For those of us in South Orange County, California, toll roads are a relatively new thing. Living in Laguna Niguel and selling homes all over Orange County, I often find one or the other of the toll roads handy, especially during rush hour. And having a transponder means I don't have to have the exact change or stop to pay the toll.
Since I got my first transponder right when the first toll road opened in 1996, it was pretty old
. I was pleasantly surprised to get a brand new, state-of-the-art transponder in the mail and I didn't even have to ask for it. Without giving it a thought, I put it in the car (I keep it in the console, not stuck to the window) and forgot to take the old one out for a few days. You guessed it, I got charged twice every time I used the toll road for the next couple of days.
I finally put the old unit in the postage paid envelope that was provided and dropped it in the mail back to FasTrak and got charged $9 for a one way trip. I know this because I actually checked my statement for the first time in ages. (Is that Suzy Orman's voice I keep hearing in my head?) Anyway, there they were, all those duplicate charges and the whopping $9 charge posted at 7:30pm on the same day I dropped it in the mail. I figure that charge was when the Post Office used the toll road in their big semi truck to transport my unit back to wherever old transponders go and the charge for a semi to traverse the toll road is much more than my car.
The people at the Toll Roads couldn't have been nicer though. I called and pointed out the duplicate charges and the suspicious $9 charge. The lady didn't even question it, just pleasantly said she'd be happy to credit my account, and that was it. So if you've received a nice shiny new transponder recently, at least check your statement to make sure you didn't get charged a toll for returning the old unit in the postage paid envelope provided, ‘cause the toll is way more than the free return postage.
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