EFlow Legal Standings

keithsfleet

Just wondering if someone with a bit of a legal background can help out on this or anyone with experience of it.
I DON'T have an EFlow account but I do use the M50 bridge.
Every Monday morning I pay €15 in advance for 5 trips, I use the bridge 5 times a week in the mornings on my way to work and i go home a different way avoiding the toll bridge.
I have since November 4th received 45 "First Penalty Notice (STR)" fines, each one consisting of the €3 toll charge and a €3 late fee.
I have since November 16th received 8 "Unpaid Toll Notice (UTN)" fines, each one containing 3 charges amounting to a total of €45.50.
Without a shred of doubt these are all EFlows account error and i am been falsely charged.

My questions are:
Is anyone else receiving this appallingly desperate customer service off them?
Where would i stand should i bring them to court over harassment?
Also, would it be acceptable to just ignore all letters off EFlow and wait for letters off debt collectors or court bailiffs, show them proof of payment and let them settle it with EFlow?

P.s. I appreciate everyone's opinion however, setting up an account with Eflow or any 3rd parties isn't the solution I'm seeking. I'm quite happy as the fool i am paying the €3euro charge for every passageway.

Thanks, Keith.

smelltheglove

Sorry to hear about your trouble. I do have an account but it was put on hold for a while as finances were terrible after hubbie was laid off. Anyway there were some fines we missed and went to the solicitors, I called the solicitor and spoke to them and I have to say they were very accomodating and helpful. In the end the carges were waived and the account set up again.

Without getting an account or prepay token all I can advise is ensure you keep all receipts for journeys paid for. You really need to speak to someone in eflow to sort it out.

I cant help but asking, why not an account? It is soo much handier.

the groutch

smelltheglove wrote: »

I cant help but asking, why not an account? It is soo much handier.

bigger question is why use the m50, if he's able to avoid it? (as with his journeys home)

keithsfleet

TBH I'm somewhat lazy and have no problem paying all trips in advance on Monday mornings, I stop off at the garage every morning to get coffee so I'm not going out of my way to pay it.
Iv rang EFlow several times back when i started getting them in November and it never stopped them posting them out despite everyone having already been paid for.
I leave for work at the peak of rush hour every morning so for traffic reasons I use the toll bridge on my way to work.
I don't leave work till after rush hour so it doesn't make much of a difference avoiding the toll bridge, I work over a 55hour work week thanks to the powers that be in the government, but that's another issue for another thread, on another day.


I have receipts for every trip.

jor el

keithsfleet wrote: »

I have receipts for every trip.

Keep those, and you have nothing to worry about. Write to them, and send copies of all these receipts showing that you've paid for the dates that they are fining you for.

After that, if eflow are stupid enough to bring you to court, then you have all the proof you need for a judge to laugh them out of it.

vandriver

Payzone's website says that all trips must be post paid.How are you pre paying for your trips?

cgarvey

vandriver wrote: »

How are you pre paying for your trips?

Same Q here, as I never knew you could. It's not very clear from the eflow or payzone sites, so even if you can prepay, maybe there's a whole heap of confusion over this internally?

Cabaal

Actually I never knew you could prepay either (especially for a whole week) unless you say have a eflow.ie account with credit on it,

If you stop at a petrol station and pay for the week your paying for passes through the toll bridge that have not yet taken place, I don't believe you can do this...of course if you can backup that you can then no worries.

Otherwise if you can't it explains why eflow are after you, in short your never paid for the passes within 24hrs of them happening, if they system isn't setup for pre-pay for the week like your doing then this explains why they flagged you for not paying.

In short you'd be the cause of the problem not them if this was the case.

January

I pre paid two trips on e flow before, going over and back on the same day, but pre paid none the less and never heard anything off them, so it can be done.

JimsAlterEgo

I agree when I looked into when it opened you could not prepay like this, so unless its changed and IMO it has not then its user error

Cabaal

January wrote: »

I pre paid two trips on e flow before, going over and back on the same day, but pre paid none the less and never heard anything off them, so it can be done.

