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The HCTA is taking advantage of the public. There is no reason they should be collecting money through an attorney! They are charging people 20, 000% the cost of a toll for an unpaid violation. YES, 20, 000%... A $1.75 toll becomes $350 for attorney collection charges. A government agency should not hire an attorney to collect their fees. The HCTA has $1, 216 MILLION for county investment and 5.1 million in INVESTMENT Earnings and Total revenues for fiscal year 2014 were $616, 321, 129. The HCTA posts their financials, these were from the 2014 Financial Report: Authority funds available for investment under the County’s investment program as of February 28, 2014 totaled $1, 216 million with investment earnings of $5.1 million for the fiscal year. The average yield and maturity of such investments were 1.1% and 9.3 years.
I agree 100%! I was the victim of identity theft and the bank froze all my cards and issued me new ones. I thought I had completed re-establishing all my auto draft accounts but low and behold I had overlooked my toll road account. I racked up about $80 in unpaid tolls...Big Deal. It took me a while to realize this b/c I had become desensitized to the Harris County Toll Road Authorities mail due to the that that they send me 2-3 letters a month telling me they are charging my card another $40. Once the changed color I opened one to find out I owed $80, which was no big deal. I went down to the Toll road store on my lunch break and waited for over an hour and had to finally leave because I had to get back to work. I came back the following week and had the same experience and again had to leave to get back to work. The following week I took a day off and waited again for over an hour just to be told that they sent it off the attorneys the week before. I contacted them and they wanted over $1, 200.00 which is absolutely insane so I chose to dispute it and they set a hearing. When I got the hearing date I realized I was going to be out of the country at that time so I contacted them to get the hearing reset being I wouldn't be available. They refused to reset the date and I was forced to fire an attorney to get that date reset. Upon returning to the states I found out that the attorney I had hired failed to get the hearing reset and therefore I missed the hearing and now these people want over $2, 200.00 for $80 in unpaid tolls. I'm sorry but I will go to jail before I allow them to extort $2, 200.00 from my family out of principle alone. Why is it that any other auto draft account will call you when your card expires or stops working for whatever reason but the Toll Road Authority will just wait quietly never calling you when they have your phone number on file. The answer is because this is a scam, they can't wait get a paint payday for doing nothing. This is outrageous and the State needs to step up and shut this racket down or start building a bunch of low security prisons for all of us toll road victims to go and sit in until our ridiculous fines are paid off. If you file a class action suit sign me up!
Outraged,
gwadbuilder@yahoo.com
If the State will not listen and act, we are prepared to file what may become the largest Class Action Lawsuit in Texas History and seek legal remuneration including injunctive, compensatory, special and incidental damages from the state.
Texas Toll Roads are bringing harm to Taxpayers in the form of actual financial harm, frustration, anger, and other harms at an unprecedented level.