Attempted credit card theft turns into $300 fine.

[Ser William]

TLDR: Had to change my credit card when someone attempted to charge off it. This card was tied to FASTLANE and they charged me 300$ in fines when I used them.

Back in late November I went to use my credit card to make an online transaction and it came back as rejected. After a couple hours worth of research, turns out that my credit card company had put a flag on my account after someone unlawfully tried to make a purchase with it. In talking with customer service it turns out someone tried to make a Western Union advance for roughly 400$. I never lost a credit card so I'm not sure how anyone got this number. I do shop online but use only protected sites, and I have Norton Internet Security 2006, but whatever the case may be someone got my number and so I had to cancel that card and have them issue me a new card.

Turns out I acted fast enough and the illegal transaction was foiled. However, because there was a shortage in actual plastic cards, the credit card company took over 2 weeks to issue the card to me. In fact, I had to call them up when I received a bill from them with a late fee on it. Turns out, they put a stop on issuing me the credit card, because I had a late fee on my account... which was due to the fact that they never issued me my new credit card with new account number on it. After talking with customer service, they immediately waived the late fee and overnighted my credit card to me.

In the meantime, since I pay a lot of bills with this credit card (it is tied to my sons 529 college plan so foreverything I buy on it, a % goes to his college fund), so I was trying to make everything right online in terms of auto bill pay. I thought I had fixed everything that mattered temporarily.

ONe thing I didn't fix early on was Fastlane. The credit card company had originally told me i would have my new credit card in 3-5 days so I thought i would just wait until i got the new card and then update fastlane account with that. When I passed through Fastlane it had a yellow light that said "contact fastlane" and it did this for a couple days. Once I realized that the card wasn't coming I then went to fastlane and changed it over to my debit card and it worked fine.

Problem was, in the mail I got a notice from them saying that i had illegaly used fastlane, and had to pay $50 fine. This amounted to 6 different times so this will cost me $300. There was an appeal form there where you write in your transponder number so i sent the appeal in for each fine, with a small explkanation as to what happened. I just got back in the mail a notice saying that my appeal had been rejected. I could either pay the fine or request a hearing with a violation clerk.

I guess my question is, can I appeal this successfully before a violation clerk? I wasn't trying to avoid paying the toll or anything, I had assumed that it would catch up on my new credit card once I entered the information.

For what it is worth, here are excerpts from the FASTLANE agreement:

[ QUOTE ]

5. VIOLATIONS AND "VIDEO TOLL" ADMINISTRATIVE FEES

c) You agree that in the event your account falls below $0.00 due to an expired or rejected credit card, an insufficient bank account balance or an insufficient pre-paid balance and you proceed through a FAST LANE, you are in violation of the FAST LANE Program Agreement and the MTA's regulations, and you are subject to a violation and penalties under 730 C.M.R. 7.04 et. seq.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
3. Request for Hearing. Consistent with the provisions of M.G.L. c. 30A, a person
issued a violation notice may make a written request for an appeal hearing before a
violation clerk designated by the Authority. The violation clerk then notifies the
registered owner in writing by first class mail of the date, time, and place of the
hearing. The hearing is informal, the rules of evidence do not apply, and the decision
of the violation clerk is final, subject to judicial review as provided by M.G.L. c. 30A,
§ 14. Parties are notified in person or by mail of the decision following the hearing.
Each written appeal decision contains a statement of reasons for the decision
including a determination of each issue of fact necessary to the decision. Failure to
appear at the date, time, and place specified on the hearing notice automatically
results in the denial of the appeal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Does 5c make it pretty clear I have to pay these fines? Or can a violation clerk make the judgement that I wasn't attempting to avoid paying tolls and waive the fine and just bill me the original toll?

I feel angry because I wasn't trying to avoid paying any toll, and now someone douchebag trying to scam my credit card will have cost me over $300 in tolls and a lot of wasted time and effort.