Market Force has a new policy regarding tolls and parking. Tolls: You fill it out in a separate report. You must show a receipt, (or toll statement) give the address you started from and your final destination. You have 24 hours (or next day) to submit your tolls/parking expenses. More on the site....

Thanks for the heads up. I guess I'll be downloading the city's parking app after all. I rarely require this, but from time to time I do use street parking and have successfully submitted fees that are less than a dollar. Usually I empty my wallet of change to pay for parking.

Toll & Parking Expense Reporting
LAST UPDATED: FEB 01, 2018 01:20PM EST
A new way for Shoppers to report any toll or parking expenses allows them to submit ONLY those expenses in a separate website section. All shop purchases will still be reported in the online report as usual.

The following data are required for each expense submitted for reimbursement:
Expense type (toll, parking) and amount
Date printed on the expense receipt (or explanation if not available)
Expense receipt image (or explanation if not available; however, without a receipt the expense will be denied)
The address you left from to go to the assignment and the address you returned to after doing the shop. (Both of these points will default to the Shoppers’ home address, but you will need to change them.)
You will have until the full day following the shop in which to submit these particular expenses and once you have submitted a toll or parking expense for a shop, you will not be able to go back in to that expense report and add any other expenses. So be sure if you have a toll and a parking expense, do not submit the expense report until you have uploaded both of those expenses.

Expenses must be submitted no more than the day following the shop date. (Example: The Shopper does a shop the morning of 12/13. Toll and parking expenses related to that shop must be reported by 11:59 PM EST on 12/14.)

The following issues will cause the expense to likely be rejected:
Shopper provides a duplicate image to one that already exists in our system.
Shopper does not upload an image for their receipt.
Shop date and receipt date do not match.
Shopper submits multiple expenses for the same day with same amount.
Shopper submits an expense, but the shop associated with the expense is later invalidated.

Marketforce Information Mobile App: Eyes On
Please Note: If you have shop expenses for tolls or parking, they can only be submitted via the Website and not via this mobile app.

Please read the attached article for full details. If you need further assistance please let us know.

Attachments
Toll_and_Parking_Expenses.pdf

I use a yoll tag transponder and dont have to stop; therefore, I do not get a receipt.

@thunderdeacon wrote:

I use a yoll tag transponder and dont have to stop; therefore, I do not get a receipt.

The transponder produces a record that you can look up on the website for the toll company. There will be a statement there.

Well SURPRISE SURPRISE!!!!! (as the late great Jim Neighbors (Gomer Pyle) would say) : I guess over the years when I hear a company has made a new software update-- it usually means a lot of bugs and gliches for me me ----- so when I try to enter my toll fees I get this (for my completed report that is now in Quality Control (QC) for review) "Assignment Expenses
You do not have any assignments available for submitting expenses at this time. Valid assignments for expenses must be reported within the last two days, be in a valid status, and must not have any other expenses already submitted for them."

Guess I will try today to find out what is going on..........Thank you Market Force

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/05/2018 10:29AM by catlassy.

As I suspected, the toll feature for my shop is now working but was not last night after I finished my report. I went to my online EZ PASS account and made a copy of the toll transaction record and attached it to my report. Now I cross my fingers. A lot of new busy body work for shopper with the new "improvement".

It can take a week for tolls to show up on my EZ pass account. This limits shops I will do for them.

One solution is to go through a manned booth and get a paper receipt, but some places have gone to no-manned tolls.

I did that today..went through a manned booth to get a receipt. It's a PITA when there's a lot of traffic and the EZPass lanes are open. Some at the entrances/exits don't have manned booths. I won't be doing that too often unless I'm on a route with a lot of tolls. It's not worth the extra time to get the paper receipt and then take photo and submit etc. All good things must come to an end. It was so easy before.

Agreed - to go through a manned booth I have to put my ez-pass in aluminum foil. I don't think they thought through the impact of this new policy.

I can go through a manned booth and ask for a receipt for my ipass transaction. Try that.

In NYC the grand central parkway doesn't have manned tolls for the triborough bridge or even toll booths. They've gone totally electronic. What does a shopper do then ?

7, can you screen shot your activity by going into your EZPass account?

I could screenshot the ezpass online stmt but sometimes it takes days for the tolls to show up. Then it misses the cutoff reporting date for MF.

7star,

That makes sense. I did not realize that. We'll keep thinking.

Don't knock yourself out. MF would need to figure this out.

It's giving me a reason to look at my statement. I keep forgetting the password

I wonder if this would offer a quicker receipt process?

What is PAY PER TRIP?
PAY PER TRIP is the newest E-ZPass toll payment plan. It links your E-ZPass account to your checking account and pays all your E-ZPass tolls once per day, direct from your bank account, on the days when tolls post to your E-ZPass account. A prepaid E-ZPass account balance is not required.

