The Wife has been driving to Lockhart for the last three days, using the toll roads. So TXtag, in their infinite wisdom, disabled online access to our account because the increased activity drained the account down into a negative balance. No emails saying “account suspended”, or more wisely, no email saying “here’s how to pay, pay now”.
Even better, when I finally get to talk to someone at TXtag (the first operator hung up on me, she apparently had virgin ears) manage to figure out what the toll charge was per day, and got the account back open, there isn’t any way to check usage and see what the current charges are. Most annoyingly, while waiting on hold, I’m told every 30 seconds about how I can go online and pay, when I wouldn’t have been hearing the message if that were true.
I don’t know which petty little modo thought it was a good idea to disabled online access when accounts go negative, making it harder for people to actually pay their tolls, but I don’t think that person is qualified to sweep floors, much less make important decisions of this nature. Yes, I’m looking at you Governor Perry.
I scalded both sets of ears of the people I talked to. I got the account reopened and all additional charges dropped, but I have a real problem with the way they’re doing this stuff. The State should be handling this themselves if they want to charge us for the roads, or at least have the contractors answer to the state (which they don’t do know. They only answer to the gov) it has to change and the only way to change it is change who is running the state.
Postscript
I still don’t like TxTag, and it is getting harder to avoid toll roads. They rebuilt the website in January 2021. I’m hoping that fixes some of the problems with the billing. The only way to fix the toll road problem is to find a way to pay for roads that isn’t collected as tolls for driving on them. Maybe a tire tax? No idea. The gas tax that has historically funded Texas roads is already failing to pay for the roads we need, and electric vehicles will avoid that tax entirely.