between two people who had a meeting of the minds. The contracts talked about here aren't like that - the business is basically saying "agree to this or get lost". IMO that type of contract should be banned. Similarly, the idea behind fees is to cover the cost of something extra. Profiting from a fee (or using them to hide the true cost of something in fine print) should be banned. I would also ban the use of legalese and font sizes lower than 10pt. IMO, anything legally binding should be negotiated between two individuals of equal influence, written in plain English (5th grade reading level), and be as clear and brief as possible.
Requiring transactions to be "negotiable" would jack up the cost of offering services, perhaps to the point of making things like car rentals prohibitively expensive. Among other issues, if you have the right to haggle over terms, exactly who will have the legal authority to make the changes you want? For a car rental company, certainly not the guy behind the counter, who gets just enough training to operate the company's computer, do what it says on variable terms such as price, and try to bulldoze you into getting a bigger car than you need or purchase unnecessary insurance coverages (so customers have to "just say no" a lot), but isn't trained well enough to keep his company from getting exploited by crafty customers with bad intentions if he has broad latitude to alter the company's standard rental contract. Maybe you can haggle with somebody in the company's corporate hierarchy or legal department, who will probably be "in the bathroom" or otherwise unavailable when you need to cut a deal, and in any case will have received advanced "just say no" training to make it as hard as possible for consumers to extract concessions.
Companies have competitive incentives to develop reputations for avoiding unnecessary fine print, to attract fine-print-hating customers. If you object to part of the fine print, or think there's too much of it, try to find a better deal elsewhere. I'd rather rely on that, than requiring all contracts to be customizable.
Same for legal or government micromanagement of ancillary fees. We have benefited enormously by largely doing away with that for airline prices.
Personally, I'd take most transactions
out of the contract infrastructure. Individuals and businesses aren't on even footing for negotiation anyways.
No, companies don't have incentives to not charge exorbitant fees. Absent a major publicity case, most consumers just ignore them, and companies take full advantage of this fact. Plus there are psychological effects if the split something off to deflate the "base" price, similar to how all prices end in 95 or 99 and why gas prices include 9/10 of a cent at the end. It's to make something look cheaper than it is.
I disagree about the airlines. It's very difficult to price compare (the very foundation of free market capitalism itself) when everything is hidden in the fees and there are so many of them that the base ticket cost is practically meaningless. This is by design. If you can split off enough fees to lower the base ticket price, then the lower ticket price is all the consumer will see when they are shopping on a travel agency website, and they will make a decision based off what is essentially a lie. Banks and credit cards specifically design their fee structures in an attempt to get people to rack up as many as possible. I've read about it in a very informative book called "Gotcha Capitalism", which IMO should be required reading for all Americans.
Quote from: vdeane on August 31, 2014, 10:20:51 PM
Personally, I'd take most transactions out of the contract infrastructure. Individuals and businesses aren't on even footing for negotiation anyways.
Then what infrastructure would you put in its place?
Quote
No, companies don't have incentives to not charge exorbitant fees. Absent a major publicity case, most consumers just ignore them, and companies take full advantage of this fact. Plus there are psychological effects if the split something off to deflate the "base" price, similar to how all prices end in 95 or 99 and why gas prices include 9/10 of a cent at the end. It's to make something look cheaper than it is.
I disagree about the airlines. It's very difficult to price compare (the very foundation of free market capitalism itself) when everything is hidden in the fees and there are so many of them that the base ticket cost is practically meaningless. This is by design. If you can split off enough fees to lower the base ticket price, then the lower ticket price is all the consumer will see when they are shopping on a travel agency website, and they will make a decision based off what is essentially a lie. Banks and credit cards specifically design their fee structures in an attempt to get people to rack up as many as possible. I've read about it in a very informative book called "Gotcha Capitalism", which IMO should be required reading for all Americans.
So I guess Southwest is doing it all wrong, then, by folding the price of up to two checked bags into its base prices? And JetBlue too, for allowing one free bag? Not that they are pure as the driven snow, exactly (including Southwest's making direct price comparisons more difficult, by not pricing or selling its tickets except on its own site). But they have better reputations for non-sleazy pricing than, say, Spirit, and can command higher base prices and gain greater customer loyalty accordingly.
Competition doesn't have to be perfect to do us good, especially for consumers who shop around and look for gotchas in the fine print.
It doesn't matter what size the small print is; people still won't read it. Heck, store coupons, for example, contain small print. In large print is the product. There's even a picture of the product. And people constantly pick up the incorrect product. Many times, the small print has nothing to do with the issue. People just don't want to have any restrictions. In the case of this toll issue, the renters could have avoided the tolls by driving just a few miles out of their way. And even if they claim they didn't know the first time, they still went thru the toll plaza a second time.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on September 01, 2014, 12:00:41 AM
It doesn't matter what size the small print is; people still won't read it. Heck, store coupons, for example, contain small print. In large print is the product. There's even a picture of the product. And people constantly pick up the incorrect product. Many times, the small print has nothing to do with the issue. People just don't want to have any restrictions. In the case of this toll issue, the renters could have avoided the tolls by driving just a few miles out of their way. And even if they claim they didn't know the first time, they still went thru the toll plaza a second time.
