American Traffic Solutions Unauthorized billing Scottsdale, Arizona

I got a mysterious charge to my credit card from "ATS, Scottsdale, AZ". On investigating it was found that this is actually "American Traffic Solutions", a company that provides traffic-monitoring cameras and associated services for various municipalities across the U.S and also provides traffic violation processing services for car rental agencies.

I had rented a car from Hertz Rent-a-Car this past summer (2011).

Apparently this was a charge for either a traffic violation or missed toll. However, I had not received any notice of violations from either the state of Illinois or from Hertz. Regardless, I use my personal IPAS device, anyway. My IPAS account showed no missed tolls and I had no violations with the Hertz rental car.

 The car had a "Plate Pass" device (IPAS in Illinois) mounted to the windshield via a metal box. Hertz neglected to explain that you have to pull it out of the box in order for the device to be active.

Perhaps my wife had gone through a toll gate somewhere thinking the charge would be added to our car rental bill ?

This is wrong, at least for the following basic reasons:

1) It turns out that Hertz provides "ATS" with your credit card information. Apparently, you "authorize" this action based on fine print in the rental contract you sign.

2) We received no notice specifying the nature of any violation.

3) ATS apparently adds a "service charge" of an unspecified amount on top of the charge for violation. You don't know the amount of the violation, nor the Svc Chrg amount.

The bottom line is that this practice takes advantage of unwitting rental drivers.

We are disputing the charge and warn all readers of this report to get full disclosure of such information before taking a rental car on the road.