LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Frustrated RiverLink customers are sounding off, saying the agency must do better.
It comes after RiverLink switched toll service providers last year, leaving drivers flooded with delayed bills accumulating over several months.
As WHAS11 has learned, drivers' biggest issue lies in the lack of available help.
According to the agency, customer service calls topped 100,000 in January alone, with hour-long wait times RiverLink itself called unacceptable.
WHAS11 called the helpline ourselves mid-afternoon on February 14. A customer service representative answered after about 40 minutes.
On Feb. 2, RiverLink spokesperson Mindy Peterson said they're working to get the average speed to answer back to a minute or less, saying "it will take time to do that, but the states are committed to improvements."
As far as how long it could take to reach that goal, Peterson said she doesn't want to speculate on an exact timeframe -- but admits "it's going to take probably months, not weeks to stabilize."
That's with more than $3 million in extra state funding going to improve service, including adding up to 50 extra customer service reps answering phones.
"We are seeing a lot of improvements and continuing to trend in the right direction," Peterson told WHAS11 on Feb. 2.
RiverLink customers like Lise Kruer of New Albany don't agree.
"If only it were just months, but it’s already been months," she told WHAS11.
Kruer's whole family have been RiverLink customers from the very beginning. And since the provider switch, she's been trying to decipher some of her latest bills.
“Getting hit with a large bill at the end when you weren’t quite sure what it had to do with. There still were a couple charges that we could not assign to anyone in our family," Kruer recounts from a recent statement. "We couldn’t figure out who they could have been. [They] were neither me nor my husband. Our sons weren’t even in town on those particular days.”
The change that’s supposed to eventually improve service across the board, Kruer says, has been a headache so far. She describes calls to the helpline as a one-way path to a dead end.
"Where do these charges come from? Why was this account charged for this crossing?” Kruer said, repeating questions she asked customer service. "They don’t know. They don’t have the answer. [They say] we can call back. It’s absolutely inexcusable. And it’s kind of unforgiveable to not have a process in place to be able to address concerns when they come up.”
We also got Brian Amburgey, RiverLink customer for years, on the phone. He says he drives across the east end (Lewis and Clark) bridge near Prospect at least 40 times a month.
"You can make a payment really easily. It’s doing anything else on there that’s hard," Amburgey told WHAS11.
Benefitting from the frequent-user discount, each work day Amburgey drives from Scott County, Indiana, to Ford’s Kentucky Truck Plant in eastern Jefferson County. Not long after the provider shift, he says his transponder suddenly stopped working.
And he says trips to the in-person walk-up center solved one issue, only later to see another appear.
"The wait was three-and-a-half hours," he said. "Plucking $100 dollars down a month, not getting your discounts, and then when they finally do get to go in – it’s a mass amount of two or three months that you have to go through in your account to get it straightened out.”
Amburgey added, “If you had trained representatives that actually answered the phone, a lot of this stuff could be taken care of.”
Some customers have even told us off camera about charges linked to cars they don’t own and plates that don’t match theirs, in some cases adding up to hundreds of dollars due.
"The fact of the matter is if anyone received an invoice or a new monthly bill for activity for a car that does not belong to them, they don't owe that money," Peterson said.
The problem is drivers with accounts in the red can’t renew their tags. So the options are either pay up -- regardless of possible errors -- or run the risk of waiting however long it takes to dispute the charge.
“If you’re up against a deadline to renew your tags, you simple have to pay. It’s like being held hostage," Kruer said. "You could ask almost anybody that has used RiverLink in the past six months -- almost anybody -- and they would tell you a similar story.”
Peterson said registration holds have not been implemented yet by the new provider, and no date has been set yet to begin sending vehicle registration holds. She added that no clerks have held any registrations because they haven't been in the system and clerks will be notified before holds resume.
"The states have been focusing on improving customer response times as quickly as possible," Peterson said. "Nearly 50 additional customer service representatives have been added in the past month and call hold times continue to improve."
The agency is pleading for patience.
“This is going to be a much better system for people, but I know there are certainly some hurdles right now and we see those challenges. And we’re trying to get help to people as quickly as we are able to," Peterson said.
As far as any potential incorrect charges, Riverlink said in a statement, “Electronic tolling is incredible effective. There are a small number of anticipated errant charges, which is why customer service and dispute channels exist.”
►Contact reporter Isaiah Kim-Martinez at IKimMartin@whas11.com or on Facebook or Twitter
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