I recently rented a car in NYC. It was pretty new. I couldn't find a transponder on the windshield so I used my personal. I got a bill a few weeks later from Avis for the toll charges. Where do they put the transponders nowadays. I think they started scanning license plates so that might be how they're tagging the car. Best practice...check for transponder in the car and/or ask someone where it is before leaving the lot.

Were you also charged on your personal transponder account? If so, you can probably get a refund of Avis' charges by submitting proof that your personal account was charged.

They do it by scanning license plates now so often no transponder.

I "thought" the way the Ezpass system (NYC metro area works) is if it reads an EzPass transponder it charges that one (your personal). If not, it uses the license plate of the car to determine what to charge/how much to charge based on if plates are linked to an EzPass account already. Has this changed recently?

I routinely rent when returning from LGA or JFK and drive the car home but purposely been using the 59th Street bridge to avoid any tolls on the ways back. The method above used to work for me 4-5 years ago. Interested to see if things have changed.

Today I got a Toyota pickup truck at EWR, actually from FL- no used car dealer sticker, eToll transponder but SunPass Mini. The clerk said they stopped putting in NJ EZPASS because everything is now toll-by-plate. I went through 2 EZPASS booths on the Garden State Parkway, and both said "Toll Unpaid. Go." It should be interesting to see how PlatePass handles this.

They will do a license plate lookup and bill it E-toll that way. No violations or added fees from the toll authority. Done that many times myself on the NJ turnpike, albeit with the e-toll unlimited.

tho a bit late
just out of curiosity how much was unlimited - and where did you get the car from?

This ^. Wherever I go that takes EZ-Pass, my personal transponder comes with and goes on the windshield with the rental company's closed inside their RF-shield box. EZ-Pass appears to preference transponder over license plate (the plate is a backup if it doesn't detect a transponder for any reason). On the handful of occasions a rental company has charged me a toll, it's been relatively easy to reverse the charge by providing my EZ-Pass statement showing the toll charge to my personal transponder.

PlatePass through rental car companies is light-years better than it was years ago; used to be quite a racket, with exhorbitant "administrative" and/or "processing" fees often totaling many times the actual toll. IIRC Hertz (and perhaps Avis/Budget) got spanked pretty hard with a class action some years back and were forced to end the practice; now they can only charge the actual toll and a modest daily fee if you 'activate' the transponder by using it during your rental period. That's still an annoyance, but far less egregious than it once was.

YMMV for toll systems other than EZ-Pass. I have little experience with them and don't know if/how transportable or affordable a transponder for them would be. Some use RFID windshield stickers, which wouldn't seem easily substituted.

I got a $92 Platepass violation charged to the credit card. I used my own Ezpass for the 1 toll that I went through and it posted fine.

This hasn't happened to me in the past when using my own Ezpass; what did I do wrong this time around?

If this was truly a violation fine issued to Avis by the tolling authority, then I think that you must first clear things up with the tolling authority, and then get Plate Pass to reverse the charge. If, on the other hand, this is simply a Plate Pass charge for the toll and their fees, then you must submit documentation to Plate Pass that the toll in question was properly charged to your personal E-Z Pass account.

Did the rental vehicle have its own windshield-mounted E-Z Pass transponder encased in a metal box? If so, was the metal box completely closed when you incurred the toll?

So on the issue above, I contested w/ AMEX and gave them a screen shot of my EzPass account and they took the $92 Platepass violation off. Never, reached out to Platepass to follow up afterwards.

However, recently I have been getting charged a toll when trying to use my on NY State issued Ez Pass. The transponder box is closed but somehow it is not reading my own Ez Pass This is on RFK Bridge usually. I have been holding it up as I go under the reader. I haven't tried to use the App to fill in the plates. Any similar experiences, something change recently?

My opinion is they have the plate registered in NY with their e-toll company and yes, it is likely your transponder did not pick-up. So, even if you added the plate to your account, they will get the charge first. It is becoming much harder to get your own pass to work it seems.

Just completed a trip to Vermont (via NY) with a NY E-ZPass account and a E-Toll transponder box that was closed. I placed the transponder next to the closed box and registered with E-ZPass as a temporary vehicle. The Thruway transactions took a week to post but all of them charged to my account. I'm hoping NY's new system will prioritize temporarily registered vehicles over a permanent registration.

Might want to re-think that based on the following:

I'm surprised it took PANYNJ to match MTA and NY State with this policy. To avoid the issue of misreads when holding the pass, I got a cheap suction cup mount from Amazon some time back and ordered free extra velcro strips for the pass.