Also, if they're really from New York as they claim, they'd know that there is a free bridge less than a mile away. The fact that the tolls are cashless is pretty clear. Should the signs be before the last exit before instead of <400 feet after them? Certainly. But there is much warning about the tolls themselves and the fact that the bridge is cashless is well-publicized and signed between the last exit and the toll booths.
Quote from: vdeane on August 31, 2014, 10:20:51 PMPersonally, I'd take most transactions out of the contract infrastructure. Individuals and businesses aren't on even footing for negotiation anyways.
Strictly speaking, cash-and-carry transactions of the kind you describe are also forms of contract. This is a fine point, though.
QuoteNo, companies don't have incentives to not charge exorbitant fees. Absent a major publicity case, most consumers just ignore them, and companies take full advantage of this fact. Plus there are psychological effects if the split something off to deflate the "base" price, similar to how all prices end in 95 or 99 and why gas prices include 9/10 of a cent at the end. It's to make something look cheaper than it is.
I disagree about the airlines. It's very difficult to price compare (the very foundation of free market capitalism itself) when everything is hidden in the fees and there are so many of them that the base ticket cost is practically meaningless. This is by design. If you can split off enough fees to lower the base ticket price, then the lower ticket price is all the consumer will see when they are shopping on a travel agency website, and they will make a decision based off what is essentially a lie. Banks and credit cards specifically design their fee structures in an attempt to get people to rack up as many as possible. I've read about it in a very informative book called "Gotcha Capitalism", which IMO should be required reading for all Americans.
The underlying problem is information asymmetry. George Akerlof wrote about this in a famous 1970 paper, "The Market for Lemons," which ultimately earned him the economics Nobel in 2001. The key idea is that a company will nearly always have a more precise idea of the quality dimensions of its product or service than the consumer, and thus has an incentive to try to profit from that better knowledge, whether or not it actually chooses to do so. In markets where there is no way for the consumer to know before buying whether he or she is getting a good deal, this leads to buyers and sellers adjusting their expectations accordingly, with the result that good products or services disappear from the marketplace.
Akerlof's paper identifies a number of factors that discourage businesses from trying to exploit consumers' ignorance and thus head off the "death spiral" of mediocrity that would otherwise result. One consists of government regulations requiring disclosure. Another is reputation: no company wants to injure its long-term trading position for an immediate gain which is usually less than is lost in the long run. We see this at work in James M. Cain's
Double Indemnity (1943) (not its movie adaptation), where the senior executives of a life insurance company knowingly choose to pay out on a claim they correctly suspect is fraudulent (it having been engineered by a
femme fatale working in cahoots with a crooked investigator), rather than risk losing business through developing a reputation for not paying out on good claims. (The 1944 film adaptation is one of the great classics of forties film noir, but has a changed ending because the Hays code still held sway when it was produced. The investigator and the
femme fatale thus have to shoot each other rather than be seen to profit from their shared criminal enterprise.) Ideas of what reputable companies do are in turn shaped by institutional norms, and these can in turn be influenced by a company taking unilateral action and being seen to profit by it. This is why I don't necessarily take it as a given that airlines will try to continue gouging by unbundling, since there are already online booking sites that effectively "rebundle" by quoting fares with fees included.
The underlying reality is that contracts will always be with us, and not all contracts will be cash-and-carry with more or less complete information on both sides of the transaction. We agree to many kinds of contracts that embody an ongoing relationship or otherwise involve time separation between payment and performance, because it is economically advantageous for both parties to do so. Roads cannot be built in a day; you are unlikely to get good medical care or sound legal advice if the doctor or lawyer has to re-learn the particulars of your case every time he or she operates on your behalf; etc. Standard-form contracts will continue to be used because they save time and money, not just for the party with greater bargaining power, and they are not inherently exploitative unless they are designed in bad faith.
We are still dealing with the fallout from the financialization of the economic system in the 1980's and the "greed is good" ethos that developed. With the exception of some sectors such as professional services (law or medicine) where reputation is still important, consumers can no longer rely on such cues as they did from the 1930's up to the late 1970's. Companies become unwilling to accept the extra costs associated with maintaining good reputations, because senior management and boards of directors tend to see them as unnecessary and dangerous obstacles to profitability, and in many sectors there is little if any competitive advantage to being (as it were) the lone nun in a whorehouse. The result is a trading environment in which the potential for self-regulation (which is essentially what reputation relies on) is so underdeveloped that we rely heavily on external regulation from the government, which imposes heavy deadweight costs and is not necessarily enough to allow business to be transacted on a basis of trust. Compare the convention of free banking in Britain (free checking, free check guarantee card, a small overdraft with no fees and a very low interest rate below a certain amount) with consumer banking in the US after Dodd-Frank: you don't get any say in the fees that are charged, and you only know long after the fact that the banks were gouging you on previously undisclosed things like transaction fees for foreign ATMs.
There's also the shift in society away from long-term planning to prioritizing short term quarterly gains, especially in publicly traded companies.
You also see some very aggressive salesman tactics which I would call irresponsible.
Tactic 1: promise the customer something, and then attempt to use the fact that you already made the promise as leverage to get someone else to give you what you need in order to keep it.
