E-ZPass : Driver charged with $6,000 in tolls on 495 Express Lanes

E-ZPass : Driver charged with $6,000 in tolls on 495 Express Lanes
Thursday – 3/13/2014, 6:45am  ET
By Ari Ashe

MCLEAN, Va. — A Fairfax County, Va. man who commutes on the 495 Express Lanes each day was sent a court summons and told he’d have to pay $6,000 in tolls, penalties and fees, WTOP Ticketbuster has learned.

Todd Metheny commutes from Springfield to McLean. He says the trip often took more than an hour on the Capital Beltway, but now takes less than 20 minutes on the 495 Express Lanes. But in January 2013, a problem with his E-ZPass account caused an overdraft in his account.

“I got a letter in the mail saying, ‘We weren’t able to charge you for the toll, shame on you. Take care of it immediately. Future violations will result in administrative penalties.’ But by the time I got it, the future already happened,” says Metheny.

He says he called Transurban in late January, in February and in April of 2013. Each time, he sent documents from his E-ZPass account to Transurban, the private company that operates the 495 Express Lanes in a public-private partnership with the Commonwealth of Virginia.

But in mid-April, Metheny received a collections letter from Transurban. He called Transurban again on April 24.

“When I got the collections letter, I realized that about $11 now turned into nearly $800 in fines. I came unglued. Pick a word and I probably used it,” says Metheny.

Transurban agreed to research his case and call him back. But the agency never did. Metheny continued to use the 495 Express Lanes in 2013 and early 2014 without a problem. He says he didn’t hear anything from Transurban and assumed the agency just took the money out of his E-ZPass account.

https://www.wtop.com/1319/3580187/Driver-charged-with-6000-in-tolls