The M50 Barrier Free Tolling Thread

cianclarke

cianclarke wrote: »

OK folks, heres one. 3 toll journies unpaid (Not working on my iPhone? you're joking? But what's this?Not in Google Chrome either? Safari? Course not.. Joke tbh)
So, I think grand I'll just take the €6 * 3 =€18, i'm a tool, whatcha gonna do..
BUT - the notices went to the previous owner. Crap system needs some STR number from the letter which I didn't have, so now they want €150 or so. For 3 trips.
Any advice as to argue this one? Didn't have much luck first time but couldn't get a supervisor, they promised me a callback which never came.

OK, update on this one! After getting very strappy on the phone with them last time (not just stupidly angry, but pleading my case strongly), I requested a supervisor callback.
I called again today intending to be all nice and lovely, ask how much is on the a/c, plead dumb, it's only 18 euro. Turns out they had reduced it from the €146 down to a far more reasonable 18, so i've no (major) complaints with this.
Their site is still a joke, but I'm registered for video now.

dricco

Hey guys,
Got a question. Was up in Dublin for the Lenister v Munster game back at the start of May. Didn't realise it but on my way back to galway I took the M50 toll. Not up in Dublin much, so didn't know anything about the pay-online toll. So anyway, got a letter in the post yesterday saying I owe 150 euros in a fine. I didn't get any warning letters. It was my own stupidity, so I don't mind accepting the cost intailed to post the letter, say about 20 euros but 150 is way to steep.
Any advice, going to call them at the weekend?

Toto Wolfcastle

Call them up and explain to them (calmly) what you have explained to us. According to someone close to me who works there they are waiving fines for people in similar situations to you. Probably better not to ask them to waive it though. Wait til they suggest it.

Sizzler

dricco wrote: »

Hey guys,
Got a question. Was up in Dublin for the Lenister v Munster game back at the start of May. Didn't realise it but on my way back to galway I took the M50 toll. Not up in Dublin much, so didn't know anything about the pay-online toll. So anyway, got a letter in the post yesterday saying I owe 150 euros in a fine. I didn't get any warning letters. It was my own stupidity, so I don't mind accepting the cost intailed to post the letter, say about 20 euros but 150 is way to steep.
Any advice, going to call them at the weekend?

Go online, pay for 1 journey for €3 with your credit card, take a screenshot of the payment and then tell them the toll was paid for. End of. The rest of their "fines" are ambitious at best.

For the posters who said they had reported all the issues (from this thread) to the media recently, has anything come of it?? Did anybody get a response?

Seth Brundle

Sizzler wrote: »

For the posters who said they had reported all the issues (from this thread) to the media recently, has anything come of it?? Did anybody get a response?

I'm waiting on Mr. Faughnan fro the AA to come back to me - I was first onto him a few days ago.

I was also onto the NRA and to Sue, Leggit & Run but didn't expect any level of satisfaction from them!

Sizzler

kbannon wrote: »

I'm waiting on Mr. Faughnan fro the AA to come back to me - I was first onto him a few days ago.

I was also onto the NRA and to Sue, Leggit & Run but didn't expect any level of satisfaction from them!

Amazed this hasnt made the news :eek:

Our man in Havana

Vested interests will be doing their best to keep negative stuff out of the media.

Sizzler

Just thinking, how would you convince eflow that you didnt use the toll if this happened to you :eek:

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/regulator-probes-claim-of-cloneacab-licence-scam-1469823.html

Seth Brundle

I received an email from someone in the Legal & Technical Services dept of the AA telling me that Conor Faughnan was on leave and will deal with it on his return - fingers crossed.

I have approached them with regard to the signs not following their own law - is there any other angles that should be pursued?

Seth Brundle

Sizzler wrote: »

Just thinking, how would you convince eflow that you didnt use the toll if this happened to you :eek:

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/regulator-probes-claim-of-cloneacab-licence-scam-1469823.html

I guess the onus is on them to prove that you did use the bridge!

Our man in Havana

kbannon wrote: »

I received an email from someone in the Legal & Technical Services dept of the AA telling me that Conor Faughnan was on leave and will deal with it on his return - fingers crossed.

