I, too, received the low balance e-mail, and observed it’s more cost friendly reccommendation of stopping by my neighborhood Jewel-Osco and get a pre-paid $20 gift card. It’s 2010, by the way, so get with it already. It’s truly a wonder that the tollway has a website at all. They said, “Nope, credit or debit only.” I then tried to use an automated system just so this menial task wouldn’t be routed to a live person – because you know it’s just a three field form on a screen – and they said, “Nope, credit or debit only.” I finally had to call the number, navigate a tree and talk to a person to get it done. Once I did decide to give them money, I wanted to do it online and they said, “Nope, $40 or more only.” I then got a gift card (and ate the cost for gas, time to go to the store, etc.) and attempted to add that balance online. The tollway went ahead and emailed me every day to remind me of a pre-set low balance threshold that I couldn’t change. I gave her the gift card number, my transponder number, my blood type, the planned name of my first child, and my Google Account password and… just like that, I have $20 to use. That worked: I was transferred to an actual person (even though their website claimed that they were closed on Martin Luther King Jr. This time I followed a similar tree, but before choosing the automated option I just pressed zero a few times. I pressed zero, pound, asterisk, and all the keys at once to no avail. I press another button, and another, and finally get to the point where I can add value! Hooray! But… yes, no gift card option. I figure that the automated system can help me so I opt for that. At this point I have to listen to a poorly-placed recording of their business hours. I can do debit or credit but… no gift card? Indeed: the back of the gift card insists I can only add value by calling their 800 number. I logged into my account at the tollway website to add this gift card. (We’ll put aside the pure sadness of giving someone an IPASS gift card for a moment.) My lovely wife picked up just such a gift card the other day, at a more reasonable $20 amount. In my 90 daily emails I received from the tollway, though, I was informed I could also stop by an IPASS location at a tollway oasis (not likely) or get an IPASS gift card at my local Jewel-Osco. An error? “Replenishment must be a dollar amount greater than or equal to 40 in $1 increments.” $40 is the minimum? I can do $41 but not $11? Come now… that’s just dumb. So I changed the value to $10, submitted the form and, uh, hm. The default amount listed is $40 which I really didn’t need. So I went to my account and proceeded to fill out a form for replenishment. I did check on their internet website to see if I could set the threshold to something more reasonable, such as $2. It just became noise, as you can imagine. I continued to receive emails every day regarding my low balance. So I just ignored it.īut the tollway didn’t. Not too low given that most tolls I pay are 40 cents and I’m not on the tollway every day. I wasn’t sure how low – the email didn’t say – so I logged in and saw that it was at about $9.50. I opened my account with the tollway last year with $40, which was bundled with the purchase of the transponder.Ībout three months ago, I got an automated email from the Tollway warning me that my IPASS balance was low. This is worth the convenience… and the 50% discount I get versus using cash. ![]() I use IPASS, the wee transponder which not only lets me go through toll plazas at full speed but also tracks the date, time, and location of every toll I’ve ever paid.
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