Full-ETC Bill-by-Plate Surcharges

[formulanone]

(Plus, I think I had to pay a toll every day I had the car anyway.)

That's pretty much how it works; if you don't use a toll road at all, then there's no charge. But if you go through one toll booth, one day out of your multi-day rental, then you're typically hit with a daily per-day-of-rental surcharge (since many rentals are 5 days, they use a 5-day-max) for the sake of...well, being a rental car agency.

[Kacie Jane]

*grumbles* cheap bastards *cough cough*

[cpzilliacus]

In the interest of examining this theory further, I just did a Google search for the guy's name. The Washington Post reported on this story and said the fine is $500 for the fourth offense and for every subsequent offense, and the story quotes an MWAA official who said Bourcier had 335 toll violations beginning in 2009. $500 times 335 violations is $167,500 right there, and then you add the unpaid tolls and late fees on top of that.

[Snipped]

Edited to add: A USA Today article contains further details. It seems apparent to me this guy knew exactly what he was doing, especially after he started receiving bills and warning notices. He even refused to settle for $800!

I do not like the idea of massive charges above and beyond the unpaid tolls.  And I would think that the courts would consider such charges as unconscionable (though I don't know to what extent the Virginia state courts can do that).

IMO, the toll road should charge simple interest, and perhaps legal or collection charges, and just put a hold on the vehicle's registration renewal (and if we want to be nasty, the drivers license of the registered owner).  Likely that the unpaid tolls will get paid, sooner or later.

[vdeane]

The Thruway and the Thousand Islands Bridge also accept credit cards.

But then, the transponder rates are pretty low - $2.48 peak, $1.86 off peak. The total bill by plate rate is roughly the same as MTA's cash rates in NYC.

Combine that with the fact that people who don't have Quebec plates pay a $0.00 toll and it seems like not a big deal since non-locals aren't getting hosed. Most people actually paying the toll should have a tag.

$2.48 strikes me as normal, but I'm used to the St. Lawrence River crossings between NY and Ontario, not the NYC crossings.

Also, last I checked, Quebec is pretty big.

Alternatively, many (but not all) of Florida's toll plazas use a banner reading "PREPAID TOLLS ONLY." Sometimes, as in the image shown below from AARoads, for plazas with ORT lanes it's coupled with the diagrammatic sign telling the cash users to exit to the right. (Funny thing is, my sat-nav tells me "exit left" for the ORT lanes. I view the cash users as having to "exit.") The one thing that's potentially missing from this sort of sign is the words "NO CASH" for the ORT lanes. Off the top of my head, I do not recall seeing the "PREPAID TOLLS ONLY" language outside Florida.

I don't like the "exit to pay toll" verbage some places in Florida use.  Drivers unfamiliar with ORT are likely to think "exit" means the same thing as exiting onto a local street.  My second cousins thought that one time they were in Florida.  At the time, the only ORT lanes in the entire northeast were the (then) just-opened ORT lanes in Woodbury (OK, technically Spring Valley too, but it doesn't matter much since cars pay no toll there) and maybe the ones in NH (I don't know when NH started ORT).  Of course, we live in the Upstate NY no-innovation zone.  Aside from the 20 mph E-ZPass lanes/wide load lanes installed at some plazas, there hasn't been a single change in electronic toll collection north of Newburgh since E-ZPass was first invented.

(Plus, I think I had to pay a toll every day I had the car anyway.)

That's pretty much how it works; if you don't use a toll road at all, then there's no charge. But if you go through one toll booth, one day out of your multi-day rental, then you're typically hit with a daily per-day-of-rental surcharge (since many rentals are 5 days, they use a 5-day-max) for the sake of...well, being a rental car agency.

The one time I've ever dealt with a rental car, the charge was listed in the contract as per-day-of-toll-pass-use (though I didn't try it).

[Duke87]

Same situation at the toll booth.  They refuse to pull out their wallet until they get to the booth.  They look thru to see if they have exact change; they see they don't, then they hand over a $20.  Even if they didn't know the toll beforehand because they don't understand the ticket they received when they got on the toll road, or they missed the multiple signs announcing the toll, at the very least having a $20 ready would allow the entire process to go faster.

Not everywhere has signs. The Atlantic Beach Bridge in New York does not, and I ended up getting cheated on account of this. For some reason, I was under the mistaken impression that the toll was $3. It's not, it's $2. But when I handed the toll collector $3 and said "it's 3 bucks, right?", he said "yeah" and just took the money. Scumbag probably pocketed that extra dollar. Of course, I'm sure he was also wondering what this unshaven and semi-disheveled dude with out of state plates on a messy dirty car was doing driving into a beach community in February.

[agentsteel53]

checkbook

*shudder*

banks really need to start charging about $10/check and then people will very quickly force themselves into the late 20th century.

[agentsteel53]

Scumbag probably pocketed that extra dollar.

report him.  a general description combined with booth number and date/time of the transaction should be sufficient, even if some details are remembered slightly incorrectly, to identify him to his bosses. 

fuckheads like this, who use their quick-thinking skills for blatant assholery, need to get fired.  or lit on fire, whichever. 

[Alps]

Most, perhaps all, of the ones on I-295 have been replaced with "EXIT ONLY" and I haven't been through Wilmington on I-95 since sometime in the 1990s so I don't know about the ones there.

I-95 still has "MUST EXIT" through downtown, so hurry.

My understanding was that it's only $2-3 a day on days you use it, not necessarily for the entire length of the rental.  So if you rented a car for a week, but only faced a solitary fifty-cent toll, you'd be charged 50 cents plus 2 dollars for that one day, but not for the days you drove around on untolled roads.

Every rental car I've ever gotten with a tag, they explicitly say that once you open it, they will charge you every day of the rental, regardless of whether you use the tag.

