Some Pikepass customers charged by mistake

We take steps to try to prevent it. It’s in a hard plastic case. But every now and then, an anomaly happens. We don’t know why it happens. We can’t explain why it happens. But, every now and then, one will, for some reason, read in transit in the mail carrier.”

Jack Damrill Director of communications for the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority

Some Pikepass customers who got their new sticker tags in the mail have been charged by mistake, The Oklahoman has learned.

“I was annoyed,” said one customer, Doug Potts, who was charged $9.95 for tolls in Oklahoma early Sept. 23 while he was in Wisconsin.

The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority credited his account for the error when he called to complain.

He said he was told his sticker tag probably was read by the system while en route to him in a postal truck.

He questioned why he was not mailed the sticker tag in a metalized bag and how many times this has happened to other customers.

The Oklahoma Turnpike Authority insists the instances are extremely low.

“We really don’t see this a whole heck of a lot. So, this is really rare,” said Jack Damrill, director of communications for the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority.

“We take steps to try to prevent it,” he said. “It’s in a hard plastic case. But every now and then, an anomaly happens.

“We don’t know why it happens. We can’t explain why it happens. But, every now and then, one will, for some reason, read in transit in the mail carrier.”

He said the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority issues around 420,000 new Pikepasses every year, about half through the mail.

“We probably take care of ... less than 15 customers a year when something like this happens,” Damrill said. “So it’s an extremely low number considering the number of Pikepasses we issue in a year.”

Damrill, however, did acknowledge that the only instances the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority knows about are from customer calls.

Potts only found out by happenstance.

Potts is the owner of a Dallas-based business that services the music industry.

He has a Pikepass because he travels through Oklahoma on his way to and from Wisconsin, where he spends his summers.

He saw he had been charged in error when he went online to look for an alternate place to put the sticker tag on his new SUV so it wouldn’t be in the way of a safety feature involving a camera.

“I wouldn’t have known,” he said.

Potts said he was annoyed at the time he had to spend correcting the mistake.

“I also was annoyed that the person I talked to didn’t seem like this was a big problem,” he said.

He called the mistake another example of governmental incompetence.

“You know, if this was a private business, they would have been in real trouble by now,” he said.