Crazy E-Z Pass Account Updating

Yet another baffling experience with the E-Z Pass website, which has the worst usability of any site I've ever visited. This time, I received a notice that the credit card on file was about to expire, and I needed to update the information. Here's what happened.

I signed in, found my old card listed - indeed it was about to expire. I clicked "New Card" and entered the new information.

As you may know, E-Z Pass draws money from your account at their convenience, whenever your balance reaches a certain point. Now, my purpose here was simply to give them a new card to use whenever that next replenishment point occurs, but on the form, there is no "Save" button, only a "Make Payment" button!


So, whether it's time for replenishment or not, the only way you can update your account is by making a payment now! Since the replenishment point was not due for a while, I decided to make a lower payment now. I clicked the "Edit" button next to the Payment Amount. Rather than letting me simply edit the amount, however, the system kicked me back to new entry screen, where I had to re-enter the credit card details as well as entering a new amount. But after clicking "Make Payment," I got this informative error message:


My card could not be validated! Bummer! No indication of what the problem might be, or what I might do to fix it! But recalling the notorious stupidity of the E-Z Pass site, I had a hunch. I went back to the data entry screen, re-entered the details a third time, but this time restored the amount to the $30 level that I know they want. Guess what - now it worked.


The so-called validation error was triggered by foolishly not supplying the number they wanted to hear. Here I thought that by offering the option to edit the amount, they would actually let me edit the amount! Silly me - this is not customer service, this is E-Z Pass!