Crosspost from /r/personalfinance
This is a SCAM. Why? I have to pay one way or another. I can't pay the $2.50 cash on the wait out of the airport anymore. $133 million will be spent to remove the toll plazas. Ha.
Now on this cashless system, if you're renting a car at the airport, be prepared for some sort of fees coming from your car rental company for the toll. Some have already faced class action lawsuits for using this as a profit center, and really gouging the consumer.
Recently, I was charged $22.70 for driving through 2 tolls. Once on departure, and once on arrival. My stay was a week. The company, Budget. I didn't sign up for their automated toll pass. (Transponder called EZ pass.) Which would have cost even more than the $3.95 I'm apparently automatically charged? I may be wrong on my understand here, but I don't recall opting into anything, and declined everything I could. I think just by driving through the cashless toll, the State of Mass scans the plate and bills the owner of the vehicle.
Used to be you would pay $2.50 cash or something like that, on your way out of the tunnel/bridge.
Now they have an all electronic system, I didn't even see a sign for a toll, but I was discussing it with a local afterwords, and they said you have to pay it online, "pay by plate".
You can either pay some ungodly amount for daily use of their transponder, or be billed $3.95 per day, plus the cost of tolls. (Mind you, that represents 40% of the daily cost of my rental.) Depends on the company, each have their own fees. Apparently Silvercar is the friendliest in this area.
TLDR: The only way I can think of avoiding this fee is to take the silver line MBTA bus downtown, which is free from the airport, or the Blue Line Subway, and get a rental car in downtown.
January 26, 2017 at 05:43AM
