Illinois tollway drivers vent frustration after glitch leaves 100,000 with unexpected warnings about unpaid tolls

A glitch in the Illinois Tollway system earlier this month left about 100,000 drivers with unexpected warnings about unpaid tolls, some dating back about a year.

Since then, dozens of Illinois Tollway users have reached out to CBS News Chicago, voicing confusion over notices for old unpaid tolls, whether they were part of this glitch, and what they should do about them.

The confusion comes on the cusp of a possible rate hike that would make tolls more expensive in Illinois.

St. Charles driver Andrew Cool was one of the dozens of viewers who reached out after CBS News Chicago first aired the story about the mysterious old toll charges popping up on people's Illinois Tollway accounts with no notice.

He said he would have had no idea about $24 worth of unpaid tolls going back to 2024 if he hadn't checked his account because his transponder wasn't working.

"I had no idea. I was shocked when I saw it, especially from 2024," Cool said. "If me and 100,000 other people are getting hit with these kind of bills, it's like, man, it's, you know, what else is getting through? You know, and where is that money going?"

The Illinois Tollway said they discovered a batch of previously unbilled tolls. A spokesperson didn't explain why drivers weren't emailed about those unpaid tolls, instead urging drivers to regularly check their accounts.

Other drivers said some of those unpaid tolls disappeared after a few days.

Another driver, Regal Tripamer, said five unpaid tolls from a year ago also popped up on her account. The tollway said she wasn't impacted by the glitch, but she said she hasn't gotten a straight answer about what did happen.

"Not happy that I didn't, one, receive a bill, and receive a bill a lot sooner, and then just the fact of when I did call to try and get some answers, they were … they were not really what I wanted to hear, and then being hung up on, it was just very frustrating," Tripamer said.

All of this comes as the Illinois Tollway is currently seeking public input for a hike that would add about 45 cents to each toll. That would bring in more than $26 billion over 15 years to improve the system.

Comments can be submitted online through this Monday, August 3. If approved, the Tollway hike would begin on January 1.

Meantime, the tollway is refusing to explain what caused the delayed billing glitch and what steps have been taken to prevent it from happening again.

Below are a sampling of concerns shared by dozens of drivers. While we don't know that all of these drivers encountered the exact same glitch, you can read their combined frustration with the lack of information from the tollway.

Jesse Del Angel 7/29: "I am still trying to figure out a way to question this toll violation. I tried to use the "Customer Service" option on the Illinois webpage. but after entering my inquiry this is the message I received.  An error has occurred. Please try this form later."

Joshua Beaman 7/21: " I appreciate your team looking into this IL Tollway issue as I hope it spreads awareness so nobody else may be affected."

Jody Beckford 7/21: "I have called two different times to question these tolls and did not receive any information except that they were not billed previously. Based on research on how to respond , I audited my own account and found that the tollway was not crediting all of the payments that I made and requested that they audit my account. Several weeks later I received an email saying they were responding, however all they did was send me a spreadsheet of the activity on my account which was also missing the additional payments that I have email confirmation were made. I have been unable to get a response from them on why my account is not showing accurate payments made."

Courtney King 7/21: "I had no outstanding tolls until a few weeks ago. Suddenly, I checked my account and it says I have $45 of unpaid tolls dated May and June 2025. These tolls showed up within the last couple of weeks, so I called the Illinois tollway. They had basically no explanation or answer for why that happened and said I owed the funds. I have not yet paid the tolls because I don't believe they were charged correctly. I have attached a screenshot but I blurred out my license plate number. This has not been resolved by Illinois tollway as of yet."

Justin Past 7/24: "I messaged customer service through the website, but it came up as an error when I tried to submit."

Rosalina Landa 7/20: "Today, after seeing your story, I logged in again and now I have another alert, this time for supposedly missed tolls dating back to 2016.  Hope this is helpful for your story. At this point, despite the small amount, I'm not sure whether I should pay this one or wait. I don't see any notice about a payment deadline or additional penalties for not paying right away, so I'm hesitant to do anything until there's more information."

Linda Shesto 7/22: "I only became aware of the charge after seeing CBS Chicago's report about the delayed Tollway billing issue. After checking my account, I discovered that I had also been assessed a fee related to a toll from last year.What surprised me most is that I have an active I-PASS account with available funds. Instead of the toll simply being deducted from my account, I was assessed a fee nearly a year later. I also never received any notice that there was an issue with my account or that a toll had gone unpaid. Had I not seen your news report, I likely would never have known to check my account.  My concern isn't the dollar amount itself. It's that customers were not notified when the issue occurred and then, almost a year later, these charges suddenly appeared. If CBS hadn't reported on this, I would have had no reason to log into my account or discover the charge. I think customers deserve timely notification so they have the opportunity to address any issues when they happen, rather than finding out many months later."

Brandon Lewis 7/24: "...so clearly they're making changes to these unpaid tolls without invoices but I honestly can't discern what or how, and I'm not getting any communication from them about it.... Its just so strange they're not communicating any of this and because they aren't invoicing their customer service team can't do anything with them."

Judy Freedman 7/24: "I applaud your perseverance in trying to gain an understanding."

Judy Freedman 7/21: "he representative suggested  that perhaps a person from another state has the same plate, which was then linked to ours.  Quite frankly, that seems quite farfetched.  She said that is most likely a glitch and recommended that I not pay it.  She ssid that she documented my call on my account.  In my opinion, she seemed at bit perplexed."

Elizabeth Lopez 7/21: "The emails showing me the tolls are nowhere to be found and I've reached out requesting them to give me the invoice number I paid $337.60 and after a long hold all I get is "customer are you there?" Are you there? Then a hang up." 

Anita Sanchez 7/21: " recently saw your report regarding the Illinois Tollway glitch, and it finally helped explain why I suddenly have a balance on my account.

Prior to seeing your report, I had attempted to contact the Tollway several times about this issue but have not received a response.

What I find concerning is that I regularly paid my tolls throughout 2024 and 2025, yet I was never notified that there were allegedly unpaid tolls until now—nearly two years later. If there truly were unpaid tolls, why wasn't I notified at the time so the issue could have been addressed?

It also doesn't make sense that the Tollway is claiming only certain tolls were never paid while all of my other toll transactions during the same period were processed successfully. If there was a payment issue, I would expect it to have affected all of my transactions, not just a select few.

I would appreciate an explanation of how this occurred and a thorough review of my account, as this appears to be related to the recently reported Tollway system glitch."

Andrew Cool 7/21: "Recently I ran into this issue where I signed into my toll account online and noticed that I had a large amount of tolls from Christmas 2024. I was very confused by the amount of tolls that were never paid apparently. I ended up paying the invoices to avoid any other issues. But thought it was strange that almost a year and a half later I'm getting invoiced for tolls that were obviously not paid on my account. I also received no notice or email that I had these until recently."