{"id":288691,"date":"2026-02-17T19:24:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T19:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/288691\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T19:24:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T19:24:06","slug":"nzta-admits-wrongly-charging-northlander-toll-fee-after-media-inquiries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/288691\/","title":{"rendered":"NZTA admits wrongly charging Northlander toll fee, after media inquiries"},"content":{"rendered":"

But Jacobson also queried the charge<\/a>, asking if he should have been tolled if the vehicle was being towed on a trailer.<\/p>\n

The email correspondence led to NZTA admitting towed vehicles do not incur the toll<\/a> \u2013 only the towing vehicle is charged.<\/p>\n

But the collections officer said since Jacobson had already paid the toll<\/a>, he had accepted responsibility for it and the $2.60 charge could not be reversed.<\/p>\n

Jacobson thought the response was \u201crubbish\u201d and contacted the Northern Advocate to see if any other toll-payers had been caught out and \u201cfobbed off\u201d in the same way<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a huge amount but, in principle, I shouldn\u2019t have been charged, they should be able to say, \u2018here\u2019s your money back\u2019 or something to take care of the mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BrettBrett Jacobson says the $2.60 toll charge is small change but the principle of a government department acting correctly is important. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

After the Northern Advocate made inquiries, NZTA admitted it made two mistakes, first by incorrectly picking up the towed vehicle as a toll road user, then providing Jacobson with the wrong information.<\/p>\n

He was entitled to a full refund, which was processed on Monday.<\/p>\n

Staff have been reminded of the importance in providing accurate information to tolling customers, NZTA said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cNZTA apologises to Mr Jacobson for any inconvenience and stress caused.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacobson, who only learned of the refund through the Northern Advocate, said it was fantastic news.<\/p>\n

He was disappointed NZTA had not \u201cdone the right thing\u201d earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a government department and should lead by example.<\/p>\n

\u201cI gave them every chance to do the right thing and they admitted it [the toll charge] was wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the $2.60 toll, $1.46 goes towards debt repayment (principal and interest), 80c on operating costs and 34c on GST, according to information from NZTA.<\/p>\n

The Northern Gateway toll road has collected $207 million in tolls from mid-2008 to June 2024. It still has $186m in remaining debt.<\/p>\n

Denise Piper is a news reporter<\/a> for the Northern Advocate, focusing on health and business. She has more than 20 years in journalism and is passionate about covering stories that make a difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But Jacobson also queried the charge, asking if he should have been tolled if the vehicle was being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16489,74,3041,38143,67206,8473,25349,1888,71,266,305,84841,1073,111,43,139,1067,31469,69,16488,19525,6744,6851,9979,3271,6100,4468,36672,42032,112,12475],"class_list":{"0":"post-288691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-admits","9":"tag-after","10":"tag-agency","11":"tag-charging","12":"tag-cheering","13":"tag-done","14":"tag-fee","15":"tag-first","16":"tag-from","17":"tag-government","18":"tag-have","19":"tag-inquiries","20":"tag-media","21":"tag-new-zealand","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-newzealand","24":"tag-northland","25":"tag-northlander","26":"tag-nz","27":"tag-nzta","28":"tag-pensioner","29":"tag-place","30":"tag-refund","31":"tag-right","32":"tag-should","33":"tag-still","34":"tag-thing","35":"tag-thinks","36":"tag-toll","37":"tag-transport","38":"tag-wrongly"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}