Nickels and Dimes

I was checking my NTTA tolltag account online yesterday in preparation for a visit to Dallas. I wanted to make sure I had the correct vehicle information in the system because I revise that info whenever I use a rental vehicle. They fined me a couple of years ago because I was using a rental on the tollways and did not inform them so the plates didn't match to my tolltag. My mistake so I didn't argue. I checked the vehicle information and everything was correct so I was about to log off but thought it would be interesting (for lack of a word) to see some past transactions. Lo and behold I saw a transaction during July for my vehicle. That's unsusual because I was nowhere near Addison Texas in July.

I called the customer service number and explained the situation and the friendly representative asked me some questions. When she realized that I had used a rental vehicle in June she put me on hold. When she came back she explained to me what had happened. In a nutshell, when I entered the vehicle information for the rental vehicle I used in June, the system remembers that. So when someone else rented the same vehicle in July and used the tollway and didn't pay, the system charged my account. She told me her supervisor said to fax a copy of the rental agreement showing the dates of rental and the vehicle's plate number to them in order to credit my account. I said that seemed like a lot of work for seventy cents and she agreed but that was what her supervisor wanted.

I remembered the fine the NTTA assessed me a while back and decided they weren't going to bilk me out of my hard-earned money so I asked for their fax number. After some searching I found my rental agreement from earlier in the year. It's a good thing I don't throw anything away. I made a copy of it and faxed it to the customer service department. I got my seventy cents back and feel good about it.