Tactic 2: promise the customer something with no real plan on how to keep the promise, but just assume you'll figure it out later.
Tactic 3: promise the customer something you know you won't be able to deliver, but then by the time the customer figures that out you've already taken their money and run, and so what if you'll never sell that customer anything again, there are plenty of other suckers out there.
I encounter all three of these regularly at work. NYC contractors are quite a rambunctious bunch and keeping them in line is like herding cats.
Quote from: vdeane on September 01, 2014, 09:43:29 AM
There's also the shift in society away from long-term planning to prioritizing short term quarterly gains, especially in publicly traded companies.
LOL!
ixnay
Quote from: ixnay on September 02, 2014, 07:54:03 AM
Quote from: vdeane on September 01, 2014, 09:43:29 AM
There's also the shift in society away from long-term planning to prioritizing short term quarterly gains, especially in publicly traded companies.
LOL!
ixnay
Have you seen how the stock market works? EVERYTHING is based on how well a company has done in a quarter. Lose money in a quarter, even in pursuit of a long-term goal, and investors will not be happy, and holding stock a long time is becoming less and less common.
Quote from: vdeane on September 02, 2014, 12:56:53 PM
Quote from: ixnay on September 02, 2014, 07:54:03 AM
Quote from: vdeane on September 01, 2014, 09:43:29 AM
There's also the shift in society away from long-term planning to prioritizing short term quarterly gains, especially in publicly traded companies.
LOL!
ixnay
Have you seen how the stock market works? EVERYTHING is based on how well a company has done in a quarter. Lose money in a quarter, even in pursuit of a long-term goal, and investors will not be happy, and holding stock a long time is becoming less and less common.
Yeah, but I believe that the stock market has ALWAYS worked that way. That is not a recent development.
Smart investors look at the long-term goals, rather than the short-term results. And sometimes the short-term results can be justified. As long as the dividend check (if the stock has one) keeps rolling in, the general investor should (again, *should*) be happy. But that's the Smart investor.
The typical Facebook investor doesn't even look. All they know is that the price should never be lower than what they paid for it. If it does drop, then sue the company for misleading them.
With the increase in the number of Facebook investors and the rise of automatic computer trading, I imagine such behavior is more common than in the past.
Quote from: cl94 on September 01, 2014, 12:12:51 AM
Also, if they're really from New York as they claim, they'd know that there is a free bridge less than a mile away.
Um, have ya
met anyone from New York? They don't even know what's on the other side of their own borough, let alone in a neighboring one! (Particularly if one of those boroughs is the Bronx...)
Quote from: empirestate on September 02, 2014, 10:57:25 PM
Quote from: cl94 on September 01, 2014, 12:12:51 AM
Also, if they're really from New York as they claim, they'd know that there is a free bridge less than a mile away.
Um, have ya met anyone from New York? They don't even know what's on the other side of their own borough, let alone in a neighboring one! (Particularly if one of those boroughs is the Bronx...)
Yeah. My entire family is from the City and they certainly know a zillion ways to get to every bridge and tunnel in the city. Maybe they're the exception. Nobody knows the Bronx, especially west of Broadway, but the bridge is on a major route and a known toll-free alternate.
Quote from: empirestate on September 02, 2014, 10:57:25 PM
Quote from: cl94 on September 01, 2014, 12:12:51 AM
Also, if they're really from New York as they claim, they'd know that there is a free bridge less than a mile away.
Um, have ya met anyone from New York? They don't even know what's on the other side of their own borough, let alone in a neighboring one! (Particularly if one of those boroughs is the Bronx...)
Regardless, most New Yorkers would rather pay the toll on the Hudson than fight local Bronx and Manhattan traffic to get to Broadway, or swing all the way over to the Deegan and back.
N.Y. Times letter to the editor: E-ZPass and Rental Cars (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/opinion/e-zpass-and-rental-cars.html)
Quote from: cpzilliacus on September 05, 2014, 10:15:35 AM
N.Y. Times letter to the editor: E-ZPass and Rental Cars (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/opinion/e-zpass-and-rental-cars.html)
The only downside is if you rent a car very infrequently, you're paying money in advance for something that may never be used.
For Life Insurance, that's a good thing. For EZ Pass...eh. The whole problem would've been solved if they had done a few minutes of route investigation first.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on September 05, 2014, 11:45:38 AM
Quote from: cpzilliacus on September 05, 2014, 10:15:35 AM
N.Y. Times letter to the editor: E-ZPass and Rental Cars (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/04/opinion/e-zpass-and-rental-cars.html)
The only downside is if you rent a car very infrequently, you're paying money in advance for something that may never be used.
For Life Insurance, that's a good thing. For EZ Pass...eh. The whole problem would've been solved if they had done a few minutes of route investigation first.
In their defense, once you get off these boards, it's far from common knowledge that there's AET out there. It's a very new thing. Consider that there is
no other toll facility in the tri-state area with this setup, and that area is one of the most abundantly tolled in the country.
I don't know that they have a right to their money back–that is a question of consumer law, etc.–but it would be in the rental car companies' interest to make a good-faith effort to publicize that this is going to be an issue going forward. It's much simpler than going through this nonsense of argument and bad publicity. And a one-time fee dismissal certainly wouldn't hurt them.
