Rushie
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Rushie
So yesterday we get a bill from TxTag saying we owe $3.45. This is a surprise since I paid off the last bill-me-by-camera toll several months ago, or so I thought.
I was suspicious back then. Back then it was a ZipCash bill addressed to "Rent-A-Center" at (our correct street address) needless to say we aren't a rent-a-center but we had driven what they claimed and the picture was our tag. I called them on the phone about the "Rent-A-Center" and the lady looked up the tag with the DMV and said the DMV had our correct name and address, the "Rent-A-Center" must be some database criss-cross. So I paid it, it was about $13.
So why another bill? I put the "account number" into the TxTag website and come up with a page that says not only do I owe $3.45 now, there is an additional outstanding $23 that has been sent to collections, in red letters. Wha??? More digging and I find out that they had sent numerous bills and now we are one step away from a Class C misdemeanor and impoundment of our vehicle.
As I am looking at these "numerous bills" online, I notice that all except this most recent one were sent to (My husband's name) XXXX Main St. Houston TX. That is not our address, we live three hours west of Houston. So I get on Google Maps and go to that address and guess what? It is a Rent-A-Center. So, the Rent-A-Center got (and presumably trashed) six bills.
So the next thing I did is call up the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. I explain what's going on and after being put on hold the lady comes back and says I will have to submit a change of address form. What for? I ask, ZipCash told me you have the correct information. She says the DMV has 3 addresses for each vehicle, the owner's address, the physical address of the vehicle's location, and the mailing address.
Okay says I, what do you have there as our 3 addresses? Well she can't tell me over the phone but she can give me the zip codes, and she tells me the owner's address (our zip), the car's physical location (a HOUSTON zip) and the mailing address (our zip).
So why was TxTag mailing the bills to the car's physical location and not the mailing address? And why did they suddenly change and mail the last one to the correct address?
And who is ZipCash? I'm not sure but I think maybe they are the "collection agent" because the payment I gave them apparently WAS applied to the account, but it didn't clear all the charges. Or possibly ZipCash is associated only with the North Texas Tollway Authority and that payment only covered our Dallas/Ft. Worth trips. The Austin area might be additional.
And most of all: how on earth did DMV get that address? We certainly didn't give it to them.
I thought maybe someone was cloning our tag but I also looked up all our charges and they are all ours, nobody is going around running up toll bills with a copy of our tag.
TxTag posted a credit the same day I made the ZipCash payment but the amounts don't match, what they posted was greater by about $5. I think they added my payment to a credit for removing a fee or something. The statement was NOT very clear, it just gave a "Payments and Credits" total. I tried to call TxTag on the phone, the line was busy all day.
So have any of you ever had confusion with the DMV, addresses, toll bills from either NTTA ZipCash or TxTag that could give me any insight into what's going on here?
I was suspicious back then. Back then it was a ZipCash bill addressed to "Rent-A-Center" at (our correct street address) needless to say we aren't a rent-a-center but we had driven what they claimed and the picture was our tag. I called them on the phone about the "Rent-A-Center" and the lady looked up the tag with the DMV and said the DMV had our correct name and address, the "Rent-A-Center" must be some database criss-cross. So I paid it, it was about $13.
So why another bill? I put the "account number" into the TxTag website and come up with a page that says not only do I owe $3.45 now, there is an additional outstanding $23 that has been sent to collections, in red letters. Wha??? More digging and I find out that they had sent numerous bills and now we are one step away from a Class C misdemeanor and impoundment of our vehicle.
As I am looking at these "numerous bills" online, I notice that all except this most recent one were sent to (My husband's name) XXXX Main St. Houston TX. That is not our address, we live three hours west of Houston. So I get on Google Maps and go to that address and guess what? It is a Rent-A-Center. So, the Rent-A-Center got (and presumably trashed) six bills.
So the next thing I did is call up the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. I explain what's going on and after being put on hold the lady comes back and says I will have to submit a change of address form. What for? I ask, ZipCash told me you have the correct information. She says the DMV has 3 addresses for each vehicle, the owner's address, the physical address of the vehicle's location, and the mailing address.
Okay says I, what do you have there as our 3 addresses? Well she can't tell me over the phone but she can give me the zip codes, and she tells me the owner's address (our zip), the car's physical location (a HOUSTON zip) and the mailing address (our zip).
So why was TxTag mailing the bills to the car's physical location and not the mailing address? And why did they suddenly change and mail the last one to the correct address?
And who is ZipCash? I'm not sure but I think maybe they are the "collection agent" because the payment I gave them apparently WAS applied to the account, but it didn't clear all the charges. Or possibly ZipCash is associated only with the North Texas Tollway Authority and that payment only covered our Dallas/Ft. Worth trips. The Austin area might be additional.
And most of all: how on earth did DMV get that address? We certainly didn't give it to them.
I thought maybe someone was cloning our tag but I also looked up all our charges and they are all ours, nobody is going around running up toll bills with a copy of our tag.
TxTag posted a credit the same day I made the ZipCash payment but the amounts don't match, what they posted was greater by about $5. I think they added my payment to a credit for removing a fee or something. The statement was NOT very clear, it just gave a "Payments and Credits" total. I tried to call TxTag on the phone, the line was busy all day.
So have any of you ever had confusion with the DMV, addresses, toll bills from either NTTA ZipCash or TxTag that could give me any insight into what's going on here?