For quite a few years, I’d used a Liber-t electronic tag for the autoroute tollbooths in France – the Péage toll booths that you have to pass through if you use the French motorway system.

I got hold of the tag from Sanef and they later transferred that business to emovis tag.  It was far better than using the manual system – especially on a motorbike – of riding or driving up to a booth, taking a ticket and at the other end up stopping, getting your debit card out to pay, inserting your soggy paper ticket, keying in your PIN, then putting gloves back on, etc.

Instead, I could just drive up to a booth, the barrier would lift and the toll would be automatically added to my account.  In a car – more expensive than a motorcycle – it was even better: simply drive towards a booth at up to 30km/h and the barrier would rise for you.

The only problems with emovis were two-fold:

1. the Euro tolls would have to be converted to pounds sterling and they add a 2% surcharge; and
2. there was an annual fee.

So when I came across the Ulys tag from Vinci Autoroutes, I thought I was in:

1. no annual fee;
2. a €2 per month fee when you use the tag;
3. I could set up the same tag for use in Spain and Portugal; and
4. I could set up a direct debit to my HSBC Global Money Account and pay in Euros with no surcharge.

Hurrah!

So I cancelled with emovis and set up an account with Ulys. And it worked brilliantly when we used it a few times this summer. Well …

The trouble was that the direct debit was always refused which was a pain in the arse.  On my latest invoice, Ulys started charging a €14.30 admin fee for their inability to get the direct debit to work properly, and their website account page is always in French.  That now makes them more of a pain in the arse, so I’ve today cancelled the Ulys tag and ordered a new emovis one instead.