Driver says $4 toll lane bill turned into $40+ because of error

CHARLOTTE — Anthony Vivo is a firefighter who is used to huge vehicles, but he was driving his little Fiat the day he used a toll road in Charlotte.

Vivo is originally from New York and he still has his E-ZPass from there. Fortunately for him, you can also use those on toll roads in the Charlotte area.

He was cruising along the Interstate-77 toll lanes and the state charged his E-ZPass $4.30, as it should. But, for some reason, NC Quick Pass also billed him $2.15.

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Vivo says he didn’t pay the $2.15 and disputed the charge, but the state denied his claim. He says the state tacked on a late fee for not paying, plus two transaction fees.

So the bill that started at $4.30 was now at $43.45 — ten times the original amount.

“I didn’t feel it was fair because I did everything they told me to do and I was just awaiting their decision, and I never got one until I got the penalty from it,” he said.

He complained and said the state waived the transaction fees, but that he still owed more than $30.

“So that’s when we reached out to you to see if there was anything you could do,” he told Action 9′s Jason Stoogenke.

Stoogenke emailed the state. It says the toll lanes didn’t read Vivo’s transponder the right way. It’s not clear why, but it explains the double bill. The state says he took all the right steps to challenge it and ended up scrapping all the charges, even the $4.30 he owed.

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“I feel good about it ... I appreciated it and said, ‘Thank you.’ I agreed ... I would pay the original fee if they felt that I had owed it. But they said that it was OK, that they would take care of it,” he said.

Vivo feels he should have gone ahead and paid both bills and then disputed it to avoid having to fight penalties and extra fees as well.

Since the beginning of July, Action 9 has received more complaints than usual about tolls, so Stoogenke asked the state if something had changed recently that would explain it. The state says it launched a new website in February and a new app in late June. It acknowledges these may have led to some of the “growing pains.”

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