In other words, this is a situation the motoring public is generally not prepared for. The options are a) help prepare them, or b) enjoy the profits from their ignorance. Only one of these leaves the companies looking good.
Quote from: oscar on August 30, 2014, 02:22:48 PM
Of course, she was renting her car from Dollar, not exactly an oasis of reasonable prices.
fixed that for ya. Dollar is the Spirit Airlines of the rental car world. them and Budget.
in general, never go with a rental car company whose name implies cheapness.
Quote from: agentsteel53 on September 05, 2014, 12:17:17 PM
Quote from: oscar on August 30, 2014, 02:22:48 PM
Of course, she was renting her car from Dollar, not exactly an oasis of reasonable prices.
fixed that for ya. Dollar is the Spirit Airlines of the rental car world. them and Budget.
in general, never go with a rental car company whose name implies cheapness.
You can add Pay-Less to that list. Meets all the criteria.
I, and millions of others, have used these car companies without issues. In Vegas especially, I can easily rent a car for under $200 for a week, and that includes taxes that amount to over 50% of the total rental cost.
Vegas is indeed absurdly inexpensive. I once was carless and had the opportunity to fly from Tampa to anywhere to do a 3 week long road trip. Vegas won out for the cheapest combination of airfare and rental, despite being on the other side of the country.
alas, I went with the aforementioned Budget, and when I rejected the SUV they tried to force onto me with the "free! upgrade! you know you want to be a bully!" pitch... they stuck me with a Dodge Caliber.
my revenge was 17000 miles in 21 days. I never bothered to invoice them for the oil changes, but in retrospect I should have.
My best was 548 miles for a 1 day rental from Vegas, driving all around Death Valley (and that was completed in about 14 hours).
Quote from: agentsteel53 on September 05, 2014, 12:17:17 PM
Quote from: oscar on August 30, 2014, 02:22:48 PM
Of course, she was renting her car from Dollar, not exactly an oasis of reasonable prices.
fixed that for ya. Dollar is the Spirit Airlines of the rental car world. them and Budget.
in general, never go with a rental car company whose name implies cheapness.
Budget is under Avis, and at this point they essentially operate as one. I've found similar prices on the same cars sold through either, and the local Budget office has been excellent to me (as has the occasional non-local one). Dollar, agreed, should be called Nickel & Dime.
Quote from: Pete from Boston on September 05, 2014, 11:56:52 AM
In their defense, once you get off these boards, it's far from common knowledge that there's AET out there. It's a very new thing. Consider that there is no other toll facility in the tri-state area with this setup, and that area is one of the most abundantly tolled in the country.
I don't know that they have a right to their money back–that is a question of consumer law, etc.–but it would be in the rental car companies' interest to make a good-faith effort to publicize that this is going to be an issue going forward. It's much simpler than going through this nonsense of argument and bad publicity. And a one-time fee dismissal certainly wouldn't hurt them.
In other words, this is a situation the motoring public is generally not prepared for. The options are a) help prepare them, or b) enjoy the profits from their ignorance. Only one of these leaves the companies looking good.
When I rented a car in Ireland, it was explained to me very thoroughly about the all-electronic tolls around Dublin, how I should go about paying them (directly, through the toll agency's website), and how to demonstrate to the rental company that the debt was settled to avoid any unwanted charges on my account.
Quote from: Alps on September 05, 2014, 05:17:57 PM
Budget is under Avis...
There's been an incredible consolidation in the rental car business recently to the point where there are really just three major national companies:
Enterprise Holdings (Enterprise, National, and Alamo)
Hertz Global Holdings (Hertz, Dollar, and Thrifty)
Avis Budget Group (Avis and Budget)
Quote from: empirestate on September 06, 2014, 07:58:28 PM
When I rented a car in Ireland, it was explained to me very thoroughly about the all-electronic tolls around Dublin, how I should go about paying them (directly, through the toll agency's website), and how to demonstrate to the rental company that the debt was settled to avoid any unwanted charges on my account.
I had the opposite experience renting from Hertz in London–they didn't mention a
single word about congestion charges, which are even more of a "gotcha" than most other tolls because they cover local city streets, not turnpikes or bridges which you might reasonably expect to be tolled. Being astute, I noticed the relatively small congestion charge signs and was able to track down the City of London's payment portal and pay the charge before it had a chance to hit the rental agency. But I could easily imagine the typical non-local motorist overlooking them entirely.
Quote from: Pete from Boston on September 05, 2014, 11:56:52 AM
In other words, this is a situation the motoring public is generally not prepared for. The options are a) help prepare them, or b) enjoy the profits from their ignorance.
And your option A becomes somewhat less viable as car rental agencies move toward self-service and "skip the line" type arrangements where cars are pre-assigned and you don't speak with an actual person; you just get in the car and go.
The conspiracy theorist in me sees two major benefits for the rental agency. One is that the agency won't have to spend as much on counter staff, which is a change I think most renters would welcome. They don't want to wait in line anyway.
The second (and more nefarious) win for the agency is that they're able to profit more easily from people's confusion, ignorance, and inclination to hurry. In that environment, everything from the outrageously marked up junk insurance to the unconscionable toll surcharges is disclosed on a half-dozen pages printed at the exit gate–where several cars are stacked up and honking their horns impatiently.