I have approached them with regard to the signs not following their own law - is there any other angles that should be pursued?

I think the lack of signage is the strongest line of attack in relation to all these late fees etc.

Sizzler

I'd say half the people here a) Didnt even know it had got this far or b) have legitimate queries.

Will be interesting to see what happens next -

Me thinks as soon as a few of these are properly contested the whole lot will fall like a deck of cards.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/m50-court-cases--go-uncontested-1843624.html

wrote:

By Anne-Marie Walsh


Tuesday July 28 2009

NONE of the 1,000 motorists summoned to court for failing to pay M50 tolls have contested their case.

The vast majority of drivers have decided against engaging in a legal battle with the National Roads Authority over fines for failing to pay a €3 toll for using the motorway.

Most toll dodgers have waived their right to defend themselves in court, meaning a judgment is made against them and they must pay up.

The remainder have settled their cases with the National Roads Authority.

Under the barrier-free tolling system, motorists who choose the pay-as-you-go option must pay a €3 toll by 8pm the day after their journey is made.

If the deadline is missed, a €3 penalty is added and a further €41.50 penalty is added on if this is not paid within 14 days.

If the bill is not settled within 56 days, another €104.50 is levied and failure to pay this results in a summons being issued.

A total of 1,000 summonses have been served on drivers who repeatedly failed to pay the toll.

Judge Gerard Haughton adjourned most of the cases listed yesterday at Dublin District Court to September 21 to allow a payment schedule to be drawn up. On the first day of hearings last month, 25 cases were adjourned.

- Anne-Marie Walsh

Our man in Havana

That article is bollox. There must be a few being contested.

dricco

So, got on to eflow anyway and asked them about the toll and explained my situation. They said that they couldn't do anything for me and to contact their solicitors, who now are managing the fine. They also mentioned that a letter was sent out to me on the 5/05/08, which was 2 days after I had passed throught the toll. Now, I didn't receive any letter and that's the god honest truth. That letter supposedly warning me to pay a 6 euro fine, which I would have gladly paid. Just called the solicitors there and they sent a query to eflow about the letter. eflow then got back to the solicitors and said that the driver(ie. me) was aware that I had passed through the tool road and had not paid (which i wasn't - due to my own stupidity of course). So eflow solictors advised me to pay the fine or face a court day. What to do now, can anybody help?

dricco wrote: »

Hey guys,
Got a question. Was up in Dublin for the Lenister v Munster game back at the start of May. Didn't realise it but on my way back to galway I took the M50 toll. Not up in Dublin much, so didn't know anything about the pay-online toll. So anyway, got a letter in the post yesterday saying I owe 150 euros in a fine. I didn't get any warning letters. It was my own stupidity, so I don't mind accepting the cost intailed to post the letter, say about 20 euros but 150 is way to steep.
Any advice, going to call them at the weekend?

simples

dricco wrote: »

So, got on to eflow anyway and asked them about the toll and explained my situation. They said that they couldn't do anything for me and to contact their solicitors, who now are managing the fine. They also mentioned that a letter was sent out to me on the 5/05/08, which was 2 days after I had passed throught the toll. Now, I didn't receive any letter and that's the god honest truth. That letter supposedly warning me to pay a 6 euro fine, which I would have gladly paid. Just called the solicitors there and they sent a query to eflow about the letter. eflow then got back to the solicitors and said that the driver(ie. me) was aware that I had passed through the tool road and had not paid (which i wasn't - due to my own stupidity of course). So eflow solictors advised me to pay the fine or face a court day. What to do now, can anybody help?

Ahhh, the dreaded letters... this was always a sticky one when I was on the phones. I'm not fully clued in as to the exact processes and am open to correction, but as I am aware with my experience, eFlow systems produced a "request" for a letter 2 days after the journey.

As a user, I could see notes on the system for each registration showing the journey, and if this wasn't paid, subsequently a note showing that a letter was to be produced. In practice however, a lot of drivers said they did not receive such letters.

