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The Bay Area Toll Authority, Highway and Transportation District, the Golden Gage Bridge, and Xerox State and Local Solutions have been hit with a class action lawsuit alleging that the Golden Gate Bridge’s electronic tolling system implemented in March 2013 unfairly assesses fees to drivers, not giving them enough notice or time to pay for crossing the bridge before they are penalized with late fees.
Lead plaintiff, Michael Saliani, alleges in his class action lawsuit that the recently implemented tolling system that is now mandatory for all drivers crossing the land mark leads to fines of $76 resulting in a windfall for the bridge and its private contractor who manages the tolling system, Xerox.
Last spring, the Golden Gate Bridge removed the option for drivers to manually pay the $6 toll to cross and became an all-electronic tolling system, alleges Saliani in the Golden Gate toll class action lawsuit.
Under the electronic program, drivers can mount a transponder in their vehicle and enroll in the “FasTrak” program which deducts money from their account through the program every time the driver passes under a sensor in the bridge. Otherwise, drivers who do not enroll and use the FasTrak program must pay online through the “Pay-By-Plate” program either 30 days before crossing the bridge or within 48 hours of their crossing.
Under the Pay-By-Plate program, the driver’s license plate is recorded and assessed the toll. According to the complaints, 85 percent of the vehicles that cross the bridge are enrolled in the FasTrak program, while those who are not enrolled in the FasTrak or License Plate Account programs, and who do not make the onetime payment online under the Pay-By-Plate program, are assessed a toll evasion violation that they must pay within 30 days.
“(V)ehicle owners who fail to pay the $6 toll within 30 days after citation – regardless of whether the vehicle owner actually receives notice of the toll evasion violation – are assessed a $25 penalty,” Saliani alleges in the Golden Gate FasTrak class action lawsuit, and “[v]ehicle owners who fail to pay the toll and $25 penalty are assessed an additional $45 ‘delinquency’ penalty. As a result, vehicle owners may be required to pay $76, or over ten times the amount of the toll, for each Golden Gate Bridge crossing.”
The Bay Area Toll Authority and Golden Gate Bridge contracts with Xerox, a private company, to provide notices to vehicle owners, conducting initial reviews of toll evasion violations that are challenged by the owners, and also to impose and collect penalties, alleges Saliani in his class action lawsuit. Further, argues Saliani, Xerox and the Golden Gate Bridge “have implemented a policy for assessing toll evasion violations and imposing and collecting penalties in a manner that assures that vehicle owners cannot meaningfully contest violations and pay inflated and outrageous penalties.”
Saliani alleges that Xerox does not put enough effort into locating drivers toll evasion notices, including obtaining up-to-date and correct mailing addresses and, because drivers often do not receive notice of a toll violation, “Xerox receives a bounty on all toll fees and penalties that it collects.”
In his class action lawsuit, Saliani alleges that “[s]ince the Golden Gate Bridge converted to an all-electronic tolling system in March 2013, penalties assessed on toll evasion violations have become an important source or revenue for defendants,” further “defendants released data showing that for the first four months of operation of the all-electronic tolling system, they issued 290,489 toll evasion violations and collected nearly $3 million in penalties.”
The Golden Gate FasTrak class action lawsuit also alleges that the defendants’ actions in assessing tolls on the Golden Gate Bridge violate the California Due Process Clause and mandatory duty laws and amount to unfair business practices, and negligence.
Saliani seeks puitive damages as well as an injunction requiring the Golden Gate Bridge and Xerox to refund fees and penalties to drivers, reverse any DMV registration holds, and provide owners with a fair and impartial review of their toll evasion violations.
Lead plaintiff, Michael Saliani, is represented by Adam Gutride with Gutride Safier.
Case information for the Golden Gate FasTrak Class Action Lawsuit was not available at the time this article was published.
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48 thoughts onGolden Gate Bridge FasTrak Fees Rack Up Class Action Lawsuit
I just received my 3rd notice for a vehicle that I don’t own. I have spent many hours at the DMV over the last year gathering evidence to prove that I have never been to San Francisco. I have provided documents which identify the driver and vehicle of the lady who did cross the bridge. The customer service rep Carl doesn’t want to hear it. He suggested that I waste more time at the DMV after I get every notice. I asked him “So you want me to waste my time to prove my innocence so that I don’t have to pay a fee?”
