Shenanigans!

[kv0925]

Oy, what fresh fuckery is this now?

So you recall back in December we took a family trip up to Virginia Beach to visit the in-laws as we often do. Looks like I never posted a photo recap of that trip, weird. Anyway, during the trip we went to Portsmouth a couple times, and each time we made a round trip through one of the Elizabeth River tunnels. The tunnels have tolls, but it looked like I could go on the website to pay the tolls so everything would be hunky-dory and I could avoid extra fees from the car rental folks.

Well, while we were there I tried to pay the tolls on the website. Multiple times. With two different credit cards. And each time I would put in all the info, click Submit.. and get an error. So, thinking these payments were all failing, I kept trying, and always got an error. I e-mailed their customer service, and the answer I got was that they had no record of the rental car's license plate having gone through the tunnel at all. Meanwhile, my wife checked the credit card websites and saw that despite the errors, 5 of the payments I'd attempted had indeed gone through, which was 1 more than we needed to pay for the two round trips. So I figured hey, we paid (and then some!) and they say they didn't even see that the car went through the tunnel, so we should be fine and I am done wasting time on this.

Fast-forward to yesterday, and what should we find in the mail? Yup, a bill from the car rental company for one round trip (two 75-cent tolls)--plus $15 per toll administrative fee, for a total of $31.50. So that's not even both round trips, hence I expect to receive another bill for the same amount. $63.00 for four 75-cent tolls THAT I ALREADY PAID? Yeah, I don't think so.

I gathered the details from the credit card websites and have sent them along with a recap of the ordeal to the toll customer service people, asking them to credit what I paid to the proper vehicle, and send me a receipt saying it's all clear so I can give that to the car rental company and ask them to respectfully kiss my lily-white ass. But if the toll people's prior incompetence is any indication, I am not particularly hopeful I'll get a good response. We shall see.

Ugh, this week is kinda crappy. Maybe more later.

Comments

[girlguitarist.livejournal.com]

AHHHH the worst kind of bureaucracy. I hope you get this sorted out!

[cp.livejournal.com]

Me too! No response yet...

[re-vised.livejournal.com]

Ugh. That's annoying! I hope it stays as easy as giving them the details. It's so difficult to sort those sorts of things out.

[cp.livejournal.com]

I feel a bit stuck between the incompetent government agency and the money-grubbing corporation. I may be a character in an Ayn Rand novel.

[redqueenofevil.livejournal.com]

I hope it gets sorted out. If they don't sort it out, I hope you will share the name of the rental company so we can avoid them in the future.

[cp.livejournal.com]

Oh I don't mind sharing, the rental company is Thrifty. But I don't blame them here--while the $15 per toll fee is outrageous to be sure, it is clearly spelled out in their terms and surely works for them as an encouragement for people to take care of their own tolls (or pay the slightly-less-outrageous upfront fee to have tolls included). The fault here seems to be the government agency, which happily accepted my money for the tolls without actually applying the funds to the right vehicle (or any vehicle at all, probably).

That said: for business travel I always use Avis, and am typically very happy with them. I love their Preferred service, with which I can usually go straight from the plane to the car and be on my way, no need to stop at the rental desk. But since this was a family trip we were trying to save some money by going with Thrifty, and that's usually just not worth it!

[theidolhands.livejournal.com]

Don't ya just hate time-wasting shiz by companies who don't give a crud about you and just want to make an extra buck if they can because you're too busy to notice or fight it??

[cp.livejournal.com]

Sad thing is, I can't really fault the rental car company (Thrifty, in this case)--they spell out their fees and are just following through. The fault here is with the (government) toll agency, who took my money happily enough but didn't actually credit it to the tolls in question, which they then passed along to the rental car folks. It pains me to say that this is a situation where the conservatives have a point, government is screwing the pooch here. Although actually, it looks like the tunnels and tolls are operated as a public-private partnership, so perhaps there is some profit motive going on here after all! Shenanigans all around!

[theidolhands.livejournal.com]

YES