Team-BHP - Who is your preferred FASTag provider?

Voted ICICI.
I was an early adopter (thanks to a Bhpian friend), and got the Fastag for my Dzire car in early 2015 and haven't had any issues with managing the tag (loading currency, managing/transferring the balance between both tags I have, disputes etc).

I was also able to procure a second ICICI Fastag easily for our Wagon R couple years ago and both accounts are linked and managed with the same client id making it seamless.

I've also not had any problems with the tags themselves, they've been working flawlessly at most tolls (except maybe the ones that perennially have trouble scanning tags).

The two that I use -

ICICI Bank FasTag - Nexon
Axis Bank FasTag - Alto K10

The one I voted for - PayTM payments bank. lol:

ICICI and Axis both make us use either another separate app or a separate portal to reload the tag! No way to properly link it with the account via the same banking app to recharge from same app. I don't like auto-debits either.

PayTM has a simpler linking with same wallet as the one used usually for transactions. The overall convenience is really good for PayTM. Notifications also seem to be good. For ICICI and Axis - I get tag debit SMS / email notifications as much as 2 hours later even with good mobile signal coverage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reinhard (Post 4787835)

For ICICI and Axis - I get tag debit SMS / email notifications as much as 2 hours later even with good mobile signal coverage.

Notifications with ICICI was within 15 minutes till a while. Off late these notifications are delayed but this was ever since Fastag was mandatory.

Also, instant notification is nearly impossible since the payment request by toll booth is requested to NCPI after you cross the booth and is processed in batches. At the booth your tag validation happens (active or blacklisted) and the barrier opens.

Hence, at times you may get a text after 2 minutes or after 10 minutes depending on when and how the payment request is sent to the payment commission.

I'm using HDFC on my Fiesta and I've sad stories to report.
Haven't voted on this thread really as HDFC is the only experience I have. Contemplating to switch to something else.

Got my tag in 2019 just before the announcement of making it compulsory came up. I had a GJ trip planned anyway and I thought it would be good to make use of the "fast lane".
Got my tag well in advance, loaded it with more money.
The D day came and I was excited to see how it works. Sadly, it started giving me troubles right from the first toll at Talegaon on the expressway.
The rest of the tolls were similar - They worked with the handgun - after many, many attempts. But that meant a lot of time spent at the booth and holding up the line behind me. Gave me limitless guilt.
I had to also pay in cash at 2-3 places.

I connected to 1033 helpline and the HDFC helpline as well - both confirmed my tag was active.

Upon completing the trip, I raised a complaint with HDFC and they replaced the tag.

Disclaimer: My Fiesta has a 3m CR70 front glass shield. I'm guessing it is due to this that my tag isn't read properly.

My mistake probably that when the new tag came, I just removed the existing one and pasted the new one in the same place. Maybe, I should have created a cutout in the CR70 film for the Fastag to be read properly.

My second trip was no different in Feb earlier this year. Had to pay cash at numerous places. Had another car with an HDFC tag traveling at both times and that one passed through seamlessly.
In my recent highway use a few weeks ago, it worked at none of the 2 tolls I crossed.

My Fastag login shows the correct status on the tags - one shows "closed" while the new one shows "active".
Now, I've logged a service request to "suspend" the closed tag as on a recent Lonavala drive I was told that my tag is showing "inactive". Again, 1033 and HDFC helpline maintain that my tag is active with sufficient funds.

Basically, it is a mess and the only way I could think of getting out of this is by:
1. Switching to another Fastag provider and
2. Making a cutout in the CR70 film for proper read.

Also, not sure if the factory fitted RFID tags interfere with the reader? These are not the Fastags, but the RFID info tags that come with the car. Any knowledge on that?

It was early 2019. I had an upcoming road-trip and one of the initial deadlines for FastTAG. The shortlistssts were PayTM & ICICI. PayTM deliveries were late & unreliable. I opted for ICICI since they had recharge via UPI at that time. The experience has been good so far. I never faced any problem so far.

Quote:

Originally Posted by adneeraj (Post 4944587)

Disclaimer: My Fiesta has a 3m CR70 front glass shield. I'm guessing it is due to this that my tag isn't read properly.

I too have CR70 on the windshield. I have pasted the FASTag from inside via cellophane tape, behind the rearview mirror. I had no issue reading so far from any of the toll booths (on NH48, 67, 748, 66, 44).

Hello people,

I am stuck in a situation. I have been defrauded of the cashback which I was supposed to receive as part of the Google Pay ICICI offer. Now when I ask GPay support, they say that I am ineligible for the cashback for reasons which they fail to list. And when asked for the reasons, they list vague ones like that I needed to access the offer link via Business tab of Google Pay, which was not the issue, then they said that I am ineligible because I made the payment externally via the Google Pay UPI ID ( ??? which makes no sense whatsoever ), when I actually did it via the ICICI micro app inside Google Pay.

The entire reason I purchased the fastag from GPay was because of a notification that they themselves showed me on the home page, on which I clicked and subsequently completed all the documents uploading work and paid the fee. And now I am seemingly robbed of the cashback because ????

