A warning to Houston drivers, TxDOT is having technical difficulties that you may be paying for and it’s not the first time.
On Monday, the Harris County Toll Road Authority (HCTRA) emailed several of its customers to inform them that TXDOT has been wrongfully billing customers for use of the Grand Parkway.
Roxana Sibrian, media relations manager with HCTRA, said they started noticing complaints from EZ TAG customers in April.
“When the call volume goes up, we certainly want to take a look and dive in a little deeper and see if there’s anything out of the usual,” Sibrian explained.
They discovered countless Grand Parkway customers were getting bills from TxDOT.
TXDOT which runs TxTag, and EZ TAG are not connected.
HCTRA operates toll roads within the Greater Houston Metropolitan region through the use of EZ TAG.
TxDOT runs the state’s tollways, however, instead of making every Houstonian buy two tags they partner up allowing EZ TAG to bill.
Since the beginning of the year, TxDOT’s technology hasn’t always been reading EZ TAGS on the Grand Parkway.
According to Sibrian, customers haven’t always been charged through EZ TAG which is why they’re being charged through TXDOT by error.
The email that customer’s received reads:
"Dear EZ TAG Customer,
If you had a good EZ TAG account and used TxDOT’s Grand Parkway from January – April, 2018, you may have received a bill in error from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) TxTag tolling system."
TxDOT has informed HCTRA that they are working hard to identify and correct the issue for HCTRA EZ TAG customers whose tags should work on TxDOT roadways, and shared the following message:
"For those customers with a valid EZ TAG account who were billed by TxTag, please disregard the bill. Please note, there is no need to contact TxTag or the Harris County Toll Road Authority regarding these tolls.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.
If you need assistance or have questions, feel free to send us an email, or call or come by one of our EZ TAG Store locations during regular business hours.
Please note: Some transactions may take several business days to post.
Thank you,
Harris County Toll Road Authority EZ TAG Services"
For EZ TAG customers who already paid a TxDOT bill, TxDOT says customers do not need to take any action or call because the accounts are being corrected.
The payments will either be applied to any outstanding tolls due that were correctly assessed; if none, then payments will be refunded. TxDOT has not offered a timeline on the process.
As for what’s causing the problem, TxDOT is still investigating. So far no word on how many customers may be affected.
This is not the first time TxDOT has made a billing mistake, in 2017 a error in its system led to mistaken fines for drivers.