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'Doofer' Tag (Liber-t / Emovis ) - Advice

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Laughing Check you battery status online

For those of you with a French Emovis (Liber-t as was) autoroute tag, make sure you log in occasionally, to check the battery status of your tag. I did this recently and it told me that my current tag unit was 'Near Expiry' due to battery age. Nominally, the batteries last 5-7 years, but that's dependent on usage and storage. Mine is only about 5 years old and it's kept indoors when not abroad, so I wasn't expecting it to need replacing yet.

When you login to your account the status is shown on the 'My Account Summary' landing page, in the 'Battery Lifetime' column. To get a replacement, the process is to order a new tag and return the old one, the deposit for which is refunded into your account after it arrives.

Obviously, this won't be an issue if it's relatively new, but for those of you who've had one for a few years, it'd be inconvenient to discover it needed replacing when you hit your first toll booth.

Further Information for those who don't have one.

The established distributor in the UK is Emovis.

The tag account currently costs €8/year to keep operating and then €5 each calendar month you use a tag. Plus the actual toll charges you incur. You don't get any discount on the toll charge. Each tag costs €5 plus €20 deposit, which is refunded when you return the tag. You can have more than one tag per account. Unlike the Dartford Crossing tag, the Liber-t tags are transferable between vehicles of the same category (car, light goods or lorry). So you can lend them to anyone (whom you trust, obviously) and/or use them on a rental car. There's no minimum deposit required - all that happens is that the toll charges are accumulated and charged against your UK bank account. Charges take 6-8 weeks to come through. You can login and see the invoice details and the individual toll charges, and as indicated above, check the battery status of the tag.

They also provide a similar but separate tag for Spanish and Portuguese roads as well.

Emovis are currently including a free 'UK' sticker to new customers, and existing customers replacing an expired tag, 'while stocks last'. At the time of writing, Eurotunnel also has a discount tag offer with Emovis.

Addendum: Other Distributors

While the underlying tag technology (Bip&Go) is the same, in recent years the number of distributors has increased, so now a UK customer has a choice of the following
Emovis (Liber-t as was)
Bip&Go
Mango Mobilités
Ulys-Vinci
and various others. If you're starting from a clean slate, it would be worth comparing them to see which of the different charging structures suits you best. Also, organisations like
Eurotunnel
and the AA sometimes have special tag discount offers.


Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Wed 14-09-22 14:03; edited 35 times in total
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Good one! Checked and in the green!
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
I checked mine a day before our recent drive around France and found it was near expiry. Obviously then pooped myself if wouldn't work , but it was OK, but took me until day 5 as the booths were quiet to have the balls to try the 30kph lane!

It was fine, but on return I did the re-order and send back process, which was very straightforward! Mine was only 4 years old.
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Our tag is from Bip&Go and costs nothing unless we use it. From memory it costs €1.85 for any month that we use it but we haven’t been over since Jan 20 so it could be different now. Best part is Bip&Go have offices throughout the north of France so if we feel the battery might be getting low we just call in to an office and they test it for us and replace it there and then. We’re on our 3rd doofer at the moment after about 15 years. They only accept payment these days (used to be by credit card) by direct debit in euros which we thought might be a problem but all we had to do was open a Starling bank euro account and give them the BIC and IBAN that Starling provide. We already had a Starling current account for free debit card usage in France anyway and it took all of 30 secs to open the euro account online. Looking forward to using it in January
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
@LaForet, Currently the application fee for the Emovis tag is €10 and the monthly fee is capped at 2 months so with the €8 annual fee the maximum annual charge is €18. On occasions there have been offers through Eurotunnel where the application fee is waived.

Edit: All Emovis charges are subject to a 2% "Foreign Exchange Finance Charge" and VAT at 20% so the €18 becomes about €22 for the year.


Last edited by Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do. on Tue 19-10-21 15:59; edited 1 time in total
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It looks like the French Liber-t tag distributor Bip&Go now supports UK customers directly, so pricing it up, it looks like there's an initial charge of €14 for the tag plus €10 shipping then €1.70 in any month of use. Plus the individual toll charges. It also mentions a €10 'activation fee', although this isn't on the initial ordering screens. If that is incurred after you've received it, then that takes the cost for a new customer to €34 per tag. But in contrast to the Emovis route, there's no €8 annual charge and no €20 refundable deposit. The two companies have different pricing regimes that will probably suit different usage patterns, so take your pick.


Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Wed 20-10-21 13:21; edited 3 times in total
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@LaForet, the cheapest way to get one is to call into an office on the way past. Our favourite is just off junction 22 on the A26 near Reims or there is another near St Omer on the A26 but that is northbound only.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
LaForet, thank you so much. Just checked. Nearly expired! Got it 2017, but do use it a lot. Have sent off for replacement. Could have been real pain for our December trip.
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@LaForet, Thanks for that, mine was 'near expiry'!
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Top tip. Mine is relatively new, after sending back a failed unit in 2019.
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thanks for this. a good prompt as mine is showing near expirey - so will need a change before we head off this winter.
wow, according to their records next year will be my 10th with a tag...
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Thanks for the prompt - we're green but probs won't be using it til SFab so can someone remind me to check then again please Eh oh!
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So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Phew. Thanks. Mine was about to die.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
For those that are panicking, I really wouldn't worry about it too much as it's only an estimated battery life. I'm fairly sure they mark it as expired at 5 years old but that's very cautionary. It states somewhere that the battery is expected to last from 5-7 years but my last tag was still working at 10 years old. I only replaced it to get one of the new smaller ones.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
@rdsweb, When they swapped to direct debit, I gave them my normal NatWest a/c BIC & IBAN numbers and they set up the d/d on that. They do appear now to have a 10 euro annual charge which was debited recently, although I don’t know if that was because the tag was not used last year.
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@gsb, not sure if we’ve both got the same supplier. When I originally was asked by Bip&Go to change to direct debit I tried to give them the BIC & IBAN from my UK account too but they responded that the direct debit had to be in euros and it couldn’t be set up from a sterling account. Hence why I opened the Starling Euro account. I have not been charged €10 by Bip&Go at any point either.

Be interested to see whether your direct debit actually works when you start getting charges. Come to think of it Bip&Go actually suspended the doofer pending being able to set up my direct debit and then sent me confirmation that the d/d had been done and that the doofer would work again.

Might be worth checking with them that all is well. I wouldn’t fancy finding out when the barrier won’t go up
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I originally just got a French Doofer from the APRR office at one of the service stations.
I'm pretty sure it was just 10€ to start and didn't cost anything when not being used.

Then, on the back of advice from this forum, I 'upgraded' to one that operates across Spain, Portugal and Italy too.
It was called topEurop but it's Mango Mobilités now - it's run by APRR themselves so no middle men or affiliate commissions to pay.
It cost 20€ initially.
Then it costs:
- 1€70 any month I use it in France
- 2€40 in Spain/Portugal
- 2€40 in Italy
But costs nothing if I don't use it.

At one point I was invited to promote Emovis for commission on snowHeads. Soon after, it was being pimped all over the place by the likes of Eurotunnel and SCGB as a 'benefit of membership' but it just looked like a rather expensive alternative to what I already had so didn't really see why anyone would want to pay the extra.

Was I missing something about it?
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
@admin, +1,
We have the TopEuro (MM), and it's great.
We travel in / through Northern Italy quite a lot, and the queues around Milan and Trieste are up to 1 hour at peak times, but with the APRP doofer you sail through. Definitely worth the 2.4 €, not to mention how useful it is locally round Annecy, Lyon and Grenoble etc ..
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@admin wrote:

Was I missing something about it?

I don't think so, all the motorway companies run their own schemes all slightly different. When we first had ours SANEF (now called Emovis) was the easiest one to set up for us. English website, bill in £'s, defined currency conversion (mid market on the billing day + 2% conversion charge) and Direct Debit on an English bank account. It was just the easiest at the time.

If I were looking now I would give serious consideration to the Ulys Premium tag by Vinci Autoroutes at 3€50 a month which gives a level of breakdown assistance and no activation fee to start up. Added benefit for the Vinci tag is the ability to use it to pay for parking in Vinci owned carparks.

There are only minor differences between the companies on pricing.
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@admin, looks a good deal. What kind of bank account do you run that Mango doofer from? Just tried to apply for one but they didn’t like my Nationwide account.
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Inboard wrote:
@admin, looks a good deal. What kind of bank account do you run that Mango doofer from? Just tried to apply for one but they didn’t like my Nationwide account.
It just comes out of a standard UK Metrobank account (Which gives wholesale forex rates)
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BipAndGo also covers Italy, Spain and Portugal if you wish.

Found the service really good, following an initial niggle as our Irish number plate has one digit more than they’re used to.

As others have said, the tag can be used on any other car, which we did recently with a hire car. Again no problems, as long as you place the tag in the normal position.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
I don't think you missed anything other than the fact the TopEurope tag also pays the parking charges at Turin airport. I thought I'd done something wrong last time I dropped someone off, but no it was the badge wot done it.
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@admin, ta for that. On a second attempt it worked fine with revolut. Toll tag should be with me in a few weeks, so our trips to Chamonix (and later, VT for the eosb) will be nice and smooth Very Happy
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For all you first time users out there - the first toll you come across near Calais has a built in delay before the tag is recognised, the delay is just long enough to make you think oh no its not working what do I do now just as you begin to panic the barrier lifts! As if the French would build that delay in deliberately to wind up les anglais, but the barrier at Calais is the only one with that length of delay Laughing Very Happy
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>As if the French would build that delay in deliberately to wind up les anglais, but the barrier at Calais is the only one with that length of delay.

