"Toll Fees of Hundreds of Millions from Lost Hi-Pass Card"...Will It Become an Unsolved Case?

Used Car Sold with Card Left Inserted for 5 Years
Small Amount Withdrawn, Payment Noticed Late

An incident occurred in which toll fees amounting to several million won were paid using a lost Hi-Pass card, prompting the police to launch an investigation. However, they are facing difficulties in identifying the culprit due to the expiration of the CCTV footage retention period held by the Korea Expressway Corporation.

In November of last year, a driver in his 60s, Mr. A, belatedly discovered that a total of 4.68 million won in toll fees had been paid using his Hi-Pass card. In 2019, he had sold the vehicle he used to drive to a used car dealer while leaving the Hi-Pass card inserted, and small amounts of money had been withdrawn over time without his notice. He immediately suspended the Hi-Pass card and filed a complaint with the police.

The toll booth. The photo is not related to the specific content of the article. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

Classified as an Unsolved Case Due to Failure to Obtain Footage Through Expressway Corporation

The police, who started the investigation, conducted a search and seizure of the Expressway Corporation after 13 days to secure CCTV footage of the vehicle that used the card. However, the footage had already been deleted due to the expiration of the retention period. This is because the record retention period for license plate capturing devices at toll booths is only about one week. A representative of the Expressway Corporation told Yonhap News Agency, "The CCTV cameras covering the toll booths are installed not for security purposes but to identify vehicles with unpaid tolls, so the storage capacity is limited, and new footage automatically overwrites the existing footage," adding, "There are separate devices that capture license plates of vehicles passing through toll booths, but those records are only kept for one week."

Ultimately, the police classified the case as unsolved without identifying a suspect. A representative from the Cheongju Heungdeok Police Station said, "We thought we would catch the culprit quickly, but we were taken aback by the unexpectedly short data retention period of the Expressway Corporation," and added, "We will resume the investigation if relevant evidence emerges."

Meanwhile, using someone else’s Hi-Pass card after finding it can lead to charges of embezzlement of lost property. In 2020, a man who found another person’s Hi-Pass card on the street and used it by inserting it into his own vehicle’s terminal to pay highway tolls amounting to 82,500 won was sentenced to one year and six months in prison with a two-year probation for embezzlement of lost property and computer-related fraud.

In particular, if a prepaid Hi-Pass card, which is not postpaid but charged in advance, is lost, the finder can use it without limitation, so it is essential to report the loss and apply for a refund of the remaining balance as soon as possible. Loss reports can be made by calling the Korea Expressway Corporation’s 24-hour call center, visiting the Korea Expressway Corporation’s sales offices or rest area offices, or through online reporting on the SM Hi-Plus website.