How To Change Battery In Ez Pass

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Past Len Lazarick

Len@MarylandReporter.com

Photo past MPD01605 with Flickr Creative Commons License

Now that Gov. Hogan announced a new customer service initiative on Thursday, a good identify to beginning might be with Due east-ZPass price system and making it easier to supercede a dead transponder.

Transponders are those little white boxes that transmit the data to the antenna that collect the toll automatically. The transponder on my wife'due south Honda Accord stopped working a few weeks ago.

Knowing what nosotros know at present, I should have probably just ordered a new transponder online from the East-ZPass website, paid $nine and got it in the mail.

Unclear instructions, long await times

Simply that's non what the website tells you to do. In fact, what to practice when a transponder stops working is non very articulate on the website at all.

"If your account is in good standing and your transponder is affixed properly to your vehicle's windshield, and your transponder is still not working, please contact the Eastward-ZPass® Maryland Service Centre at 1-888-321-6824. Please visit one of our Finish-In-Centers and take your transponder tested."

So should yous call starting time and and so get to one of the service centers? Probably should take called, fifty-fifty though when I eventually did I was on agree for xxx minutes. Others, such equally former delegate Don Murphy, have reported similarly long await times for the call center run by Xerox, the transponder contractor for Maryland and 15 other states.

John Sales, a public data officer for the Maryland Transportation Authority, said they've had a lot of complaints about long look times. It is not articulate what if anything is beingness done to fix that. Maybe Hogan'due south customer service initiative tin can do something.

And equally for the website itself: "We're in process of revamping the website" and "trying to make it a lot more user friendly," Sales said. "At that place'due south lots of stuff we have to change."

Stop-In-Centers, the call center

And so instead, Maureen Kelley went to the Stop-In-Center at the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel. Most of the Stop-in-Centers at the toll facilities are open 7:30 a.grand. to iii:30 p.chiliad., weekdays; and one day a calendar week they're open till half-dozen p.g. (The Bay bridge is open till 5 p.thousand. every day) The Stop-In-Centers are also on just i side of the price plaza, so they're not like shooting fish in a barrel to get to if y'all're going in the wrong direction. At that place are also 3 at MVA offices open till 4:thirty p.m.

What Kelley finds is the clerk won't deal with her trouble because her name is not on the transponder business relationship. She calls me to put her proper name on the business relationship. There are lots of things you can alter online most the account, but not the name.

This is what drives me to phone call the Client Service June 3. Later 30 minutes on hold, the boyfriend was very helpful. He promises to send out a new transponder, charge me $9 and add Maureen Kelley's name to the account. It arrives a week subsequently, as promised. Hooray.

On Mon, she uses it for the showtime time. It works, but online, information technology has charged the business relationship $three for using the Harbor Tunnel. The new transponder was non put on the driver programme the old transponder had. That issue never came up on the phone, but it seems like I was able to set up that online. We'll see. Oh, and Maureen Kelley's proper noun was non added to the account.

All in all, I'm just another dissatisfied customer for E-ZPass, one of the 920,000 accounts which save the state money for cost collection and its citizens' fourth dimension. Many no doubt have old lithium batteries declining in their aging transponders.

Short service hours, poor admission, long concord times, a disruptive, clunky website — not the all-time in client service.

Consumer Affairs rating: 1 Star

Hither'south what Jack of Accokeek, Md. said March 1 on the ConsumerAffairs.com website, where the Eastward-ZPass system got an overall rating of one star out of five.

"E-ZPass Maryland has the accented WORST customer service of ANY company I have always dealt with, dating back to when I was a baby. The look time to talk to someone on the phone is well over xx minutes. They consistently mess up account information. If the cyberspace existed in 1980 and the first epitome website had been developed, it would have been amend and more than user friendly than the E-ZPass website used today. I believe they had their website created for free past the local community college starting time year It students. Unfortunately the students failed the grade nonetheless Eastward-ZPass still decided to utilize the website that they created for their final project.

"The merely thing E-ZPass is consistently good at is employing mean, sassy women to man the phone lines."

Virginia's solution

By contrast, here'southward what the Virginia Eastward-ZPass says on FAQs (frequently asked questions).

"How can I commutation my Eastward-ZPass transponder if it is no longer working?"

"Mail your transponder to: E-ZPass Service Center, PO Box 1234, Clifton Forge, VA 24422-1234 or bring information technology to a Service Centre location. Each Service Center has a drop box for your convenience after hours. If you choose to mail your transponder, delight wrap the transponder in foil or insert it in the original Mylar bag and enclose a note requesting a replacement. We recommend using Certified Mail, as you are responsible for any transponder that is lost in the post."

Sounds like a prissy, elementary, uncomplicated solution to the problem of dead and aging transponders.

I asked John Sales if there were whatever plans to make replacing a transponder in Maryland easier, he said, "Non that I've heard."

MdTA ought to accept a customer-service clue from the folks in Virginia.

Source: https://marylandreporter.com/2016/06/14/replacing-maryland-e-zpass-transponder-is-not-so-easy/

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