M50 Toll Now Sending Solicitors' Letters To Innocent Drivers
The barrier free toll system on the M50 continues to victimise innocent motorists through a combination of electronic mistakes and dreadful customer service. People are now receiving threatening letters from solicitors chasing payment for tolls that have been charged by mistake. With the system making 200 mistakes a day and the call centre often impossible to contact this is deteriorating into a farce. Many motorists are contacting the AA about it. We have had a series of discussions with the NRA and are now appealing to Minister Dempsey for his help in sorting it out, writes Conor Faughnan.
The barrier free toll system opened to much fanfare last August. I regret to say that everything that we feared about the system has come true. The road itself is fine – no traffic delays to speak of once the barriers were gone. But the hi-tech toll collection system is a nightmare.
Mistakes
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The NRA says that the system is accurate 99.8% of the time which is well up with international best practice. With 100,000 vehicles a day using the road that means that means 200 mistakes are being made daily. If the NRA accept this then they must accept that they have a responsibility to correct those mistakes immediately and they must have the resources in place to do it.
As it stands people regularly find it impossible to contact them. The AA has been hearing plenty of first-hand stories from motorists who have spent hours trying to get a simple mistake corrected only to find that the bureaucratic monster keeps on sending them bills.
I spoke just the other day to an AA member who has received a solicitors’ letter demanding payment of - get this - €1,200 in respect of unpaid tolls and penalties. In the period in question she had only used the bridge perhaps a dozen or fifteen times. She paid the toll each time (the money is gone from her bank account) but the system did not recognise it and kept on sending ever increasing bills to an old and out-of-date address. She only became aware of it by accident.
In her repeated attempts to clear this up over the Easter period she found herself transferred from pillar to post and then to an unsympathetic solicitor who effectively told her to pay up or face a day in court. This is absolutely outrageous but I’m afraid it is not unique.
Other mistakes include misreading of tags and incorrect reading of registration plates. A common one is for a 'D' reg to be confused with 'DL', resulting in payment demands being send to people in Donegal. Even in cases as clear as that people still face an uphill struggle to get the fee cancelled.
How unpaid bills automatically get penalties
The system automatically adds penalty charges to your bill if you do not pay on time. The rules are that for unregistered users, if you don't pay your toll before 8pm on the day following your journey, a penalty of €3 is added to the outstanding amount. If you fail to pay the toll and this €3 penalty within the next 14 days, a further penalty of €41.50 will be levied.
Failure to pay the full amount due within a further 56 days will result in an additional €104.50 penalty. Then if you still have not paid the total amount due, according to eFlow 'legal proceedings will be initiated'.
Who runs the Toll system?
Ultimately the NRA is responsible, but they contract the work out. A French consortium won the tender process and operates the system through an Irish company called 'BetEire Flow'. This company in turn contracts out the customer service aspect to a company called Teleperformance. This company handles the phone calls and employs 2,400 people in Newry and Bangor.
The AA has been raising this regularly with the NRA to try to push them into action to sort it out. Both the NRA and BetEire Flow acknowledge that there have been 'customer service failings'. A rather spectacular understatement.
In attempting to sort it out, BetEire Flow has announced that it will appoint Cork-based company Abtran which will also handle customer calls.
Court cases pending
With the system now up and running for eight months there are quite a number of motorists who have reached the stage of receiving solicitors’ letters threatening court action. Unfair as it is on those people part of me hopes that they wind up being taken to court. The NRA and the various subcontractors are likely to find themselves seriously embarrassed and chastised by the process.
But it is better still to get the problem fixed. I will be bringing the matter directly to the attention of Transport Minister Noel Dempsey and I hope that he can compel the parties involved to get it sorted as a matter of urgency.