To my knowledge, these letters are produced in batches, how often I am not sure, but certainly it doesn't seem they are produced daily. Therefore it seemed that letters were not produced at all as there are a lot of drivers who do not seem to get letters. I remember reading an earlier post where the user only got the letter with the highest fine, and none prior to that. Of course, most people would rather pay €6 than €150. Or at least have the opportunity to argue their case at the €6 stage.

To be honest, it did seem to me that some people thought - "Great! No letter, I got away with it," then got a shock when big fines arrived weeks later, but there are always genuine cases, and I know I would be prone to forget this sort of thing myself.

So perhaps a query could be entered to NRA, the solicitors or whoever else would be relevant to check their policy on how often the batches of letters are released, and if it's possible for letters to be missed out of batches completely?

Our man in Havana

You will need to FOI the NRA for that info.

Seth Brundle

Personally, if I was going to spend money on an FOI, I would be curious to view the data they hold on file about me and my car taken from the NVDF!

Our man in Havana

Indeed. What concerns me from a Data Protection aspect is that when you use the M50 the NRA grab your name and address from the NVDF immediately. This happens before any deadline has passed. They should only be getting the info when the toll has not been paid and not before.

simples

kbannon wrote: »

Personally, if I was going to spend money on an FOI, I would be curious to view the data they hold on file about me and my car taken from the NVDF!

If you don't have a registered account, they will have the registered name and address for your vehicle, along with the license plate of course. Also details of whatever journeys your vehicle has (or is supposed to have) made. Images will also be accessible for each time you have gone through. There is also a financial history of the account, showing when tolls/fines have applied and when these have been paid.

Bond-007 wrote: »

Indeed. What concerns me from a Data Protection aspect is that when you use the M50 the NRA grab your name and address from the NVDF immediately. This happens before any deadline has passed. They should only be getting the info when the toll has not been paid and not before.

The system did not always seem to have information when the vehicle first passes through the system. Again I can only speak from my own experience but, as far as I recall, when a vehicle first appeared on the system we did not always have the registered details available. Of course I can't say if this was intentional or a time delay in receiving the info.

biddybops

Hi
First time to use this board and i am looking for some advice. I went through the toll several times during christmas and so did members of my family. received fines in the post and rang to pay them. was told if I registered with them all fines would be waived and would only owe the toll fee,duly did so and heard no more until approx 3 weeks ago and received 3 solicitors letters in rapid sucession demanding €450 or we would be brought to court. rang e-flow and they admitted that the vehicle had been registered but they have decided to sue us for this fine, wouldnt give an explanation even though none of the other cars i registered were hit by the same fine even though they were mostly registered together. Am now been hassled by the solicitors to pay the fine.
anybody got any idea what is going on?

simples

biddybops wrote: »

Hi
First time to use this board and i am looking for some advice. I went through the toll several times during christmas and so did members of my family. received fines in the post and rang to pay them. was told if I registered with them all fines would be waived and would only owe the toll fee,duly did so and heard no more until approx 3 weeks ago and received 3 solicitors letters in rapid sucession demanding €450 or we would be brought to court. rang e-flow and they admitted that the vehicle had been registered but they have decided to sue us for this fine, wouldnt give an explanation even though none of the other cars i registered were hit by the same fine even though they were mostly registered together. Am now been hassled by the solicitors to pay the fine.
anybody got any idea what is going on?

Not something I have heard of before. Normally when you register a vehicle the fines should have been waived and no more said about it.

Would I be right in assuming you have been told that this particular vehicle wasn't registered on an account? If this is the case, insist eFlow listen to the original call to see what was said at the time. Not sure what they will say to that, considering the centre has since moved, but that's their problem. The crux of the matter - did the agent at the time say the vehicle was registered or not?

If the information you were given at the time was that the vehicle in question was registered and fines removed then eFlow would be at fault; if the vehicle was not mentioned or you weren't told it was registered, then I don't think eFlow will do anything for you.

If you have any proof of having paid the tolls and/or fines then dig this out if possible.

