E-Zhard's More Like It: A Consumer Review

I live in Richmond, but am originally from Connecticut, so going home is always a pain in the ass. One action I took to try to ease the pain is getting an E-ZPass. I'm assuming everyone knows what that is, but just to be sure, it's a little white transponder that you put on your windshield and then debits money out of your account when you're driving so you don't have to deal with change and people at toll booths.

Sounds awesome and easy, right! Just like the name! But it's not!

You register the little transponder to your car and then load enough money to get you home onto it beforehand, so it should be smooth sailing. But of course it's not. When I got home to Connecticut, I got an email saying my account is in the negative.

That means I spent over $65 in tolls, one way. What the hell?

I call them and talk to a girl that does not seemed mildly interested in my problems, but agrees to look into why in the hell I was charged as a truck when I drove over the George Washington Bridge. I hang up, but not before uttering, "This is reflecting poorly on the whole institution of tolling." What a burn, Sara.

Then on my return trip, I also get charged as a truck again. I call, this time it takes me 3 tries to get through because I kept getting hung up on. But by the third time, I knew enough to start by confirming my phone number, name, email and address (in that order). And this lady seems wonderful, a real customer service gem. She inquired to her boss why my car was doing that, reported all the mis-charges and didn't even force me to add even more money to my sad account. Alas, nice but useless.

My problem is still nowhere resolved, and this is nowhere near the end of the saga. I'm going to jump ahead a bit, because the calls in the interim are long, tedious and boring. Here's a summary:

• Send us your car registration, so I do that.
• We need your car registration by end of day, but wait, I already did that.
• Okay, sorry, we got it. Our bad. You are all set.

Now we're to the real heart of this story, and why I've lost my faith in the E-ZPass system. One day, my roommate throws me a package, which turns out to be from E-ZPass. The next day, I call them to ask about it. One guy doesn't know, so he hangs up. The next lady passes me to a manager. The manager needs to hang up on me to check on it. I FINALLY reach a human being ready to talk to me, and she's a RAGING BITCH WITH NO SENSE OF CUSTOMER SERVICE (sorry mom about those words, but they are accurate).

I explain to her that I am exacerbated with this problem, and I don't want to have to pay for a new transponder, when I haven't even gotten my original money back yet, AND they never confirmed with me that they wanted to send me one in the first place. She then tells me I need to send one back or I get charged even more money. I then get heated and say something along the lines of, "Why do I owe you any money when you sent me something I did not want or ask for?"

The bitch just goes, "Well you need it, and since you opened it, you can't send it back to us." I then informed her that any normal human being opens packages mailed to them, and that it is not my responsibility to pay for her problems.

The bitch goes, "I'm sure you have a smart phone, so you can go ahead and drive yourself down to the Richmond office to return it." I repeated that this is still straining me when it's not my responsibility.

She then tells me she'll email the address to me, so I can deliver it there or be charged.

What the hell E-ZPass? Get your girl in line. Because you've still made your mistakes my financial burden -- and even worse, a burden on my time, which I will never get back. Nor will I ever get the taste of eternal rage out of my mouth for your bitch of a customer service supervisor and your lack of empathy for consumers.