Quote from: 1995hoo on August 31, 2014, 08:56:00 AM
It's longstanding black-letter law in all fifty states that you are charged with knowledge of a contract's contents if you accept the contract, regardless of whether you read it.
While I won't dispute that what you say is factually correct–and though this same principle is at the forefront of my mind whenever I sign or otherwise accept a contract–wouldn't you agree that there is something troubling about a business that, by the business owners' design, can only operate in a world where most people
do not read the contract they accept?
Take the car rental agency for example. At least with Hertz (the company I use personally), if you're a member of their rewards program, your contract is printed out at the exit gate. And this roughly six-page contact is handed to you as the gate arm simultaneously raises–and the gate agent gives you an unspoken "Scram...I need to move on to the next customer." Now you could piss off the gate agent and the mounting queue behind you by taking a good fifteen minutes to read the entire contract throughly, and the system could handle a few people who insist on reading the contract, but if every person read the entire contract completely, Hertz's business model would fall apart. In a busy location like LAX, Hertz would have to cap the number of vehicles they rent in a day by the number of times the contract could possibly be read, multiplied by the number of exit lanes open. In reality, they rent many times that number–or put in other words, it is not possible for every customer to read the entire contract if they wanted to.
I'm not an attorney, but my understanding is that at its core, contract law is designed to promote an honest and complete memorialization of a "meeting of the minds" , where two parties, each having relatively equal bargaining power and being of a capacity to enter into a contract, reach an arrangement beneficial to both parties. And to those ends, courts have held that contracts which do not include consideration for both parties, are signed by representatives who lack proper capacity, or are impossible to carry out are unenforceable. In my opinion, an enterprise that can exist
only because people don't read the contract, one that burdens consumers with lengthy documentation ridiculously out of proportion to the relative importance of the transaction–in which a score of high-priced attorneys spend weeks drafting a contract that is to be accepted by an Omaha salesman in a Hyundai Accent within seconds–is diametrically opposed to the spirit of honest and fair contract law.
In many cases, the contract is so lengthy because someone sued a company. This, the company must add something to the contract to protect themselves from such lawsuits.
As far as a meeting of the minds go, if that was held true to the absolute highest of standards, no one would be able to own a house or rent an apartment.
Or they could act in a way that would make it less likely for them to get sued. If businesses worked for the greater good rather than profit, they'd probably find themselves in court a lot less.
Quote from: J N Winkler on August 31, 2014, 02:01:28 PMAlso, as more toll agencies abandon cash tolling, it becomes more burdensome to research the available payment methods for each toll facility, and the potential only increases for Catch-22 situations where people drive up to toll crossings without being told in advance that they cannot pay without being socked with heavy fees.
If there is no advance warning of a toll facility (especially one that does not accept cash or has a short online payment period), the agency in charge of the road and maybe the facility operator should be guilty of entrapment and should have to fork over some money to their victims. The MUTCD should also be modified to make use of the 'last exit before toll' plaque or a similar sign mandatory.
As for researching routes beforehand for tolls, there's always the chance a crash or other problem sends one onto an unfamiliar route.
Quote from: Revive 755 on September 06, 2014, 11:15:49 PM
Quote from: J N Winkler on August 31, 2014, 02:01:28 PMAlso, as more toll agencies abandon cash tolling, it becomes more burdensome to research the available payment methods for each toll facility, and the potential only increases for Catch-22 situations where people drive up to toll crossings without being told in advance that they cannot pay without being socked with heavy fees.
If there is no advance warning of a toll facility (especially one that does not accept cash or has a short online payment period), the agency in charge of the road and maybe the facility operator should be guilty of entrapment and should have to fork over some money to their victims. The MUTCD should also be modified to make use of the 'last exit before toll' plaque or a similar sign mandatory.
As for researching routes beforehand for tolls, there's always the chance a crash or other problem sends one onto an unfamiliar route.
The only toll roads/bridges I've seen without such a sign actually on the road itself use barrier tolls and have signage entering the highway that states it is a toll road in few uncertain terms. Exiting onto a toll road from a free highway is another story altogether. NYSDOT isn't great about telling road users that the Thruway is a toll road, with only a few "toll" banners and the assumption that saying "Thruway" or posting a NYSTA shield will be enough warning of the impending toll. Most of us in the Northeast know that a Thruway/Turnpike/GSP shield indicates a toll road, but I know it startles tourists from areas without toll roads.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on September 06, 2014, 10:30:08 PM
In many cases, the contract is so lengthy because someone sued a company. This, the company must add something to the contract to protect themselves from such lawsuits.
More likely that the company needed to sue a customer, but couldn't because the necessary contract language was missing.
One common such feature of car rental contracts is the provision forbidding the rental vehicle from being driven to Mexico, which among other problems means a higher risk that the vehicle may never come back to the company. Add in other such "defensive" provisions to protect the company against customer misbehavior, and you end up with a fairly lengthy contract even if (hypothetically) the company is trying to keep the contract short.
Quote from: vdeane on September 06, 2014, 11:10:45 PM
Or they could act in a way that would make it less likely for them to get sued. If businesses worked for the greater good rather than profit, they'd probably find themselves in court a lot less.