Hope this helps

biddybops

Many thanks for that but I only opened the a/c when eflow said they would waive the fine, I also registered other cars at the same time and have had no problem. I only got one email invoice from them since. I have bank statements showing fines were payed but that is all.
How do I go about getting them to release information regarding phone calls etc.

simples

biddybops wrote: »

Many thanks for that but I only opened the a/c when eflow said they would waive the fine, I also registered other cars at the same time and have had no problem. I only got one email invoice from them since. I have bank statements showing fines were payed but that is all.
How do I go about getting them to release information regarding phone calls etc.

Normally I would advise you to phone eFlow and ask for them to listen back on the original call. However with the case now at the solicitors, the agents in the centre are probably not at liberty to discuss the case at all, on legal grounds. You could give it a shot, ask for a team leader/supervisor and try your best to keep your cool.

Alternatively, if you talk to the solicitors you could ask them have they/will they be listening to the call themselves as you believe the matter was taken care of previously.

But if the car in question was added on the account at the time of the original call, then the fines should have been waived as with the other vehicles. You would take it as given that all your vehicles were taken care of at the same time, although you would have to have mentioned them all to the agent.

I'm not sure what their exact policy is as to releasing the content of the call, it was a grey area when I worked there. Things changed pretty much on a weekly basis so I wouldn't know for certain what their policies are now.

Our man in Havana

I'm not sure what their exact policy is as to releasing the content of the call, it was a grey area when I worked there. Things changed pretty much on a weekly basis so I wouldn't know for certain what their policies are now.

You can get the recording under the data protection act.

biddybops

we have tried to explain the situation to the solicitors but they refuse to listen and just keep telling us we have to pay. e-flow have told us the car was registered at the time of paying the fine but they have now decided to get the money off us. the original fine was only €40 and I would have paid it if I had to, the fine now stands at €450.
I have not received any letters from eflow since i registered the cars (approx 6 months) the solicitors letters was the first communication we had telling us there was a problem.
I suppose I am just a bit surprised that they did not write to us before this.
Regarding the Data Protection act Would anyone know the address and what the fee is.

Our man in Havana

Regarding the Data Protection act Would anyone know the address and what the fee is.

Write to Eflow HQ and ask. The fee is €6.35.

Traumadoc

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0731/toll.html

unkel

Traumadoc wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0731/toll.html

From your link:

5,000 legal proceedings have been initiated to date - all that went to court were won by the NRA.

That's the first I've heard of a single case even going to court. Never mind 5000 cases. All won by the NRA? :eek:

Smells of fat brown envelopes being passed on to dodgy Montrose journalists, or am I missing something here?

Our man in Havana

I don't believe for a ,moment the number of cases or the fact they won every one.

They would have lost a few.

Seth Brundle

how many actually went to court?

Our man in Havana

Couple of hundred at most. Most of them would be default judgements ie no appearance/defence filed.

I don't believe that no cases were contested.

Sizzler

A little bit more info based on todays article in the Indo -

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/nra-stands-to-reap-83642m-each--week-from-m50-toll-penalties-1848864.html?from=dailynews

wrote:

By Paul Melia


Saturday August 01 2009

THE National Roads Authority (NRA) stands to make up to €2m a week from motorists who don't pay the M50 toll on time.

New figures show the owners of the Dublin ring-road could take in €100m each year in penalties from drivers who don't pay the toll -- €20m more than the revenues from motorists who pay on time.

Financial data from the NRA shows that one in eight drivers -- 12,500 motorists -- who use the ring-road are not paying the €3 toll by the 8pm deadline the day after the journey is made.

And despite warnings, thousands are refusing to pay subsequent fines, leading to a potential cash bonanza for the NRA if they take them to court.

The figures show that the NRA could make up to €100m from penalties this year -- almost 30pc above what the roads authority expects to receive in tolls.

The overall amount of money payable in toll penalties per day amounts to a hefty €331,000.

Assuming that Saturday and Sunday traffic equates to one weekday's revenue, the amount generated is €1,986,000 per week -- or €103m per year.

So far, there have been two court cases where people have appeared before Dublin District Court summonsed with not paying a fine. In both cases, they were settled or a judgment issued in favour of the NRA.

When the motorway was bought from National Toll Roads (NTR) last year, toll revenue of €80m per year was forecast to be generated.

