The Tolls

This article has been submitted by a GrownUps member. GrownUps accepts no liability for its content and the views and information contained within are not necessarily those of the GrownUps website.

Planning a short holiday up north, we decided to prepay the tolls on line by using internet banking. Have you ever tried it? Well my suggestion is don’t use the internet banking system. It’s not that we don’t know how to do it, as we use it all the time to pay all our bills. Unfortunately the system used for paying the tolls is different and you first have to have the POLi system. For those who don’t have this method, it needs to be downloaded. When that is complete, which seemed to take forever, you then have to download another two systems for the operation to take effect. After trying for nearly four hours and the frustration building, I decided that it was all a waste of time and we would pay at the kiosk on the way. Maybe it was the way I was doing it and it was my fault, but too long is too long. By the way, the internet or credit card system is the only way you avoid extra charges. Paying at the kiosk or on receipt of an account or forgetting to pay and then receiving a legal notice, all incur penalties. So it was off for a two day break with the intention of paying at the toll booth on the way back. Well guess what? We pulled into the kiosk on our return journey to be greeted by two machines that dispense the receipts only to find that both were out of order. It would appear that the Government is out there to take your toll money by any method that suits them, but not able to have at least one machine operating. Actually, it was a Saturday and maybe the repair crew don’t work on a weekend. The end result was we came home and ended up paying with the credit card. You may ask as to why we didn’t use this method to start with. Well it is our choice to only use the credit card when absolutely necessary and least of all on the computer. Next time we will think twice about whether we should go on the old road and enjoy the scenery. The problems didn’t spoil our break and we had a great time, visiting Puhoi, Warkworth, Matakana, Leigh and Kawau Island. If only the paying of the tolls could be made easier.
Maybe next time we will go south.

print