2 words: McDonalds coffee. We now need a disclaimer on every coffee cup from almost every restaurant stating contents may be hot.
Everyone wants less fine print and bigger fine print. But the second you try to remove the fine print, someone (actually, multiple people) will go up to a business and say "Well, your ad doesn't say this, so you have to honor it".
Quote from: oscar on September 07, 2014, 04:18:17 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on September 06, 2014, 10:30:08 PM
In many cases, the contract is so lengthy because someone sued a company. This, the company must add something to the contract to protect themselves from such lawsuits.
More likely that the company needed to sue a customer, but couldn't because the necessary contract language was missing.
One common such feature of car rental contracts is the provision forbidding the rental vehicle from being driven to Mexico, which among other problems means a higher risk that the vehicle may never come back to the company. Add in other such "defensive" provisions to protect the company against customer misbehavior, and you end up with a fairly lengthy contract even if (hypothetically) the company is trying to keep the contract short.
Very true. The lawsuits can work either way.
The important detail in the McDonald's lawsuit is that the coffee was not served around 140F as per common practice but around 190F. Third degree burns occurred in two to five seconds. I see the point you are trying to make but that particular example does not fit.
Quote from: Revive 755 on September 06, 2014, 11:15:49 PMIf there is no advance warning of a toll facility (especially one that does not accept cash or has a short online payment period), the agency in charge of the road and maybe the facility operator should be guilty of entrapment and should have to fork over some money to their victims. The MUTCD should also be modified to make use of the 'last exit before toll' plaque or a similar sign mandatory.
Agreed--as Oscar pointed out upthread, part of the solution rests in the hands of the toll authorities. In particular, signing should conform to the principle that a motorist will never be guided onto a toll facility without a legal means to avoid the toll that is available after he or she has been advised that toll is charged and been told what the options are for payment.
It has already been noted upthread that the toll crossing in question has advance signing for the toll. However, it has not been clarified whether it is possible to U-turn legally or otherwise avoid the facility after being told that tolls are paid cashlessly only.
Briantroutman also raises an excellent point about business models that rely on consumers signing without having an opportunity to read and assimilate all of the contract provisions. Parol rule notwithstanding, this is legally unsound and we may not be far away from a series of court decisions overturning contracts on this basis. Plus the contract document itself is not the only way to advise renters of any additional fees that may be charged. If the car rental company were interested in carrying on its business with integrity, it could easily affix a sticker advising of toll processing fees either to the transponder or in another location that is highly visible to the renter, such as the middle of the dashboard.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on September 06, 2014, 10:30:08 PM
In many cases, the contract is so lengthy because someone sued a company. This, the company must add something to the contract to protect themselves from such lawsuits.
If a car rental agency (or any other business, for that matter) uses restraint in drafting a contract–and
doesn't deluge the customer with a dozen or more pages–that doesn't mean that they've given up any rights or their ability to sue, nor does it open them up to a greater risk of lawsuits.
All the flood of paperwork does is that it makes conditions constituting a breach, and the remedies for curing that breach, more definite and less open to interpretation. In the absence of specific language in the contract, either party can seek what is provided for by statue or common law, which is typically defined as what a normal person would consider "reasonable" . The real-world, in most cases, is that the vendor is able to use the lengthy "take-it-or-leave-it" contract to ramrod through all sorts of terms that are not, in a sense, "reasonable" .
For example, if you are required to fill up your rental car's fuel tank before returning it and fail to do so, the rental agency would be entitled to collect what a judge or jury would agree is "reasonable" compensation for their damages–which most likely would be the actual cost to fill the tank, plus some modest compensation for the time spent filling the tank. But when the contract states that returning the car with anything less than a full tank will result in a $12.60 per gallon charge for the entire tank volume (regardless of how much fuel they had to add), the agency is legally allowed to rake in close to $200 when their actual damages were closer to $50.
Multiply that quick $150 profit by millions of customers a year, and you've got a healthy side stream going.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on September 06, 2014, 10:30:08 PM
As far as a meeting of the minds go, if that was held true to the absolute highest of standards, no one would be able to own a house or rent an apartment.
I'll agree that it may be reasonable and necessary to hire an attorney to review an apartment lease, and I wouldn't buy real estate without one. In those cases, you definitely must have a "meeting of the minds" –hundreds of thousands of dollars are on the line. But to have a similar level of documentation to rent a Chevy Sonic at $19.99/weekend day...that doesn't strike you as being out-of-whack?
Quote from: vdeane on September 06, 2014, 11:10:45 PM
Or they could act in a way that would make it less likely for them to get sued. If businesses worked for the greater good rather than profit, they'd probably find themselves in court a lot less.
I'd rephrase that this way: "If businesses worked for their long-term profitability rather than short-term gains, they'd probably find themselves in court a lot less."
It's completely necessary for business to constantly seek profits; that's the businesses officers' duty to the shareholders. But I think much of this nickel-ing and dime-ing comes from the attitude: "Sure, we'll screw the customer and make them hate us, but the Q3 numbers will be great, and by the time it hits the fan, I'll cash in my options and be outta here."