[formulanone]

checkbook

*shudder*

banks really need to start charging about $10/check and then people will very quickly force themselves into the late 20th century.

Unfortunately, it fills in the gap between businesses reporting huge sums of cash (think IRS) for large purchases, and credit card fraud/limits. And for mailing birthday gifts.

After that, all of our monthly bills accept electronic banking, and apart from a rare unexpected bill in which setting that up isn't worth the trouble, I probably write one a year to someone who's not having a birthday.

[vdeane]

It would be nice if banks gave consumers an option to buy checks in an amount smaller than a whole box.

Same situation at the toll booth.  They refuse to pull out their wallet until they get to the booth.  They look thru to see if they have exact change; they see they don't, then they hand over a $20.  Even if they didn't know the toll beforehand because they don't understand the ticket they received when they got on the toll road, or they missed the multiple signs announcing the toll, at the very least having a $20 ready would allow the entire process to go faster.

To be fair, if you're traveling alone, and don't know the amount before you leave (or stop at a service plaza in the case of a ticket system), you CAN'T have anything out in advance.  That's one of the reasons I got E-ZPass when I went to college.  Didn't want to fumble with cash and hold up the line behind me.

[1995hoo]

It would be nice if banks gave consumers an option to buy checks in an amount smaller than a whole box.

....

Don't buy from the bank. We opened accounts at a new bank this year and got the checks from, of all places, Wal-Mart online. It was actually a very good buying process, constant e-mail updates for every step of the process and a damn reasonable price (I think we paid less than $7).

[Alps]

It would be nice if banks gave consumers an option to buy checks in an amount smaller than a whole box.

Heh. My bank gives checks for free. I'm still on my original box of 256, which still has my old address - from 4.5 years ago.

[Duke87]

The most common thing I use paper checks for is paying my rent every month. It is the only form of payment the company that owns my building accepts.

[vdeane]

It would be nice if banks gave consumers an option to buy checks in an amount smaller than a whole box.

....

Don't buy from the bank. We opened accounts at a new bank this year and got the checks from, of all places, Wal-Mart online. It was actually a very good buying process, constant e-mail updates for every step of the process and a damn reasonable price (I think we paid less than $7).

My current ones are from WalMart because First Niagara charges WAY too much (HSBC was free), but you still need to buy a box's worth.

It would be nice if banks gave consumers an option to buy checks in an amount smaller than a whole box.

Heh. My bank gives checks for free. I'm still on my original box of 256, which still has my old address - from 4.5 years ago.

Glad I'm not the only one.

The most common thing I use paper checks for is paying my rent every month. It is the only form of payment the company that owns my building accepts.

Now there's one thing I like about First Niagara: you can add anyone you want to online bill pay, and if they don't accept electronic payment, the bank mails them a check for free.  You can even enter the text for the memo field.

[Duke87]

I've intentionally avoided creating an online account for banking since I do not believe the benefits of having one outweigh the security risks. My attitude is, you can't hack into my online bank account if I don't have one! So HA!

Seriously, anything I want to do I can do at an ATM, and it is not prohibitively inconvenient to have to do so. In fact, it's trivial for me to stop in person at a branch of my bank - there's one a block away from my office and another that I walk past on my way home. But hey, that's working in Manhattan for you.


As for ordering checks... original box of 256!? Dang! I only get 90 (three books of 30) at a time. They're not free but they last long enough that the small cost (maybe $25 for those 90 checks) is not something I notice.
Also, I had no idea it was possible to obtain them from an entity other than your bank. Considering those checks are tied to your specific bank account, how does that even work? Seems about as legit to me as counterfeit currency. If I were running a bank I would interpret someone attempting to use a check they didn't get from me as blatant fraud.

[Kacie Jane]

Also, I had no idea it was possible to obtain them from an entity other than your bank. Considering those checks are tied to your specific bank account, how does that even work? Seems about as legit to me as counterfeit currency. If I were running a bank I would interpret someone attempting to use a check they didn't get from me as blatant fraud.

Ordering checks from entities other than the bank has been possible for far longer than I've been banking.  (If you get Val-pak coupons or similar in the mail, there's almost always something in there to order checks and address labels with cool designs.)  And at each of the past two banks I've used, you don't actually obtain them from the bank -- they contracted out to the same company, Harland Clarke, and while you can order checks through the bank's website (which actually just seamlessly redirects you to Harland Clarke's), you can also just order them directly from Harland Clarke.

[theline]

Upthread, a couple of folks mention toll facilities that accept credit cards, as though it were rare. I thought it was rather common, though I've not paid via card often. I've got an I-Pass.

The Indiana Toll Road, for one, accepts credit cards at attended and unattended booths. The unattended ones use an ATM-like machine. You insert your ticket and it tells you how much you owe. You can insert cash or your card to pay. If you need help, there's a button for that. It connects you to somebody in India, I think. The whole idea was to eliminate as many human toll-takers as they could when the concession took over and they kicked out the union.

[US81]

Upthread, a couple of folks mention toll facilities that accept credit cards, as though it were rare. I thought it was rather common, though I've not paid via card often. I've got an I-Pass.

The Indiana Toll Road, for one, accepts credit cards at attended and unattended booths. The unattended ones use an ATM-like machine. You insert your ticket and it tells you how much you owe. You can insert cash or your card to pay. If you need help, there's a button for that. It connects you to somebody in India, I think. The whole idea was to eliminate as many human toll-takers as they could when the concession took over and they kicked out the union.

I wish the option to pay by credit card (or cash) was available to me. On the rare occasions I have used Texas toll roads, I have never received the alleged first statement. The first invoice I receive is always the second bill with invoice fees, late fees, pay by mail fees, and - and a 'convenience' charge for every form of payment I can use.