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Comment by brink | Hacker News Reader

Something like this happened to me as well.

I skipped a toll station on the highway; which should be fine. A sign tells you that you can pay online within 7 days by searching your license plate. The next day I searched my license plate to pay what should have been $3-$4 in tolls and nothing came up. A month later I got a letter in the mail telling me that I owed the state around $100 for the tolls I "failed to pay" with nearly $90 assessed in late fees. The whole system is scummy.

Literal highway robbery.

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I had a similar issue after moving from Illinois to Wisconsin and getting new plates - but forgetting to update the plates within I-Pass. (So, I had a valid I-Pass, it was just on the same old car with new plates.)

A few years later I received a collections notice for $1,400 for ~$30 worth of tolls. (This was the first notice they'd sent me. No one could explain why.)

After spending hours on the phone with I-Pass the best they could do was reduce the fine to $300 while making the snarky offer that I could go to court if I didn't like it.

This was effectively a customer service issue (I was a valid customer in good standing), and I still wound up paying 10x the actual cost just to avoid missing work and traveling.

That's horrible.

As an Illinois resident, I had a different experience dealing with I-Pass issues. Apparently my card on file expired, so they couldn't refill my account. By the time I realized a week or so after noticing that I was getting the yellow light and not blue, I updated the card, paid the outstanding tolls. A month later, I get a fine notice for like $500. I called customer service. Took about 90 minutes on hold, but once I got a hold of someone, the gal was very pleasant, took a look at my account, said something along the lines of "Your accounts in good standing, I'll cancel the fines." Never heard another peep about it. Also one of the few times I asked to speak with her manager to let the manager how happy I was with the service (rare for a government employee).

Worth mentioning the ipass (and tollway) phone lines are actually handled by a group that helps people who are blind, visually impaired, disabled and Veterans. I have never had a bad experience with calling in.

I was not aware of that. Good to know.

They really do make it much harder than it needs to be. I was in Colorado on vacation and accidentally ran a toll at night. Just got a bill a couple weeks later for the exact amount of the toll with no fine. No reason it can't be like that in Illinois.

Having used the IPass online payment system multiple times, it sounds like you did not read warnings on the website.

On the online website, it says the search feature does not show the violations immediately and you should not rely on it.

     "The optimal timeframe for a successful search is the second and third weeks following the missed toll. Many missed tolls will not appear until one week after they were incurred due to the need to review the images of the license plate."

 Instead you should select the tolls you missed manually and then paying them. I have done this numerous time, noting the toll and time I missed and have never received a violation after I paid it online.

I have also used the search feature one week after I missed the toll and all of my missed tolls appeared.

It's unfortunate that you had to pay a fine but you shouldn't blame the state for your errors.

Assessing a $90 late fee on a $4 debt is something we would be livid about if it were a credit card company. The state is literally robbing people here because they are corrupt, bankrupt, and desperate. I think it's despicable.

>you shouldn't blame the state for your errors

And what's the technological reason behind there being a four week lag in the data being available? I can't think of a good one. I'm sure there's cell signal where the ANPR cameras are based.

If I was cynical, I'd go as far as to suggest the system is _engineered_ to encourage users to forget to check back at the correct time, even if they had attempted to pay at the first opportunity.

It's exactly the same as financial technology. Is there any technological reason why transactions shouldn't appear as soon as the authorisation takes place? No. It's poor because the incumbents can get away with it being poor.

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