Quote from: briantroutman on September 07, 2014, 11:02:32 AMAll the flood of paperwork does is that it makes conditions constituting a breach, and the remedies for curing that breach, more definite and less open to interpretation. In the absence of specific language in the contract, either party can seek what is provided for by statue or common law, which is typically defined as what a normal person would consider "reasonable" . The real-world, in most cases, is that the vendor is able to use the lengthy "take-it-or-leave-it" contract to ramrod through all sorts of terms that are not, in a sense, "reasonable" .
For example, if you are required to fill up your rental car's fuel tank before returning it and fail to do so, the rental agency would be entitled to collect what a judge or jury would agree is "reasonable" compensation for their damages–which most likely would be the actual cost to fill the tank, plus some modest compensation for the time spent filling the tank. But when the contract states that returning the car with anything less than a full tank will result in a $12.60 per gallon charge for the entire tank volume (regardless of how much fuel they had to add), the agency is legally allowed to rake in close to $200 when their actual damages were closer to $50.
But in contract law there are constraints on that type of misbehavior: the doctrines of unconscionability and
contra proferentem are just two of them. I am not sure that excessive fees have actually been subjected to a reasonableness test in court, let alone one that takes into account the circumstances under which the consumer is required to agree to them. It is so expensive to sue that the economically rational consumer (as opposed, say, to one who has a strong moral belief in business ethics) would generally find himself or herself better off paying the excessive fees rather than hiring a lawyer to challenge them in court. Since car rental usually implies that the renter lives far outside the jurisdiction, this introduces an additional problem of "remote control" in bringing any legal action.
This said, there is no shortage of court cases where various contract provisions (e.g. ones requiring mediation or limiting the forums in which the party with less bargaining power can sue) have been ruled unenforceable. We now live in an age where contract drafting is dominated by a type of brinkmanship.
Quote from: oscar on September 07, 2014, 04:18:17 AM
Quote from: jeffandnicole on September 06, 2014, 10:30:08 PM
In many cases, the contract is so lengthy because someone sued a company. This, the company must add something to the contract to protect themselves from such lawsuits.
More likely that the company needed to sue a customer, but couldn't because the necessary contract language was missing.
One common such feature of car rental contracts is the provision forbidding the rental vehicle from being driven to Mexico, which among other problems means a higher risk that the vehicle may never come back to the company. Add in other such "defensive" provisions to protect the company against customer misbehavior, and you end up with a fairly lengthy contract even if (hypothetically) the company is trying to keep the contract short.
I have definitely seen such. My current apartment lease includes, among other things, the instructions for operating the garbage disposal in the kitchen sink. The last company I worked for had a prohibition on being employed in a similar capacity with an organization they do business with while with the company because of a person who tried to get paid twice a second salary for the work they were already doing. I can be very interesting to find out why certain provisions are in contracts if you're in a position to find out. But, I feel that this is the result of a legal system that emphasizes technicalities over fairness and doing what is right.
Quote from: hbelkins on August 31, 2014, 03:33:03 PM
I've recounted my experience with ordering Peace Bridge E-ZPass tags before. (I had to order two, one for each vehicle as they were non-transferable, and they didn't arrive in time for my wife's trip, so I drove to Charleston and got a West Virginia tag, which is transferable between vehicles as long as said vehicles are registered to the account.)
So each agency does do it differently. Peace Bridge only allowed one vehicle per tag, while West Virginia allows more than one.
Since when does the Peace Bridge allow only one vehicle per tag??? We have our Ez-Pass via the Peace Bridge and have never had any problem transferring our 2 tags to rental cars and back when we needed to.
They did when I ordered mine from them. They've never been used. Since they did not come in by the time they were needed, I got the WV tag. I would have only ordered one to share between my wife's vehicle and mine, like I got with WV.
I really need to send them back. I could use the $50 of tolls that I initially put on them.
Quote from: J N Winkler on September 07, 2014, 11:01:59 AM
It has already been noted upthread that the toll crossing in question has advance signing for the toll. However, it has not been clarified whether it is possible to U-turn legally or otherwise avoid the facility after being told that tolls are paid cashlessly only.
There are signs warning of this in both directions before the last exit (northbound example) (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8632552,-73.933755,3a,33.3y,356.38h,82.41t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sTsp8a5VacoJwqREkr_TZog!2e0).
They're off to the side and not very in your face, though, so very easy to tune out as noise or just glance at and say "right, there's a toll, got it" without actually reading them. And none of them explicitly say "NO CASH ACCEPTED". They say "toll billed by mail", and I wouldn't blame someone unfamiliar with the concept of AET for not understanding what that means.
Quote from: Duke87 on September 14, 2014, 11:43:44 AM
Quote from: J N Winkler on September 07, 2014, 11:01:59 AM
It has already been noted upthread that the toll crossing in question has advance signing for the toll. However, it has not been clarified whether it is possible to U-turn legally or otherwise avoid the facility after being told that tolls are paid cashlessly only.
There are signs warning of this in both directions before the last exit (northbound example) (https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8632552,-73.933755,3a,33.3y,356.38h,82.41t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sTsp8a5VacoJwqREkr_TZog!2e0).
