Overcharged on your SunPass?

By: Mike Deeson

Tampa, Florida - Two million times each day, a Florida driver goes through a toll booth using a SunPass.

Many drivers say they never check their statements to make sure they are correct. Often times a credit card is charged and replenishes the SunPass account when it detects a low balance.

Tampa Bay's 10 photojournalist Kurt Beabes does the same thing. After a low balance, his credit card added $50 to the account.

"Then two days later, it went off again," Beabes recounts. "There was no way possible I had gone through the toll plaza that often to chew up 50 bucks."

Beabes went online, checked his account and saw several charges for axle adjustments. He called SunPass.

"And they were trying to explain to me, it was because you were pulling a trailer or something through one of the toll booths,'" Beabes says. "And I tried to explain to them I have an SUV. I've never towed anything through the toll booths, and there shouldn't be these charges." Beabes also discovered there were even double charges at the same time, or within seconds of a charge.

SunPass told him that a lot of times when someone is riding through a toll plaza and somebody is riding the bumper, that person will get charged for both vehicles' tolls.

10 News made a public records request to the SunPass agency and found similar e-mail complaints, including "axle adjustment for $6" and "axle adjustment for $12."

It was e-mail after e-mail with the same complaint.

But SunPass spokesperson Joanne Hurley says the agency is aware of the problems and takes care of them before people complain.

"I don't accept the premise we have to wait for customers to call us," before taking action, Hurley says.

While we wanted to talk to some of the people who had written e-mails saying they had been overcharged instead of focusing on our staff photojournalist, we couldn't get their names. Despite Florida's broad public records law, the agency maintains those names are exempt and it claims it's to protect its customers rather than to cover up problems at the agency.

"We're very proactive and we're proud of what we do for customers," Hurley says. But Beabes advises checking your account online, or you could be overcharged without even knowing it.