Woman says she was charged more than $4,700 in fines for using Peach Pass lanes

Hundreds of thousands of drivers use the Peach Pass to avoid metro Atlanta’s heavy traffic.

But one driver reached out to Channel 2 Action News after she said she was charged thousands for toll fees she said she already paid for.

“This is so unfair. We’re using these lanes and we’re paying these funds. Where is the money going to?” April McCargo said.

She told Channel 2 investigative reporter Ashli Lincoln that she received a toll violation notice alerting her that she owes more than $1,400 in uncollected toll fees for using the Peach Pass Lane.

The charges date back to December 2023. McCargo said the first notice was delivered in February.

She told Lincoln that during that time period she never received any notifications from the State Road & Tollway Authority which handles billing for Peach Pass and Sun Pass customers.

“This is absurd,” McCargo said.

McCargo has a Florida Sun Pass. It’s approved for use in the state of Georgia. She showed Lincoln her statements showing consistent payments to the account.

“I would pay about $100 per week and we would get notifications via email when it would be time for us to reload the account,” McCargo said.

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McCargo said her issues have compounded, last month she received a collection notice stating she now owes more than $4,700 in toll violation fees.

Channel 2 Action News reported other drivers’ frustrations about similar issues with delayed violation notices earlier this year.

We reached out to SRTA and they told Lincoln that Georgia law prevents it from talking about specifics related to McCargo’s account.

SRTA said high volume usage volume is one reason for delays.

The authority said they have more than 1 million users. After Channel 2 Action News reached out to SRTA in February they updated the Peach Pass website to say tolls will show up in 14 to 30 days.

It used to say seven to 10 days.

SRTA said they are working to address delayed notifications related to high volume.

In a statement, SRTA said:

“The State Road and Tollway Authority has awarded a new contract for the management of its free-flow mobility transactions to ViaPlus. This contract includes delivery of a Customer Service System to manage transactions across the Georgia Express Lanes. ViaPlus will implement a scalable system to support our transaction growth. ViaPlus will manage the free-flow transactions and customer service channels for Peach Pass for the next seven years. The new system is expected to launch in late winter of this year.”

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