Looking at the website I'd say any payments made within a 24hour period of the trip will likely cover the trips made.

However given the PAYG post pay setup is you make a payment within 24hrs after the trip there is nothing to suggest at all that eflow allow what the OP is saying.

The OP would have been much better off setting up a PAYG account on the eflow website

dudara

I overpaid once and the "account" associated with my number plate was in credit and they used it at a later stage to pay a toll. At the time I didn't have an official account with eFlow. But that was an overpayment, which seems equivalent to what the OP is doing.

If you go to the eFlow website and enter the UTN numbers, it will show you the account associated with your numberplate. You'll be able to see all journeys and payments. You should be able to determine pretty quickly if the €15 you pay every week has been applied to your account.

OP - you should have dealt with this back in November, rather than letting it build. But right now, send them a registered letter, with copies of your receipts and all associated documentation. Inform them that you have been paying and that you expect them to clear the account on their side. If you have all this documentation, then they have no case. But you need to state your argument officially, so send that letter.

BTW - in future, set up an account with them that debits your credit card on a monthly basis. Journeys cost €2.50 this way so you also save a bit of cash. Best thing I ever did as I kept forgetting to pay the tolls.

keithsfleet

cgarvey wrote: »

Same Q here, as I never knew you could. It's not very clear from the eflow or payzone sites, so even if you can prepay, maybe there's a whole heap of confusion over this internally?

A good while back i got a "First Penalty Notice" consisting of a €6 bill. I went to the garage and paid for 2 trips which would cost €6, unbeknown to me that you actually had to bring the letter with you and get the sales assistant behind the counter to scan it to pay the bill. A few days later i got the second bill of €45.50 so I rang EFlow and they explained the original bill had not been paid but the 2 trips i paid for in lieu of the bill would be automatically credited to my registration plate on my car so i would have 2 free passes. She explained that you are able to pay in advance in all payzone outlets.

keithsfleet

dudara wrote: »

I overpaid once and the "account" associated with my number plate was in credit and they used it at a later stage to pay a toll. At the time I didn't have an official account with eFlow. But that was an overpayment, which seems equivalent to what the OP is doing.

If you go to the eFlow website and enter the UTN numbers, it will show you the account associated with your numberplate. You'll be able to see all journeys and payments. You should be able to determine pretty quickly if the €15 you pay every week has been applied to your account.

OP - you should have dealt with this back in November, rather than letting it build. But right now, send them a registered letter, with copies of your receipts and all associated documentation. Inform them that you have been paying and that you expect them to clear the account on their side. If you have all this documentation, then they have no case. But you need to state your argument officially, so send that letter.

BTW - in future, set up an account with them that debits your credit card on a monthly basis. Journeys cost €2.50 this way so you also save a bit of cash. Best thing I ever did as I kept forgetting to pay the tolls.

Thanks dudara, i will do. I tried to settle this in November and rang them several times and each time i rang they admitted each "First Penalty Notice" was sent in error as trip in question had already been paid.
I'll write a letter including photocopies of all receipts and send it off.

jimmycrackcorm

Can someone clarify if you can use the eflow.ie site to prepay a non-registered car?

number_1

Last year I made four trips through the m50 toll bridge in around one week, each a couple of days apart. I forgot to pay the second toll (I'll hold my hands up here and say it's only fair to fine me for this). I didn't forget to pay any of the following tolls.

I received the fine in the post a week later. I logged in online to pay the fine but was astounded to see that my "account" (I'm not registered so how can I have an account?) said that I owed them a total of €12. Basically, they had taken the toll payment from my third trip as a payment towards the fine for the second trip. This left a remainder of €3 for the second trip's fine, and then created a fine for the third trip as 24 hours passed without another payment, leaving a total of €9. The same problem occurred for the fourth trip, bringing the running total to €12.

