Family left on road at night over $12,000 in cashless toll fees

Editor's note: The implementation of cashless tolling in the Lower Hudson Valley has brought howls of complaints from drivers who have told us horror stories. Some say they’ve never received bills, only to face thousands of dollars in late fees. Others told us about strong-arm tactics of collection agencies, about a faceless system that didn’t seem to care. Here is one of their stories.

Deloris Ritchie was looking forward to having her two college-age children home in Hillcrest for Thanksgiving.

Nicole, 23, and Isaiah, 18, were flying into John F. Kennedy Airport in Queens late on Thanksgiving eve. Ritchie brought along her 79-year-old mother for the late-night trip to collect them.

As the family was returning home loaded down with luggage — including Isaiah's portable synthesizer — they were pulled over by police on the RFK Bridge in the wee hours of Thanksgiving morning. One officer said it was because of a suspended registration for an insurance lapse; another said it was because of unpaid tolls.

The family and all their luggage were loaded into a cruiser, taken off the bridge and dropped off on East 138th Street in the Bronx. It was 2 a.m. and the temperatures were right around freezing.

Nicole, a film student, videotaped her grandmother being helped out of the police car, looking shaken and dazed.

The family continued to plead with the officers to explain why their car had been towed and why they were now being left on the street, 30 miles from home. Ritchie was given a summons that said she owed toll money.

With nothing open at that hour on Thanksgiving, the college students called an Uber and they all headed to Montefiore Hospital, where Ritchie's husband works the overnight shift as a lab supervisor.

Ritchie drove the family home in her husband's car, reaching Hillcrest around 4 a.m. A licensed practical nurse, she's accustomed to functioning with limited sleep. She took a quick power nap and returned to the Bronx to pick up her husband when he finished his shift at 8 a.m.

“This ruined my Thanksgiving,” Ritchie said. "It was traumatizing for my mother and my children who have never been in trouble. My son is 18, and he told me ... ‘Mom, I don’t feel safe.’ He didn’t even want to drive while he was here.”

Most of all, she was puzzled by what had happened.

The Monday after the holiday, she went to the DMV in Haverstraw.

“They gave me a white piece of paper that said there was a one-day lapse in insurance because I dropped one insurance and picked up another the day after. It showed I paid the $8,” Ritchie said. “He gave me the white paper and said, ‘Ma'am, go get your car.’ Then I thought about it, and I was like, ‘Where is my car?’”

She called the 718-number listed on a slip of paper given to her by the tow-truck driver on the bridge. She didn't catch it at the time, but the paper was a summons from the E-ZPass NY DMV Registration Suspension Group.

Instead of learning the location of her car, she learned she was in deeper trouble.

"They said I owed $12,000 in tolls, and I said, 'Absolutely not,' and laughed it off like she's playing around, but she didn't laugh back," Ritchie said. "That's when I was like, 'This is serious. $12,000 is serious.'"

She said the Thruway Authority claimed she hadn't paid a toll bill since cashless tolling began on the Tappan Zee/Gov. Mario M. Cuomo bridges in April 2016.

Months later, sitting at the table in her spotless kitchen, Ritchie thumbs through her toll bills and copies of corresponding checks that proved she was paying them in a timely manner. Sometimes, she said, she paid extra in advance, just to stay ahead.

"They wanted to make a deal right there on the telephone, and the deal was if I gave them $3,900, they'll wipe everything out," she said. "I said, 'If I really owed $12,000 and you're going to give me my car back for $3,900, then something is wrong.'"

It took a month for Ritchie to find her car. A patient woman who also serves as a chaplain at Riker's Island prison and a deaconess at her parish in Yonkers, she made countless telephone calls, all of which ended in automated answers or dead-ends.

It wasn’t until a couple days before Christmas when a representative of the bank that holds her car loan called Ritchie to tell her that her 2013 Nissan Rogue was in an impound lot in Brooklyn.

In the meantime, the daily impound fee had reached nearly $2,000. She was paying for Uber and taxi rides to and from work, and had lost income as she couldn't get to her night job as a nurse in White Plains. She also had to cover the cost of towing her car back to Hillcrest, where it sat for months in the driveway with its plates removed — all while she continued to make monthly car payments.

She needed to hire an attorney to protect her nursing license, which she feared she could lose if she were convicted of the misdemeanor charge of driving with a suspended registration.

“It cost me $5,000 to $6,000 (out of pocket) easily,” Ritchie said.

At the end of January, Ritchie said she went through the Thruway's cashless tolls amnesty program, paying the $790 the Thruway Authority said she owed to clear away the violations.

She had a court hearing Feb. 1 on the misdemeanor charge and she wanted to put the issue behind her, not put her nursing license at risk.

On Feb. 1, she gave the judge her DMV paperwork — the same slip of paper she had received the Monday after Thanksgiving — and the judge cleared her of all charges and fines.

A less-than-30-minute court appearance ended a nearly three-month nightmare.

The worst part of this whole ordeal, Ritchie said, was the way she was treated the night she was pulled over on the RFK Bridge by a Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Police officer, a lieutenant and a state trooper.

“(The officers) were yelling, he had his hand on his gun when he was speaking to me, and when he was at my window, he was leaning forward into my car,” Ritchie said. “I don’t need to be treated like this. I'm a law-abiding citizen.”

Recalling that night from the comfort of her home, she put her hands over her mouth and closed her eyes before shaking her head.

“They didn’t have a heart. Not so much for me, but to throw an elderly woman out of the car at 2 o’clock in the morning. You see her holding onto the car, and there was no remorse. Nothing,” she said.

Ritchie said she expects to be able to re-register her car before the end of the month and be back on the road.

“I know this cashless tolls impacted a lot of people,” she said. “And there were other people out there who weren’t as fortunate and didn’t get their car back.”

About this investigation

Reporters at lohud and The Journal News have spent three months investigating cashless tolls to find out why drivers are getting fees and escalating fines for tolls for which many say they were never billed, who's running the system and where the system is breaking down.

The reporting so far has prompted changes, including:

an amnesty program forgiving thousands of dollars from individual bills;

a new web page for the amnesty program instead of using the faulty Tolls By Mail site;

more distinct envelopes so drivers know they've received a bill;

new toll signs on the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge;

and more responsiveness from Thruway officials, two of whom attended a lohud forum on cashless tolling and personally helped drivers with their individual cases.

Has this happened to you? Tell us your story. Email digital@lohud.com with the subject line "cashless tolls" or call 914-510-2181 and leave a message.

More

IN TEXAS: You could pay your toll with a night in jail

REVEALED: Conduent, the corporate giant behind cashless tolls

OUTRAGE: Tappan Zee, Mario drivers hit with thousands of fees

THE PLAYERS: Three private companies run cashless toll system

THE PLAYBOOK: Cashless tolls amnesty program new to NY, but not other states

UNPAID BILLS: Nearly $8 million in cashless tolls unpaid at bridge

EDITORIAL: 3 ways the Thruway can fix cashless tolls

YOUR STORIES, YOUR BILLS: Part 1, part 2, part 3.

Twitter: @ChrisEberhart2