They're off to the side and not very in your face, though, so very easy to tune out as noise or just glance at and say "right, there's a toll, got it" without actually reading them. And none of them explicitly say "NO CASH ACCEPTED". They say "toll billed by mail", and I wouldn't blame someone unfamiliar with the concept of AET for not understanding what that means.
Every entrance to Md. 200 (ICC) says quite explicitly TOLL, NO CASH has the E-ZPass logo.
MdTA is a more competent agency than (NY) MTA. Tell us something we don't already know. :P
Looks to be about the same type signage as the height sign behind you. Miss the toll sign, and you get a toll invoice in the mail. Miss the height sign, and you get a lot more issues to deal with.
It'll be interesting to know how many non-EZ Pass vehicles get on an entire highway such as MD 200 anyway, compared to using a single plaza in an area where people are accustomed to people-operated toll plazas.
I think there is a key difference between the HH Bridge and MD-200. For the HH Bridge, it's EZ-PASS with a cash-less option. For those who don't have EZ-PASS they can still take the crossing, but would have to pay an administrative fee. Ignoring the rental car issues, the administrative fee charged by the MTA is not that high.
For the ICC, if you use it without an EZ-PASS you have committed a violation. The fee is quite higher accordingly.
I applaud the notion of cash-less tolls. Imagine a completely seam-less toll crossing. Nobody slows down. Nobody changes lanes. The throughput of the toll crossing is substantially increased and traffic is greatly improved. But it is important that cash-=less tolls be done in a very fair way.
1) Transponders should be available without monthly fees
2) Pay by internet option should be available within 3 days of making the crossing for no additional fees
3) If you receive a bill in the mail, the administrative fee should be limited to the lower of 100% of the toll or $10. E.g. If I cross at a $5 crossing, the administrative fee should be $5 and the total charge on the bill that I receive in the mail should only be $10, if I timely pay the bill that I receive.
4) Bill recipients should have at least 14 days from the postmark of the bill to pay the bill without accruing late fees.
5) Rental car companies fees with regard to electronic tolls need to be limited as well.
And I'm tired of hearing toll road agencies saying that the fees are necessary because of the costs of license plate recognition or joining the EZ-Pass consortium. Yes, there are costs involved. But these electronic technologies are saving the toll road millions of dollars by not having to pay the salaries, benefits, and pensions of toll-takers. If the regular toll structure was able to pay for the toll-takers, the regular toll structure should be able to pay for the costs of the technology.
I thought I'd mention how AET worked on the Golden Gate Bridge when I crossed it on a Saturday some weeks ago as part of a vacation. I approached on US 101 from the north. There were several VMS signs, all positioned well upstream of viable turnback points, advising motorists that cash tolls were not accepted at the booths and that motorists without Fastrak should call 511 to find out how they could pay toll.
I remembered Oscar's previous post in this thread and was reasonably sure I could just drive through the tollbooths and arrange payment later. However, I didn't want to take that chance, nor could I call 511 (profound hearing loss in both ears makes direct voice use of a phone impossible). So I just exited US 101 into the Golden Gate Recreation Area, eventually finding a place to park near the fishing pier, and used my phone to Google {Golden Gate Bridge how to pay toll without transponder}. It turns out there are three options for cashless payment: (1) Fastrak transponder; (2) bill-by-plate by registering your license plate number, your credit card number, and a validity period that can extend an unlimited time before your last transit of the facility to up to 48 hours after; and (3) bill-by-mail with "a small administrative fee" and (if memory serves) a 30-day window for payment before the unpaid toll is treated as a violation. I chose option (2), submitting the necessary details over my phone, received an email receipt almost immediately, and was on my way. It was a remarkably smooth experience, the most painful part of which was negotiating a major Saturday recreational destination for Bay Area residents.
I think the toll plus administrative fee for both the Golden Gate and the Henry Hudson Bridge is just the old cash rate.
Quote from: vdeane on October 05, 2014, 03:16:21 PM
I think the toll plus administrative fee for both the Golden Gate and the Henry Hudson Bridge is just the old cash rate.
It is. And based on MTA's policies, the Henry Hudson Bridge old cash rate is not only the bill-by-mail rate, but also the E-ZPass rate for non-NY issued transponders.
Quote from: vdeane on October 05, 2014, 03:16:21 PMI think the toll plus administrative fee for both the Golden Gate and the Henry Hudson Bridge is just the old cash rate.
This is the page I landed on:
https://www.bayareafastrak.org/vector/static/about/payGGBToll.shtml
It doesn't actually mention toll rates, though it does link to the page that does:
http://goldengatebridge.org/tolls_traffic/toll_rates.php
I don't think I even consulted the toll rates before I arranged payment. I only had a vague sense that, owing to seismic retrofits and cost overruns on the Bay Bridge east span replacement, I would not get much change from $10 for using any of the Bay Area crossings. I knew that I would have to pay toll only once given my itinerary on the peninsula (Golden Gate Bridge to Bay Bridge via SR 1, SR 92, I-280, I-380, and US 101), so I was more concerned about insulating myself from the possibility of being charged much higher fees for a violation. I was not really interested in being billed in arrears because any benefit I would have gotten from the float would have been quite small in comparison to the risk of losing track of the bill (quite easy to do in comparison to rent, utilities, etc. since it does not conform to a scheduled billing cycle) and having it turn into a violation.