As far as I was concerned I paid for 3 tolls on time, and accidentally missed one so I should have owed them €6. The problem arose because unfortunately eflow's computer system does not have separate payment systems for fines and for legitimate toll payments. If I pay for a toll, then that is exactly what I want my money to go towards, not towards any fines that I'm unaware of (I'll deal with them separately when I receive the penalty notice in the post). I think this is a serious problem which should be addressed, as the problem cascades the more trips you take in a short period of time. If someone takes a large number of trips in a short period of time and misses just one payment, then this problem can leave them with multiple fines which they are unaware of until they receive the penalty notice, with each trip adding another €3 to the cascading total.

I rang them after I received the notice to clarify the situation. The operator said they would cancel the second and third fines, but that I would have to pay the first fine over the phone. I agreed to this as I was at fault for the first fine so that was fair enough.

Two days later I received another penalty notice through the post saying I owed another €6. The website confirmed that they had me down as owing another €6. I rang them again, and after having a whole load of jargon thrown at me down the phone line, I was left thoroughly confused as to which trip was which and who owed what to who. They then said that if I payed €3 over the phone the penalty would be cancelled, and having been thoroughly confused by what sounded like scripted answers I reluctantly agreed (I was fed up at this stage and just wanted it to go away).

So I don't regard eflow's customer service highly at all, particularly as they charged me €9 instead of the €6 I rightfully owed to them. I'm aware I was overcharged, but it's not worth the hassle trying to correct this (particularly as you're expected to pay for the phone calls to prevent them from wrongly charging you!). Instead I just ensure that I never forget to pay a toll, especially if there's a number of them in quick succession. As far as I'm aware the payment systems are still the same for both fines and legitimate toll payments, so be warned!

keithsfleet

I'v been told several times on the phone that paying €6 in a payzone (my local petrol station) will not pay a First Penalty Notice. To pay a First Penalty Notice you have to bring the letter to the payzone outlet and the barcode on the letter has to be scanned. Just paying €6 (price of two trips) will not cancel the First Penalty Notice and the payment will just be credited to your account on EFlow's system.
I have been told several times thats how it works. The more i read the more i think EFlow has different standards for different people.

MrsMcSteamy

Just to confirm I work in a shop with the payzone terminal and a few months ago a prepay option was launched. You can prepay for TWO trips only.
And Keithsfleet I had the same problem as you. Paid a toll for a trip I had taken on the day of the trip. Recieved a bill in the post for the trip so rang up eflow and they had done the same thing, took my payment as payment off an existing unpaid toll, joint use of vehicle so was unaware of the unpaid toll. Bit of a joke for a system, taking money meant off a trip and using it to make up for a unpaid toll thereby making you late again for the toll you think you have already paid !!!

mcgovern

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Can someone clarify if you can use the eflow.ie site to prepay a non-registered car?

I have done this, and it was confirmed by an agent that my account was in credit (basically I paid for a trip late, so had to pay the €6 on top afterwards, the original €3 I paid was then used for a subsequent trip).
Edit: This was about 18 months ago though.

Tazzle

If you don't have an account with eFlow all your payments will be credited against your LPN.

However the system they have for tracking journeys and payments can get very messed up. Multiple instances of your LPN may be created with your money being in one and your journeys being in another. It's rare but it can happen in instances where there's a change of ownership, or someone had that vehicle registered before. Or maybe your LPN was misread at some point.. It's also fairly easy for a call centre agent to mess up your credit/journeys/fines. System is a serious piece of sh1t. An expensive pos at that.

The good news is generally if you have prepaid and call up it's very easy to fix and shouldn't take longer than 5 minutes. You can send a message on their website too and it should be responded to within 48hrs, as far as I know that's their SLA.

Also note that it's very common for people to accidentally pay to their LPN incorrectly on the website, example: o3M08444. Website doesn't validate the entry so in that case someone has used 'o' for a 0 and 0 for an 'o'. Happens all the time!

donal.hunt

Speaking from experience...

Use regular snail mail and fax to deal with them. It took me 6 months to resolve an issue with a non-registered vehicle in the past and it was only after I started faxing them the complete correspondence every week that it got resolved.

So keep on them... and send them copies of every piece of evidence you have, every time. Don't deal with them on the phone (they'll just treat you like a car reg (aka number)).

In the end they sent me a cheque (didn't even credit my CC).