The total was around 499.12 rupees of which 100 is supposed to be the cashback and another 100 is supposed to be the Amazon Gift Card. It is not the cashback itself that bugs me, that's not a really big amount, it's that I am ineligible for the cashback and I am yet to receive a reason from them as to why I am so. Sheer ignorance from their part is what gets my goat.

Now after repeated chats, they say that they've appointed a "specialist team" to look into my issue, but this is not the first time I'm hearing this. I had another issue with them, wherein a ticket that a friend sent me during the Go India event period, seemingly disappeared from the vault, despite me receiving a notification that he had "gifted me a ticket" and there was no sign of the ticket in his phone as well. My issue was delegated to a similar specialist team, and I was assured that I will receive a reply soon. I did not receive any reply for a week and only after contacting them after a week ( to ask why I did not receive any reply ) did they actually tell me that they just ( Yes, just when I opened up a chat box with an assistant, IMAGINE MY SURPRISE WOW ) concluded the investigation and they gave me the same generic reply that they could not find any signs of such a ticket in my vault.

And now this issue is sent to a similar "specialist team", and I was told I would get a reply soon, and as usual I have received no reply in my inbox from their "specialist team". What are my options here? Is there any way I can make them to give me the cashback that I deserve? Horrible service from GPay's part. I was slowly getting used to Amazon Pay UPI and now it looks like I'll make the jump faster than I expected.

Moderators, I apologize if this is not the correct section for the post, I kindly request you to move it to the appropriate section if needed.

Hello Everyone,
I am using Axis Fastag on my Endeavour (2019) and HDFC Fastag on my Fiesta (fastag bought in 2020).
I extensively use NH4 (Bangalore to Dharwad) on both my cars and notice that HDFC tag is read almost instanteaously while Axis tag takes about 2-5 seconds.
This is weird as technically the axis tag on the Endeavour due to the height of the SUV should be processed faster vs the tag on the slow slung sedan.

Therefore, I am convinced that HDFC tag is better and planning to replace the axis with that once my wallet runs out.
Furthermore, the experience of recharging and user experience is seamless on HDFC and miles ahead of Axis.

Anybody else noticed such cases within their cars on different tags? Any guesses on what could be the reason on some tags being processed faster than others at the toll gate?

Does anyone have any experience using the AckoDrive fastag? They seem to have no deposit or min balance requirements.

I do not understand why banks collect deposit on these tags. Imagine the kind of funds they're building based off these deposits and min balance requirements.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aniket6 (Post 5003233)

I believe this might have something to do with the banking servers too. If the acquirer/issuer bank servers are slow there could be some delay in checking the balance and processing the payments.

I wish there was a poll to track which fast tag service provider is the worst. As a customer of Axis fast tag, I will definitely vote for axis as the worst service provider. When I upgraded my car in 2019, Axis fast-tag was thrust down my throat by the dealer. I had trouble doing the KYC initially as the local Axis branch did not how to do it and expected me to have an account with them. Eventually they processed it and I had been using it fine till Feb 2020. The pandemic put a years break on any trip outside of Bangalore.

Come Feb 2021, I had to undertake an emergency drive to Chennai and just before I was about to start, I find I am unable to recharge my wallet. A quick call to their customer care and they apologize that its an issue with their IT backend and they can do nothing about it right away. So here I am stuck with a fully KYC complaint wallet that wont allow me recharge and a government which has made it mandatory for all use only fast-tag. While the intention behind fast-tag is laudable, I wonder what is the redressal for such reckless approach by service providers.

Their KYC process is (atleast was) very consumer unfriendly, their portal looks like a school kid learning to program has designed it and now they have IT admins who seem to not care about the impacts their reckless updates cause.

I have to face a very annoyed wife and hefty flight charges, all thanks to Axis fast-tag :Frustrati.

Recently did a bengaluru-dehradun,a 3000 kilometres road trip, and paid about Rs 3000 via my IDFC bank fast tag. On analysing the tolls paid after the trip, I could find a two debits at the same time and at different places.
Along the route, I was also checking for messages once the car crossed a particular toll. However, the messages would take up to 6 hours to come in certain tolls.
This made it extremely difficult to know how much money was spent at the toll immediately after crossing it.

Is there any service provider which gives instant messages or is there some other way to know how much money has been debited right after crossing the toll?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aniket6 (Post 5003233)

Your Endeavour will mostly have thicker glass with some heat rejection or other property which will make the transmission of RF waves from the antenna and tag in a much weaker manner which will take time for the antenna to read the tag and then process the info. The other reason would be that there will be some electronic device/sensor located close to the tag which will interfere with the transmission or slightly scramble the signal. Apart from that I am not sure if the tag antenna is physically different. But I have three fastags with three different antenna shapes and I don't see a difference in how they are read. They are all placed right below the mirror area on the windshield and my cars do not have any electronics on the glass except that I have a dashcam mounted on two cars right below the fastag.