How A Berlin Couple Got Billed for A CT Legislator’s E-ZPass Tolls
Dick Benson. Credit: Mark Pazniokas / CT Mirror
If E-ZPass was to be believed, Dick Benson’s white Chevy Tahoe and Gail Benson’s black Volvo S80 had secret lives.
The Volvo went on puzzling trips every month, according to the electronic highway tolling system.
The couple, retirees who live in the Hartford suburb of Berlin, eventually solved the mystery as a case of mistaken identity by E-ZPass photographic toll-by-plate readers: The Bensons were paying tolls incurred by a state legislator, Rep. Corey Paris, D-Stamford. Identifying the problem was relatively easy. Fixing it, not so much.
What followed was a struggle that exposes weaknesses in the automated collection of bridge and highway tolls by E-ZPass, a system that completes 4 billion transactions and collects $13.8 billion annually for dozens of tolling authorities in 17 states using transponders and photographic plate readers. “The DMV will admit clearly that the bureaucracy of that company or that operation is horrible, just horrible,” Dick said.
No one at the Department of Motor Vehicles contradicted him. Neither did Paris, who had his own fight with E-ZPass trying to rectify what he owed once the Bensons flagged they had been unwittingly paying tolls on his behalf, perhaps as much as $800 over 14 months.
“They are the culprit in all of this,” Paris said of E-ZPass. “And it’s also a multimillion-dollar company, yet you can’t get in contact with anyone.”
Dick Benson, an Army sergeant who lost a leg in 1970 in Vietnam, has a disabled veterans tag: 3. Gail’s passenger plate is 145, the same three digits on the legislative plate assigned to Paris, a Democrat who represents the 145th District of Stamford.
The Bensons have since learned there is nothing exclusive about low-digit plates — and that legislators do not always heed admonitions about the out-of-state use of legislative plates.
“Legislative plates should be used on vehicles traveling within Connecticut only,” commissioner of motor vehicles Tony Guerrera warned winners of General Assembly races last year, in bold. “Electronic tolling systems in neighboring states may not distinguish between legislative plates and similarly numbered vehicle plates otherwise issued by the CT DMV.”
Many states, Connecticut included, utilize the same numbers in different classifications of motor-vehicle plates. The DMV says there are four in Connecticut with 145: Gail Benson’s Volvo.
Each of those plate types is distinctive to the human eye but not always to the photographic readers of E-ZPass. And that’s how Dick and Gail Benson started getting billed for the travels of Paris, a young Democrat who was elected in 2020 and got his first blue-striped legislative tag bearing his district number upon taking office in January 2021.
The first sign of trouble came at the end of 2023, when West Hartford mailed Gail a delinquent violation notice demanding $45.40 for an unpaid parking ticket issued on Farmington Avenue at 12:45 p.m. on Nov. 9. “I hadn’t been to West Hartford in a year,” she said.
When she objected, West Hartford informed her that the vehicle ticketed at a parking meter was a Kia, not her Volvo. The town excused the ticket after the DMV confirmed there was a Kia with a 145 tag — a legislative plate. It was then the Bensons reviewed their E-ZPass statement and found the discrepancies.
The Bensons began disputing charges, though they say they were told E-ZPass would only go back for a year. Beginning on Dec. 12, 2023, they began getting credits in monthly statements, $99.27 the first time. But the incorrect charges on the 145 plate continued.
They wrote to the E-ZPass customer service center in Albany on Jan. 4, 2024, informing the organization of the mix-up with Gail’s 145 plate and the one on Paris’ car. “We have been overcharged hundreds of dollars for this past year, and most likely for several years,” they wrote.
Rep. Corey Paris, Credit: Mark Pazniokas / CT Mirror
Based on statements reviewed by Connecticut Mirror, they eventually got credits for $451.89. They continued to push for what they felt was a full accounting from E-ZPass and from Paris.
Paris, meanwhile, had his own issues with E-ZPass. Once Paris was deemed responsible for many of the charges originally levied on the Bensons, E-ZPass tried to collect substantial late fees. Paris said he should not be assessed for late fees on charges he never got.
Paris said he had an E-ZPass account and assumed he was being billed. He said he pays his bills.
The Bensons, meanwhile, recently got another refund check from the MTA Bridge and Tunnel Authority. It came as the CT Mirror was pressing the authority to answer questions about the process.
In a phone call, Cala-Rauch said the resolution negated the need for a story.
Is there a process for reviewing the photographic evidence when there is a dispute over a charge by mail? Is there a written policy regarding dates by which a charge must be challenged that you can provide? “The sooner a toll is disputed, the more options we have in resolving a customer inquiry,” she replied.
If there is a policy, it was not provided.
