We had been receiving annoying letters from TXDoT over the last few months about unpaid tolls…gotta’ love the flawless automation and outsourcing the Texas Lege went with. Often the statement was vague since toll authorities are much like the IRS, you’re automatically guilty so just pay what we’re demanding.
Most of the evidence pointed toward my wife’s car yet she didn’t take care of it while the letters kept coming. Pissed and annoyed, I took it up this morning.
For starters, I owe her an apology. The issue was centered around my car oddly. However, there were some oddities.
- The account number on the statement didn’t match what I have on file.
- I have been receiving statements like clockwork coinciding with when we’ve driven either car through Goodhair’s revenue vacuums (around Austin, it’s 183A, SH-45, 135 and soon there will be a One Percenter Lane on MoPac); thus we’re paid in full.
- Based upon the previous bullet point, the RF elements of both tags are functioning. Either this is for someone else or something isn’t operational.
After using my Call Center Fu on their phone tree to get a human being to iron this out (press zero even if they don’t list it), I proceeded to explain my confusion. The first time nobody answered. The second time I got a nice man named Marco. While speaking to him I discovered that my car was still listed with the dealer plates (damn it). We also had to set up a security question (what was the first school I attended is vague, what kind of school exactly?), then Marco pointed out why there was a second account. Once the real plates went on my car a new number got generated. I’ve had the car for almost two years, I would think I should “owe” more than nine bucks. I also believe Marco’s bosses ingrain into him and his co-workers to just go ahead and collect the money. I disagreed saying I’m confident I’ve paid already as per the past statements I’ve gotten via e-mail. I politely asked him to tell me the dates in dispute. Marco gladly let me know and I found all three online showing I had paid. To be extra geeky, I went back into my calendar with additional data to confirm I know when and why…two times were to see Stars’ pre-season games and the last was the season opener we won!
Marco cleared it up and finished with a little extra help by consolidating the accounts. I was stoked since the site wouldn’t let me change the license plate listing, it said it’s attached to another account. Now we’re good and the foreigners (Spaniards and Aussies) who are leasing these Republican ripoffs will get their money. I thanked Marco and found something in the TXDoT portal to make sure he receives credit for a job well done.
I wanted to share this experience. All too often there are customer service horror stories and I empathize with Marco. People love to dump on us. They think, “Hey, this ass clown can’t see my face and can’t punch me, I can be as abusive as I want to be. Nevermind this isn’t their fault. They’re the convenient recipient of my rage.” Firstly, I’ve been very cool with phone agents for 20 years no matter how I feel. Lastly, I wanted to fight the tide of complaining. As a friend once said, when someone does a good job fixing your car, you tell a couple people. When they don’t, you tell everybody.
Now I probably have to buy Somara something equivalent to flowers.