So I wrote previously what a pain it was to use my FastLane transponder on a rental car. However, since I had nothing wrong and trusted the system, I thought everything will work out. In fact, the customer service agent told me that since out-of-state transactions take some time to go through when the machine cannot read the transponder well, I should simply let the rental car on my Fast Lane account for a few days.
I did not think too much about it; after all the advice was coming from the EZPass agent. Then, I got a little busy and forgot about it, but two weeks later when I went to check, along with my relief that all transactions had gone through, I was shocked to notice that another renter of that car was abusing the fact the rental car was listed on my account. So this is how it works. If you go through the FastLane exit and the reader finds no transponder, it looks for the license plate in the system and then simply bills the account in which it is listed. I would have thought that the programmers at FastLane would want to make sure that both the transponder signal was detected and the license plate was also in the system in order for the transaction to be processed.
I spent over an hour with the customer service agents and it was fruitless. The amount was small (around $15) but I was very upset that some thug was driving around knowing fully well that I was paying the tolls and he/she was getting a free ride. Now, if there was no way to catch this crook, I would have made peace with myself, but FastLane had a way to track this driver. They could have simply invalidated the previous approvals and issued a bill to Hertz, which would have simply passed on the bill with a huge administrative fee to the renter (a justified treatment to someone who is deliberately dishonest), but for reasons I do not understand, I was repeatedly told that just because at their recommendation I left the license plate information in my account even if there was unauthorized use they had zero interest in stopping criminal behavior. I finally gave up because it was worthless to spend any more effort on it, though, I got a call a few days later from a manager that despite the fact that I was to blame for the fiasco, FastLane might be able to refund a portion of the unauthorized tolls charged to me. Lesson learned yet again: pay tolls in cash when using a rental car.
I did not think too much about it; after all the advice was coming from the EZPass agent. Then, I got a little busy and forgot about it, but two weeks later when I went to check, along with my relief that all transactions had gone through, I was shocked to notice that another renter of that car was abusing the fact the rental car was listed on my account. So this is how it works. If you go through the FastLane exit and the reader finds no transponder, it looks for the license plate in the system and then simply bills the account in which it is listed. I would have thought that the programmers at FastLane would want to make sure that both the transponder signal was detected and the license plate was also in the system in order for the transaction to be processed.
I spent over an hour with the customer service agents and it was fruitless. The amount was small (around $15) but I was very upset that some thug was driving around knowing fully well that I was paying the tolls and he/she was getting a free ride. Now, if there was no way to catch this crook, I would have made peace with myself, but FastLane had a way to track this driver. They could have simply invalidated the previous approvals and issued a bill to Hertz, which would have simply passed on the bill with a huge administrative fee to the renter (a justified treatment to someone who is deliberately dishonest), but for reasons I do not understand, I was repeatedly told that just because at their recommendation I left the license plate information in my account even if there was unauthorized use they had zero interest in stopping criminal behavior. I finally gave up because it was worthless to spend any more effort on it, though, I got a call a few days later from a manager that despite the fact that I was to blame for the fiasco, FastLane might be able to refund a portion of the unauthorized tolls charged to me. Lesson learned yet again: pay tolls in cash when using a rental car.