But the late payment penalties are fuelling NRA coffers by almost 30pc more than expected.

The Consumers Association has called for the penalty revenue to be used to reduce toll amounts, and for the payment period to be extended.

"The extra benefit should be passed back to consumers and charges lowered," vice-chairman Michael Kilcoyne said.

"The penalty is excessive, and the timeframe to pay is too short. For many people, it's not possible to pay by 8pm the following day.

"Suppose you go through on a Saturday and your local shop is closed on a Sunday. A week should be given to pay."


Fee

The toll barriers were removed from the M50 last August, and since then motorists have enjoyed quicker journey times by not having to stop to pay the fee.

But it is understood that the NRA does not expect the potential fines to remain at the current level, and that motorists will change their behaviour and pay the toll on time.

A NRA spokesman defended the system in place, saying that motorists were given notice on the motorway that fines had to be paid by 8pm the next day.

He added that the money collected was used to maintain the motorway, pay back €600m to National Toll Roads -- which owned the road before being bought out by the State last year -- and to pay the €25m cost of operating the barrier-free tolling system.

- Paul Melia

Apparently two cases have been 'settled' in court, with one of them going in the favour of eflow :rolleyes: Serious amount of propaganda and scaremongering here.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/on-fast-track-to-hefty-fines-1848866.html?from=dailynews

wrote:

Saturday August 01 2009


100,000 trips are made every day across the M50 toll bridge.
25,000 trips are made by pay-as-you-go customers, who pay €3 per trip.
12,500 motorists don't pay by the 8pm deadline the day after the trip is made, incurring a €3 penalty, which must be paid within 14 days.
Of these, 3,000 are foreign-registered cars, mostly from Northern Ireland.
4,000 motorists a day are issued with second penalty notices of €41.50 because they don't pay the €3 fine.
Another 2,500 motorists don't pay this fine within the 56-day period, incurring a further fine of €104.50.

Our man in Havana

Still only 2 defended cases? Who defended them Lionel Hutz?

RebelLucanRente

RebelLucanRente wrote: »

Just signed up to post on this topic. I received two 47.50 fines in the post despite never being informed that I needed to pay two 3 euro fines at any point in the 14 days they allow you.

I have gotten no satisfaction from the customer support people and so have decided to raise this issue directly with the NRA (big nod to 2pack over on thepropertypin.com for pointing me in this direction).

I think anyone who is dissatisfied with BEF should big screaming at the NRA because this is the public body who contracted BEF to carry our this service.

I have informed the lady directly responsible for this PPP in the NRA that I will be calling her as a witness in any court proceedings against me to explain why she has not recified this obviously disfunctional system. I copied her boss on the mail.

I will be contacting my local councellors and TD's on this issue. I will be contacting every media outlet in the country if the issue goes to court. I'd encourage all other victims of sharp practices at the hands of BEF to follow the same route.

Just to give a very belated response to some of the PM's I got on this - a day after I sent my email informing the individual in the NRA responsible for the eflow PPP I would be holding her personally responsible for my harassment, her boss emailed me, informing me he was waiving the fines. He maintained the charges were valid but he would wipe them in this one instance. Anyone who wants the email addresses of these idiots, pm me.

dmaxontour

Well here's our story.

We went up North and back on a weekend in March. The again in May.

We had moved address at the beginning fo March, contacted Shannon, filled in a form, had it sent back as it was incomplete, rang Shannon because we couldn't see what was missing and Shannon admitted it all seemed fine and could we send it back. We were away for a month in April so it didn't get sent til May.

In the interim, we received no notifivations of the tolls as they all went to the wrong address.

Later we went through the tolls and this time got letters saying we had to pay 3 euro, which we paid, but there was no mention of the previous tolls so we continued on unaware of owing anything.

The yesterday, Boom, we get a letter from the leeches in Kerry saying we owe 152 euro for each toll. I phone them up and explain the situation, but they say that's too bad.

Personally I am in shock and can't believe they can legally up the toll from 3 euro to 152!!! I am so disgusted with this, and all the many similar things that repesent Rip Off Ireland.