Has anyone found help with this madness? I have never received any evasion notification in the mail and was just informed by a rep at fastrak that I have 5 current unpaid evasions on my account. I pay my bill over the phone because I refuse to allow fastrak access to my account with the way they randomly charge any amount at any time.. Every month a rep has to manually add my tolls and they give me a total amount to pay.. I have done this for over a year regretfully and just learned that they are the ones who have made a mistake with totaling my account. What do I do? My registration is soon to be due and fastrak declined to reduce my fee! Does anyone know where to turn?
This is complete and total bullshit.
I found out about unpaid violations when i went to the DMV to renew my tags. I immediately called Fastrak and explained that i had a transponder on my windowshield the whole time. Some 96 ( not sure because the number changes every time i speak to someone) toll violations are on my account that is linked to a credit card. I supposedly owe them over 9K for a total of $672 which is what the device did not register altough it beeped every time. I have since then stopped driving my car because i got pulled over 3 times and paid traffic violations. I have also started getting collection calls from a third party that claims Fastrak has employed them to get their money even tough mine was an open case and i have filled a dispute as advised by their customer service. After a month and a half of waiting for a response my dispute was denied and i am still asked to pay $2000. How is this possible? How is this legal ? does anyone have a better experience? What is the next step? Please help!
Exact same thing happened to me! Bank detected fraud, canceled my card and I had a week of tolls that accrued huge fees. This is a nightmare. And I never received the $7 bills in the first place, just a list of tolls all with the fees. I filled out an appeal online that they conveniently never got. When I finally spoke to some uppity JERK on the phone who was downright rude to me, I asked to pay – even all the fines. He advised me not to and to once again file an appeal online. He literally wouldn’t take my money. How is the legal? SUCH a scam. XEROX needs the get theirs. What a dirty, corrupt, hideous company. Where do I sign up??
I have an extra special 1997 Ford Campervan. It is capable of being in two places at the same time. Left my home in Hercules the afternoon of 3-4-15 and drove to Costco in Vallejo. Did my shopping and went through the checkout at 2:52 pm, I have the receipt for that day. A couple of weeks later, received a notice of toll evasion and a $30 fine, $5 plus $25 penalty. Notice said I went through the toll area on the same day at 1:31 pm. My van is capable of being in Vallejo and San Francisco at the same time. Their system is beyond broken, its a borderline scam. Also, never received the first notice for the original $5 toll, why, they have no digital footprint of me crossing the GGB, I was in Vallejo!!
The system is flawed. There was small phone number in the top right corner of the document I received that got me to a human and I told her they had my automatic renewal Fastrak account number on the form they sent me and if they needed to they could charge it to the account. The person I talked to said she would take care of it and I guess she did. I think they get a lot of complaints.
I am currently battling GG Transit/Pay By Plate in a very same situation. I was paying my invoices, but their system is so flawed – 1) They never tracked my check payments; 2) They never mailed me the invoiced and thus racked up fees. They now say I owe them over $1K. BS. Where do I sign up / join this class action suit? It is criminal and they can not get away with this.
I received a toll violation for $25 randomly in the mail. I had no knowledge of how to pay and no invoice was given to me. There was also not enough time for me to read the signs as I was crossing the golden gate bridge, because I did not want to disrupt traffic. This is negligence among the toll collectors.
As an out of state resident passing thru there definitely wasn’t any warning or information about a toll coming up or how to pay. I had to look up golden gate bridge toll online to get the answers. Took a toll road in SoCal and there was info everywhere, told me to go online and pay within a few days. Too short of a time but at least I had the info.
I just got off the phone with FasTrak (FasTalk is more like it) after they wanted to charge me $96 for “toll evasion”. I pay the Pay-By-Plate invoice every time it comes in without delay. They say they never got it, but are willing to waive the fees if I sign up with a credit card. So they “only” charged me $21 for three trips across the bridge, which I already paid. So they got double payments. And this was the first “Notice of Toll Evasion” (shouldn’t it be Notice of Non-Payment? Saying I’m evading payment makes it sound like I’m intentionally not paying and running away from payment.). And Xerox is pocketing all this ill gotten gains. I’m all for a class action suit. Where do we sign up? Bring back the toll takers!!!