A year after paying the congestion tolls for two trips into New York City, Cranford, New Jersey, resident Alan Lieberman received a $190.50 bill, a violation notice and a collections threat. His account records showed the original tolls had already been paid.
According to NJ.com, Lieberman and his wife drove into the city for an off-Broadway play in June 2025, then returned later that month for a one-man comedy show. He paid the $9 congestion pricing fee for each of those two dates, charges confirmed by his own account statements. But when he checked his May 2026 E-ZPass statement, he found three separate congestion pricing toll fees tied to those same dates, each dated June 25, 2025, and July 8, 2025, that he had already covered.
Congestion pricing, formally known as the Congestion Relief Zone toll, applies to drivers entering Manhattan south of and including 60th Street. Per the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, passenger and small commercial vehicles with a valid E-ZPass pay $9 during peak periods and $2.25 overnight, and the charge is only supposed to apply once per day. Lieberman told the outlet he knew immediately that something was wrong with the system.
Duplicate Charges and a Growing Penalty
New Jersey E-ZPass removed one duplicate charge, but the agency processes only fees New York sends it. Lieberman sent New York E-ZPass a dispute declaration and copies of his payment statements on June 1, 2026. After receiving no response, he wrote again on July 27 and later sent a third letter by certified mail, according to NJ.com.
About a month after his first two letters went unanswered, Lieberman said, he received a violation notice with an increased penalty. By Sept. 3, 2026, the MTA had issued a formal notice totaling $190.50: $150 in penalties and $40.50 in fees. New York E-ZPass had sent the violations to a collection agency.
Paying Up to Protect His Credit
Lieberman told NJ.com he believed the initial violation notice reflected a processing error. He received a reply to his third certified letter, but it disregarded his proof and sent the violations to collections. Concerned about a possible vehicle-registration suspension and credit damage, he paid the $190.50 bill. He said he hoped to recover the money and had not received a call from the MTA addressing his complaints.
NJ.com reviewed Lieberman’s letters and E-ZPass account statements, which showed he had paid the original tolls about a year before the violation notice arrived. The outlet asked the MTA to review his account, refund the payment and stop any further collections activity on his behalf.
MTA Says It's Correcting the Record
An MTA spokeswoman said the cause of the error was under review. An MTA spokesman told NJ.com the agency was correcting the issue through Lieberman’s New York Tolls by Mail account and New Jersey E-ZPass account, and that it had issued a full credit to his payment card. The MTA said it planned to contact Lieberman directly. He ultimately received a $190.50 refund.
Lieberman's case is not an isolated glitch in the congestion pricing rollout. A separate NJ.com report from March 2025 found that some New Jersey drivers were billed the full $13.50 congestion toll instead of the discounted $9 E-ZPass rate with a $3 tunnel credit they were owed. The program has reduced city gridlock, air pollution and crashes.
A Pattern of Billing Errors Across the Region
Billing confusion has dogged the tolling system well beyond one Cranford driveway. An investigation by NBC New York found that E-ZPass congestion toll bills don't even identify which cameras or intersections triggered a given charge, making disputes harder to pin down, though the MTA has said it does provide credits to affected motorists in relatively few cases of inadvertent errors. That outlet also reported the MTA agreed to refund four separate $4.50 congestion tolls charged to driver Jesse King once his bill was presented to them directly.
The problems extend beyond congestion pricing itself. PIX11 reported erroneous commuter-plan billings affecting roughly 8,000 accounts tied to crossings of five bridges between Oct. 9 and 10. FOX 5 New York reported that the New York State Bridge Authority said an outside vendor caused the errors. One Newburgh commuter, Jared Galino, told the outlet he was charged $55 per crossing for three straight days despite normally paying just $1.40 per trip; the Bridge Authority said it was working with the E-ZPass New York Customer Service Center to fix the issue.
The stakes of letting a disputed toll linger can escalate fast. CBS News New York has reported that unpaid tolls can snowball from a few thousand dollars into tens of thousands in debt, citing Brooklyn resident Ian Chichester, whose $3,234.06 in tolls ballooned to $35,034.06 once late fees piled on. The MTA adds a $50 fee to each unpaid toll after 60 days, charged only once per toll, according to that same report.
What Drivers Can Do to Avoid the Same Fate
How to Dispute a Toll or Violation
The MTA says E-ZPass customers may dispute a toll from the previous 180 days in writing. A dispute of a violation notice has a separate process: customers must complete Section C on the notice. If a toll problem remains unresolved through E-ZPass or Tolls by Mail customer service, the MTA Office of the Toll Payer Advocate says it may be able to assist individual toll payers; the MTA’s toll-payment guidance outlines the dispute steps.
For congestion tolls, the MTA says a bill goes to the vehicle’s registered owner through Tolls by Mail if the vehicle has no E-ZPass or the account does not match the license plate. A separate state comptroller audit found that 44,286 transactions involving interchange 25A appeared inaccurately billed in a three-week period reviewed—about 5% of the transactions reviewed—but that audit concerned the New York State Thruway Authority, not MTA congestion pricing.
The MTA's own guidance stresses that drivers must keep their current license plate linked to their E-ZPass account to receive the correct toll rate and any applicable credits or discounts; if a plate isn't linked, the system simply mails a Tolls by Mail bill to the vehicle's registered owner. And if a violation goes unpaid for too long, the consequences can compound: the New York State Thruway Authority notes that an unpaid violation can be referred to a collection agency if it isn't resolved within 30 days. For Lieberman, it took three letters and months of waiting—including a third letter sent by certified mail—to get the MTA to acknowledge a mistake that his own statements had documented all along.