SO I wrote to them yesterday and will see what happens. But I will go to court, if only to have my say and an Al Pacino moment - "I'm out of order? Eflow are out of order. BEF are our of order. Scum, Leech and Parasite are out of order! The whole country are out of order." - something like that anyway ;-)

I'm very glad I found this thread though.

simples

dmaxontour wrote: »

In the interim, we received no notifivations of the tolls as they all went to the wrong address.

Later we went through the tolls and this time got letters saying we had to pay 3 euro, which we paid, but there was no mention of the previous tolls so we continued on unaware of owing anything.

When I worked there and had this kind of scenario, we were advised to tell drivers that the notifications are not legally required, they are sent "as a courtesy reminder" and it is the responsibility of the driver to pay their tolls on time as they used the road... so I'm not surprised they were unsympathetic as usual.. but best of luck with getting it sorted tho

Carawaystick

dmax, you paid the 3 euros as advertised on the toll road, you should have no problem.
the NRA/eflow had your incorrect details due to another department of the govt failing to inform them of the change to your details - there's no way you could loose this.

If you know the nra/eflow sent letters to your old address, email them to ask why they used incorrect personal data about you, and what steps they took to ensure their copy of the data used were correct.

dmaxontour

The 3 euro I paid for tolls later were for different tolls. Basically, Any toll I knew about, I paid for, as I found out. The problem with this solicitor's letter is that I didn't know about the tolls until I got the letter from the solicitor. If I had, I would have paid.
It is very very messy.

Fighting Irish

use the bridge and pay your toll, its fairly simple

if you don't pay on time then pay the penalty, that's faily simple as well

Our man in Havana

Fighting Irish wrote: »

use the bridge and pay your toll, its fairly simple

if you don't pay on time then pay the penalty, that's faily simple as well

Troll!

Fighting Irish

Bond-007 wrote: »

Troll!

Not really, so many people are bitching about things that are their own fault.
Its like playing game of soccer then bitching about how the rules are crap.

Mezcita

Fighting Irish wrote: »

Not really, so many people are bitching about things that are their own fault.
Its like playing game of soccer then bitching about how the rules are crap.

Agreed. No matter how much people moan about this lark the M50 is about 50 times better than it used to be.

Traumadoc

They admit they are incorrectly charging 200 cars a day.
If you use it you should pay, the problem is that many people are not paying and many are being incorrectly charged.

Fighting Irish

Nakatomi wrote: »

They admit they are incorrectly charging 200 cars a day.
If you use it you should pay, the problem is that many people are not paying and many are being incorrectly charged.

That's fine but many posts in this thread are about people missing the deadlines then bitching about fines :pac:

dmaxontour

There is often a portion of culpability on the part of the road user. That's accepted.
In my case I am not saying I shouldn't have to pay a toll when there is one, or a fine if I am late, but I was unaware of any toll until I got a letter telling me I owed 152 euro. That was my first notice.
Apart from the fact that a jump from 3 euro to 152 euro is obsene and totally out of proportion, as well as being a form of profiteering on the part of the solicitors, there is also the fact that to a first time user the road signs on the M50 are not sufficiently visible, taking into account the speeds on a motorway, so sending out a follow up reminder letter is important. So if this 1st letter never arrives, what then?
Also, when we travelled on teh M50 later in the year, we got letters asking for the tolls, but there was never any mention of previous tolls that remained unpaid, (as you would get on many other bills) so we never wondered if we had any unpaid tolls.

Our man in Havana

Fighting Irish wrote: »

That's fine but many posts in this thread are about people missing the deadlines then bitching about fines :pac:

They are not fines, they are penalties under contract who's legality has yet to be proven.

Sizzler

Bond-007 wrote: »

They are not fines, they are penalties under contract who's legality has yet to be proven.

A guy about 10-12 pages previous in the thread reckoned once this has been tested in the courts it wont stand up. He gave the impression he knew what we was talking about, perhaps he was a solicitor or law student

There is one serious flaw about the M50 and trying to levy fines on it though from a drivers perspective, I am loathe to post it though in case they go and rectify it, why should I do their job for them :P

Our man in Havana

Could you PM me?

Sizzler

Done

dricco

can you pm me too please?