Toll road disaster - time for a new provider.

Yesterday's NZ Herald outlines how 1,000 email addresses have been leaked by the NZTA - the data is motorist's personal email addresses who have had their credit cards fail when paying for tolls.

Initially reading the article, one would blame the NZTA.  I blame their Swedish supplier.

This isn't the first blunder with the tolls; it's been plagued with issues from day one.

January 09 had the payment section of the tollroad.govt.nz site shut down while "internet security flaws" were quickly fixed up - that same month, the kiosks broke down on the weekend, with the call-centre shut at the same time. In March, $200k was refunded to 424 motorists who were overcharged 23 times each.  A week later, 2,000 motorists were overcharged by $45k.  At that same time, it was discovered that the system didn't support overseas credit cards.

Sound ridiculous? It sure is.

NZTA gently encourages motorists to use their online system, as if you use their kiosk you are stung with a $0.40 admin fee - use the phone, and it's even higher: $3.70.

This mistake by a staff member really is gross incompetence from their provider.  Why would you even suggest for them to send an email to everyone who is overdue? Why does the software not handle this internally? Any developer with any clue would advise you that using BCC is just asking for trouble.

NZTA: fire the Swedes and find a local company who actually knows what they're doing.


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