Cove man gets toll for trip through Dallas he never took
Fri, 2016-10-21 05:00
News Staff
By LYNETTE SOWELL
Cove Leader-Press
According to a bill Larry Letzer Sr. of Copperas Cove received, Letzer supposedly rode his motorcycle on the Sam Rayburn Tollway on October 4, 2016, at 7:56 a.m. and was subsequently billed $14 on his TxTag account.
But Letzer said he couldn’t have possibly taken that ride because on October 4, 2016, he had two skin surgeries, one in Harker Heights at 9:15 a.m. and another in Georgetown later that morning. He rode his motorcycle to both appointments, he said.
The Sam Rayburn Tollway is a 26.2-mile stretch formerly known as SH-121 and runs from I-35E in Lewisville to U.S. 75, in the DFW area.
“My motorcycle was not anywhere near Fort Worth then or any time in the past year,” Letzer told the Leader-Press. “When I discovered this charge I called the (tollway) people and was told by a supervisor that it will take up to two weeks to prove that my motorcycle was not at the toll checkpoint on the date and time the system said I was there.”
He wonders just how many false charges drivers pay to Texas tollways. He also said he questioned the customer service representative about why the toll was so high and they were unable to tell him why, that usually a single access for a two-axle vehicle is much less than $14.
“The supervisor told me, ‘North Texas tollways charge whatever they want,’” Letzer said. “I am making a big deal out of $14, but when I spoke with them, they kinda blew me off.”
The tollway company’s website has options for disputing tolls. However, it doesn’t include an option that the driver might received a bill by mistake.
The only options to dispute a toll are that the vehicle was sold or transferred to someone else before the violation occurred, the vehicle was leased or rented to another party, or the vehicle was reported stolen before the toll charge occurred.
“How often are we Texans charged by the tollway system when we did not use it? Plus, generally the cost is $1.75 for a single toll area. They charged me $14 for a motorcycle. When I questioned them, they said they have to get back to me,” Letzer said.
Unpaid toll accounts are subject to hefty late fees, and if a toll continues to be unpaid, the individual whose name is on the account is subject to legal action.
The tollway is part of the North Texas Tollway Authority, an organization sanctioned by the state of Texas to maintain the tollways in north Texas, similar to the Central Texas Turnpike System run by the Texas Department of Transportation, which uses the TxTag in the greater Austin area.
Billing issues with Texas tollways came to the forefront last year when, in March 2015, billing problems with TxTag accounts resulted in a total of $1.7 million to tollway users statewide who had been overbilled.
The Leader-Press contacted the NTTA about Letzer’s situation and received a call just prior to press time from the ombudsman’s office. The NTTA representative said Letzer’s case was looked into and that he would be receiving a credit to his TxTag account.