TIMNATH, Colo — Luke Wagner paid $100 in an auction for a vanity plate that made him chuckle. Months later, he wasn’t laughing.
On a whim he decided to open his monthly statement from Express Toll. It had dozens of charges for his new plate in locations he had never driven – along with tolls dating back nearly three years.
Express Tolls bills drivers in two ways. Drivers with transponders on their windshield are charged a discounted rate. Drivers without a transponder are billed based on a picture of their license passing through a toll plaza or into an express lane.
Wagner has a transponder and said the suspicious tolls on his account were license plate tolls. So he reached out to Express Tolls to try to get an explanation.
“I started with calling them first,” he said. “And they said we can't take your call, you're gonna have to email somebody.”
Wagner sent e-mails to Express Toll for weeks trying to get answers. The agency finally responded with a photo of the vehicle in question. It was a white Audi with an orange and blue license plate with the same letters – MVE OVR. Wagner drives a 2013 silver Infiniti, and his plate is bright blue with white letters. He thought the license plate in the picture was an out-of-state plate with the same letters.
He figured now that he had provided Express Toll evidence that his vehicle didn’t match, he’d be refunded right away. But he said the issue still dragged on for weeks. So he called Steve On Your Side.
Consumer Investigator Steve Staeger contacted Express Toll on May 29 with a list of questions. A week later, the agency responded, saying the Audi driver was using a fake license plate. The agency said it resolved the issue with Wagner on May 29. He confirmed weeks later that his account had been refunded.
Jessica Carson, a spokeswoman for the E-470 Public Highway Authority, which manages Express Toll, said the agency has recently heard of an uptick in fake license plate use on Colorado roadways. She called Wagner’s case extremely rare, but she said all Express Toll users should review their statements monthly to ensure they’re being charged for the correct usage.
Carson said the toll agency’s technology can discriminate between letters and states on license plates but wasn’t sophisticated enough to recognize the problem in Wagner’s case.
She said the agency refunded him $75 in incorrect tolls and placed his account on a weekly review, where a human will look at all computer-generated charges to determine whether they’re for the correct vehicle. Carson apologized for the lapse in customer service resolving his problem and said the agency’s goal is to respond to drivers’ inquiries within 24 to 48 hours.
How to challenge an incorrect toll charge
Carson said anyone with a concern like this should contact Express Toll’s customer service hotline by calling (303) 537-3470 or (888) 946-3470 for people out of the area. Or they can e-mail customerservice@expresstoll.com.
Wagner said early in his interaction with Express Toll’s customer service team, someone recommended he simply change his license plate to avoid further problems, so he did.
“I just wanted it to stop,” he said.
Have you had an issue like this on a Colorado roadway? Let Steve On Your Side know about that problem or any other consumer issue by filling out this form.
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