NC man charged hundreds of dollars for tolls in three states after license plate manipulated
CLAYTON, N.C. (WTVD) -- A Clayton man got charged hundreds of dollars worth of tolls for driving in states that he says he's not responsible for. The bills came with pictures that showed a truck, passing through tolls in Maryland, New York, and New Jersey.
When Greg Underhill got the bills, he thought, "Maybe this is a scam." Underhill says he felt it was a scam as his trailer which has the tag was parked in his driveway at his Clayton home.
"When I went to the DMV, they acted like this never happened before. I was like, there's no way."
Underhill's wife Temperance got involved and says she called the numbers on the toll bills from New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. "I attempted to reach them, got in the on the hold loop, never got to speak to anybody. One time I was on hold for 27 minutes.
Maybe this is a scam.Gred Underhill
"The unpaid toll bills then got turned into collections. "I think New Jersey's over $600 now with the fees, the late fees. New York was over $200 and I think Maryland was under $100 so it was close to $1,000 for all of it," she tells ABC11.
The Underhills did file a fraud report with the Johnston County Sheriff's Department as they believed someone duplicated the license plate that's on their trailer, and they also turned in the tag to the North Carolina DMV to stop further charges. However, they were still responsible for the hundreds in toll bills from the three states.
"I went ahead and wrote up three packets of disputes, mailed them all in and we got back from New Jersey that it was still got to pay it or pay the collections to resolve it, and then we reached out to you," Temperance said to Troubleshooter Diane Wilson.
Wilson took on the case, and while she was preparing to get everything off to the different toll agencies in New York, Maryland, and New Jersey, Wilson noticed something off when comparing Underhill's license plate, and the plate racking up all of the charges. When you look at the 8 on the Underhill's plate, and then compare that to the 8 on the truck's license plate, you can see the 8 on the plate going through the tolls, is not the same 8 on the Underhill's plate, instead appears to be a 9 manipulated to look like an 8.
Wilson pointed this out to every toll agency she contacted and the Underhills got results. Underhill said to Wilson, "Reached out to you and everything was dropping and I'm like man that was easy." It did take some time, but eventually every bill, even the ones in collections was dismissed from the Underhill's name.
"Thank you for taking care of this because this was getting stressful," Underhill adds.
There were many toll agencies involved in the three states, the ones that did get back to ABC11 said they transferred the charges to the account with the altered plate, and one agency even said they notified police to be on alert for the plate and investigate if civil action could be taken against the owner of the altered plates.
One of the agencies says they've engaged in a series of enhanced license plate enforcement efforts with law enforcement to crack down on ghost plates and persistent toll violators.