EDIT: oh - and I agree - their system cannot track trips and subsequent payments at all... My complaint was related to them charging me multiple times (their payment systems were screwed up when I tried to pay) but the agents on the phone would claim that the trip was paid and no refund was due.

Gallagher5

You can pre-pay up to 10journeys i think. Did you check your receipts to make sure you paid to the correct plate number? This can easily happen. Keithsfleet is correct, you need to take the STR to the payzone outlet to pay. You can also pay online or over the phone.

I also suggest that you register. my friends and i use th m50 regularly and all are registered. You can register for a video account at no cost or fee and the toll charge is cheaper. You'll have no problems or have to worry about anything then.

Tazzle

You can prepay a million journeys if you like. In fact the more you pay the less likely things are to go wrong. The reason eFlow didn't want you to prepay initially was because journeys don't show up instantly, and they may not show up in order of when you made the journey.


example:

• Sunday: You prepay 6 euro for 2 journeys on Monday
• Monday: You make 2 journeys, but due to bad weather, bad angle, only 1 shows up.
• Tuesday: You make 2 more journeys and both show up
• Wednesday morning: Your Monday journey shows up [after review by a human operator], all payments made have been used up, so it decides you owe them a penalty and sends you a letter.
• Wednesday evening you pay 6 euro for your Tuesday journeys.

You now have a 3 euro toll balance, and a 6 euro fine for Monday's journey.

Trompette

Hi,

I an from Cork and I took M50 last week to go to the airport and a second time at night when I was lost in the Dublin sub.
I received Tuesday and Wednesday 2 notices to pay 2x6 €.
I am not happy because I didn't know this thing could exist. When I was in the M50 I saw the road signs but I was very caring my way to the airport and the night to find my hotel and had no time to read and understand. This is the first time I came across that.
I don't think I can avoid this charge but I would like to know exactly for what I will pay. I tried to find from and to where, which gates the motorway is not free in the eflow web site unsuccessfully.

Is there someone who can tell me the name of the gates from North to South and vice versa where it is not free. I would try to avoid next time. If I can't get this info, next time I will have to drive at 25 km/h on the motorway to read the signs. Not very secure...

Furthermore, I was wandering if some Irish people have never try to sue this company/system as I don't think foreign driver/car can pay the toll as they never will be registered and will never get the notice. That means this toll is only for Irish people. Is there any discrimination in this rule?

Thanks for your help

dudara

The toll is located between Junctions 6 and 7 on the M50. Here is the information from the FAQ section of their website

Which part of the M50 is tolled?

The tolled section is between:

* Junction 6 - the intersection with the N3 national road (also called the Blanchardstown exit) and
* Junction 7 - the intersection with the N4 national road (also called the Lucan exit)

As it is barrier-free you do not have to stop.

Tazzle

Trompette wrote: »

Hi,

I an from Cork and I took M50 last week to go to the airport and a second time at night when I was lost in the Dublin sub.
I received Tuesday and Wednesday 2 notices to pay 2x6 €.
I am not happy because I didn't know this thing could exist. When I was in the M50 I saw the road signs but I was very caring my way to the airport and the night to find my hotel and had no time to read and understand. This is the first time I came across that.
I don't think I can avoid this charge but I would like to know exactly for what I will pay. I tried to find from and to where, which gates the motorway is not free in the eflow web site unsuccessfully.

Is there someone who can tell me the name of the gates from North to South and vice versa where it is not free. I would try to avoid next time. If I can't get this info, next time I will have to drive at 25 km/h on the motorway to read the signs. Not very secure...

Furthermore, I was wandering if some Irish people have never try to sue this company/system as I don't think foreign driver/car can pay the toll as they never will be registered and will never get the notice. That means this toll is only for Irish people. Is there any discrimination in this rule?

