Thousands of people likely overcharged for using Maryland’s toll facilities

BALTIMORE — A brand new state report reveals over 82,000 clients have been probably overcharged for utilizing a number of of Maryland’s toll services.

The report was performed by the Maryland Normal Meeting’s Workplace of Legislative Audits. It was compiled after officers acquired dozens of complaints from individuals who mentioned that they had been charged the flawed toll charges. 

The complaints have been made by the state’s fraud, waste, and abuse hotline, in line with the report. Some complainants had a number of complaints starting from being charged the wrong charge to being a number of occasions for a similar journey.

A knowledge evaluation revealed that individuals who used the Thomas J. Hatem Memorial Bridge low cost plan had been improperly charged polls, in line with the report. 

“Primarily based on our information evaluation, we recognized roughly $435,000 in probably improper toll prices associated to 10,474 Thomas J. Hatem Memorial Bridge low cost plan clients that warrant additional follow-up by MDTA,” the report states. “Underneath the low cost plan, clients pay $20 yearly for limitless journeys by a two-axle automobile and shouldn’t be charged tolls if the automobile has a correctly mounted E-ZPass transponder.”

Most of the inaccurate toll prices occurred over the primary vacation season throughout the pandemic—between Dec. 24, 2020, to Jan. 15, 2021, in line with the evaluation.

Throughout that point interval, 4,465 clients have been charged 7,813 tolls totaling $62,595, per the report.

“Primarily based on our overview of the associated automobile photographs taken by tolling cameras for 37 judgmentally chosen tolls throughout the spike interval, we imagine MDTA ought to have dismissed 25 of those tolls regarding 23 clients because the automobile photographs confirmed a correctly mounted transponder or the picture was inadequate to find out if the transponder was correctly mounted,” the report states. “For 11 of these 25 tolls the place the photographic picture was inadequate to find out if a transponder was correctly mounted, because the license plate quantity was related to the E-ZPass account we imagine the burden ought to have been on MDTA to show consumer error by a reduction plan buyer earlier than charging a toll.”

The evaluation additionally reveals that greater than 82,000 individuals have been probably overcharged by the MDTA when utilizing its toll services.

“Primarily based on our information evaluation for all MDTA toll services, we recognized 82,847 clients that have been probably charged greater than as soon as for a single journey by a toll facility,” the report states. “The toll prices (together with each potential duplicate tolls and proper tolls) for these clients totaled roughly $645,000. A majority of those tolls (80 p.c) occurred at three toll services – the Intercounty Connector (ICC), the William Preston Lane Jr. Memorial (Bay) Bridge, and the Fort McHenry Tunnel.”