I don't use a tag and could get out of the car, walk slowly round to machine stretching back, get/pay ticket, walk slowly back stretching back.
And might just think "don't follow a UK car into the toll booth"!!
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
I am using Bip&Go with a Revolut Account and this works very very well. Charges 1.7€ the month I use it.
By the way, I have a (like others) a 4€ discount for any new subscriber (the subscriber will have also the same discount).... be free to MP me if needed....
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
colinstone wrote:
”don't follow a UK car into the toll booth"!!


It’s great fun looking in the rear view mirror when you go through the 30 kph lane with a uk reg vehicle. The pandemonium it causes with Frenchmen changing lanes is hysterical. Toofy Grin
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
I have an antenna on the van roof that takes it slightly above the 2m mark*.
I have had people point and shout warnings as I've entered car-parks so I can only imagine the reactions behind as I play chicken, heading in at 29.5kph(approx) to the 30kph lanes with the 2m limit.

*The antenna is mounted on a spring Smile
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
@admin, >I have an antenna on the van roof that takes it slightly above the 2m mark*.
I have had people point and shout warnings as I've entered car-parks so I can only imagine the reactions behind as I play chicken...

Completely OT. I have a similar reaction on boat. The ensign staff is considerably higher than the wheelhouse roof and catches bridges, with much gesticulating from the canal bank. Until it bends under the bridge. It is made from brown PVC waste pipe.
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Those stories remind me of a UK van I saw driving along with a length of Peage plastic chain dangling off its aerial Laughing (Dont think it was the admin dub)
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@rdsweb, My tag is Bip & Go with Sanef, originally was called Liber-T and if my memory serves I paid a 20 euro deposit at the start. I’ve just found the invoice for the 10 euros and it was for non usage in the last year. My 1st tag lasted about 11 years.

I’ve also got a Bip & Drive with Emovis UK for Spain and Portugal. Think I’ll have to investigate a joint tag for all 3 and maybe plus Italy.
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
@boredsurfin, Alternatively the subsequent toll booths are faster as your details are now in computer memory and can be retrieved more quickly, and when you stop passing through toll booths their systems put your records on storage that is slower to access.....
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@Matt1959, Dont spoil a good story with logic Laughing Toofy Grin
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
@boredsurfin, Always a relief when that first barrier lifts!
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Quote:

Always a relief when that first barrier lifts!
Very Happy Very Happy
But an absolute pain when the third one doesn't. Quite stressful waiting for one of the attendants to come, grab your tag, take it into the booth, scan the bar code, watch the barrier go up, wait while cars behind start blowing their horns until the attendant comes back and gives you your tag back. Then stress at the next one but just sail through and the same for the rest of the journey and the journey home.
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
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gsb wrote:
@rdsweb, My tag is Bip & Go with Sanef, originally was called Liber-T and if my memory serves I paid a 20 euro deposit at the start. I’ve just found the invoice for the 10 euros and it was for non usage in the last year.


Yes I’m with the same one as you for at least the last 15 years. Last time we used ours was September 2020 so will probably get billed at the end of October. This is the first time since inception that we’ve not used it at least once in a 12 month period so I had no idea of that fee. If we get charged I think I’ll query it and blame it on Covid and see what they say. We had a similar situation with Eurotunnel Frequent Traveller account. Since 2019 we’ve had the expiry date extended 3 times so that it now expires 30/06/2022 when it should have been November 2020. They have really recognised that it was not our fault that we didn’t use all the crossings in the normal (1year) time period
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
Just following up my earlier posts - following recommendations from Admin and Wind of Change and others, I ordered a Mango Mobilities doofer last Thursday (21 Oct) and it arrived in Edinburgh this morning (Wed 27 Oct). Nice quick service; payment via my revolut account has been straightforward too. Fingers doubly crossed - that (1) we can actually use it as planned in December 2021, and (2) the next 7 weeks before we go, pass quickly (not that I’m impatient for fun in big snowy mountains snowHead )
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@Inboard, Did you give up with Nationwide and have to set up and use Revolut? I'm a bit of a dinosaur so haven't got Revolut; is this, or something other than Nationwide, required to get the Mango tag?
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@johnnyboy, yep, it wouldn’t play with nationwide but is happy with Revolut. I guess there may be other accounts it’s happy with but since I already had a Revolut that’s fine for me… you’ll find various folk posting various experiences with rev on SH; mine has been easy (though I’ve not used it for anything complex)
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