I suspect that it would not help, since they would only charge when the tolls post, which could be a couple days (more for out of state tolls)

@RobinMarie wrote:

I wonder if this would offer a quicker receipt process?

What is PAY PER TRIP?
PAY PER TRIP is the newest E-ZPass toll payment plan. It links your E-ZPass account to your checking account and pays all your E-ZPass tolls once per day, direct from your bank account, on the days when tolls post to your E-ZPass account. A prepaid E-ZPass account balance is not required.

Yep. No staffed tolls where I live. Florida also has minimally staffed tolls.

Pretty clearly, this was poorly designed. I imagine it was designed to discourage people from scamming the system for tolls that weren't really incurred, but it ends up punishing good contractors.

Wow. My EZ Pass shows up almost instantly on my website account..

Some of the time, it shows up on the same day. Most of the time, it is the next day. Occasionally, like this time, it doesn't show up until the third day. Are you in NY or a different E-ZPass state?

@catlassy wrote:

Wow. My EZ Pass shows up almost instantly on my website account..

What about in Texas and Oklahoma where it takes a picture of your license plate and then mails the bill to you at the end of the month. Have no way to access the toll information ahead of time.

It seems apparent that whoever made the decision about how to handle tolls has little or no relevant experience using, paying, or accounting for tolls. It also appears that the possibility exists that whoever made the decision simply does not care. The foregoing was deduced by logically analyzing some rather clear points:

1) Somebody does not know, or does not care, or does not either know or care about the fact that cashless and receipt free tolls are very common.

2) That somebody appears to be happy with the prospect of doing what they're gonna do regardless of the consequences to shoppers.

3) Putting bales of feathers on a camel's back will, in theory, eventually exceed the camel's willingness to carry said bales of feathers. Likewise, it is possible that shoppers could feel put out by this behavior.

4) The law is the law. I had a little conversation with someone who I've known for over 20 years. He could easily become Governor of the State I live in if he wanted. Government, in theory should be of, by, and for the people.

5) Interesting thing here, especially about IRS form 8919. Knowledge is power, right?

[www.irs.gov]

6) I tend to be silent, listen and learn., I do not bluff, nor waste my time unless the percentages are in my favor.

7) It would be exceedingly wise for whoever made such an unfortunate decision to consider the effect of causing harm, though arguably minor, to so many shoppers. I really would not like to consider yet another matter that makes me feel more and more like an abused employee now, would I?

8) 'nuff said.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/13/2018 05:41PM by ap7isback.

Question— how do other companies handle toll fees? I can’t recall seeing any of them offer to pay tolls, but tolls don’t exist where I live so it’s something I may have skimmed over. Do they automatically pay these fees? Or do shoppers just have to take that into account before accepting a shop that would require a toll?

@Megs7521 wrote:

Question— how do other companies handle toll fees? I can’t recall seeing any of them offer to pay tolls, but tolls don’t exist where I live so it’s something I may have skimmed over. Do they automatically pay these fees? Or do shoppers just have to take that into account before accepting a shop that would require a toll?

This is the only company I've seen that were automatically willing to pay parking and tolls. A couple others will pay but it's a negotiated thing and receipts are required. I always thought it was pretty nice. For years, MF reimbursed trusting the shopper without requiring receipts. I always thought it was a pretty small amount, but reading posts here, it sound like the tolls being paid have been significant amounts. This may be a tax issue for them, paying parking/toll reimbursements without receipts

Yes, MF is the only company I know of that covers tolls. For others, I just include it in the shopper fee. I was OK with providing proof of tolls to MF for reimbursement. Requiring this proof the next day when the shopper might not even have it is going to discourage many shoppers from doing shops requiring tolls OR cause the shoppers to request higher fees. I doubt it is a tax issue since the onus is on the IC to provide proof that any reimbursement was for actual expenses.

@roflwofl wrote:

@Megs7521 wrote:

Question— how do other companies handle toll fees? I can’t recall seeing any of them offer to pay tolls, but tolls don’t exist where I live so it’s something I may have skimmed over. Do they automatically pay these fees? Or do shoppers just have to take that into account before accepting a shop that would require a toll?

This is the only company I've seen that were automatically willing to pay parking and tolls. A couple others will pay but it's a negotiated thing and receipts are required. I always thought it was pretty nice. For years, MF reimbursed trusting the shopper without requiring receipts. I always thought it was a pretty small amount, but reading posts here, it sound like the tolls being paid have been significant amounts. This may be a tax issue for them, paying parking/toll reimbursements without receipts

I honestly think that if they are able to extend the submission period to a week, it would give people enough time to gather the data needed to submit cashless receipts or screenshots of their cashless tolls charged. It took 3 days for my EZPass transaction to show up on my online account. Probably takes only 2 days, but this was late in the night...

lost out on $3.