Thanks for your help

Call them (180501050), say it was your first time and they will cancel the fine.

mcwhirter

keithsfleet wrote: »

Just wondering if someone with a bit of a legal background can help out on this or anyone with experience of it.
I DON'T have an EFlow account but I do use the M50 bridge.
Every Monday morning I pay €15 in advance for 5 trips, I use the bridge 5 times a week in the mornings on my way to work and i go home a different way avoiding the toll bridge.
I have since November 4th received 45 "First Penalty Notice (STR)" fines, each one consisting of the €3 toll charge and a €3 late fee.
I have since November 16th received 8 "Unpaid Toll Notice (UTN)" fines, each one containing 3 charges amounting to a total of €45.50.
Without a shred of doubt these are all EFlows account error and i am been falsely charged.

My questions are:
Is anyone else receiving this appallingly desperate customer service off them?
Where would i stand should i bring them to court over harassment?
Also, would it be acceptable to just ignore all letters off EFlow and wait for letters off debt collectors or court bailiffs, show them proof of payment and let them settle it with EFlow?

P.s. I appreciate everyone's opinion however, setting up an account with Eflow or any 3rd parties isn't the solution I'm seeking. I'm quite happy as the fool i am paying the €3euro charge for every passageway.

Thanks, Keith.

I would recommend setting up an account but not with eflow as they are hopeless. i used to be with them and had loads of problems including incorrect charges etc.
I changed to easytrip and I have had no problems, only difference is that you have to prepay the account every month while with eflow you can pay at the end of the month.

prististanice

They will be able to find foreign licence plates as well as there is a European toll collection agency that has access to the national registration databases. My friend's Spanish and drive through it and never paid and his father received the penalty notice a few months later in Spain!

Also, it USED to be the case that you HAD to have the letter scanned in payzone. Now if you travel on Monday once and forget to pay and then one week later travel twice and go immediately and pay €6.00, then that €6.00 will be used to close the previous Monday's journey, thus leaving 2 open journeys. Basically, in order to avoid all problems, you kinda HAVE to pay by 20.00. If ever you're not sure, don't leave it go because things will get worse...just ring up and explain everything to the person on the phone and they'll do what the can.

Our man in Havana

They will be able to find foreign licence plates as well as there is a European toll collection agency that has access to the national registration databases. My friend's Spanish and drive through it and never paid and his father received the penalty notice a few months later in Spain!

Not entirely true. They do not have access to all national databases. Only a few that sell car owners details, the UK and Spain being the 2 main ones. They are only mere debt collectors with no legal powers. They can ask you to pay but you don't have to and they can do nothing about it.

If they can't look up your number you will never hear from them.

foggy_lad

Trompette wrote: »

Hi,

I an from Cork and I took M50 last week to go to the airport and a second time at night when I was lost in the Dublin sub.
I received Tuesday and Wednesday 2 notices to pay 2x6 €.
I am not happy because I didn't know this thing could exist. When I was in the M50 I saw the road signs but I was very caring my way to the airport and the night to find my hotel and had no time to read and understand. This is the first time I came across that.
I don't think I can avoid this charge but I would like to know exactly for what I will pay. I tried to find from and to where, which gates the motorway is not free in the eflow web site unsuccessfully.

Is there someone who can tell me the name of the gates from North to South and vice versa where it is not free. I would try to avoid next time. If I can't get this info, next time I will have to drive at 25 km/h on the motorway to read the signs. Not very secure...

Furthermore, I was wandering if some Irish people have never try to sue this company/system as I don't think foreign driver/car can pay the toll as they never will be registered and will never get the notice. That means this toll is only for Irish people. Is there any discrimination in this rule?

Thanks for your help

there are signs all over the M50 warning people about the toll and telling you where to pay and when to pay by. these signs are massive with lettering a few feet high, imho there is no way you would not have had time to read and understand the signs even if english was not your first language.

Cabaal

foggy_lad wrote: »

there are signs all over the M50 warning people about the toll and telling you where to pay and when to pay by. these signs are massive with lettering a few feet high, imho there is no way you would not have had time to read and understand the signs even if english was not your first language.

Have to agree,
Signs are extremely clear, if you can't see them (given they are massive) and you can't understand the very clear instructions then no offence but I'd suggest you reconsider your driving ability on the basis of understanding any other road signage.

I'd suggest you pay the charges before they increase due to further non-payment