“My niece got a bill for a toll charge, for a trip she never took. It was a small amount of money, but if they can’t even properly read the pictures they take, how many other people will be getting billed for thruway travel they never took?”
I had that happen 3 times here in Texas. It was a car from Nevada with the same plate number as mine. I think their M.O. was to not try to read the state off of the plate if someone in Texas had the same numbers/letter, but instead to simply send it to that Texas resident. I called twice, they cleared the tolls for me (and told me it was Nevada).
The 3rd time, I simply ignored it. And it went away. I figure what happened the third time was that they were getting ready to step up the collection iffort, but before they did that, they actually had a human look at it, and so I never heard back.
Thanks for sharing your experience with the system. I did sign up for the EZ-Pass despite only using the Thruway a handful of times during the year. They sent me a little gadget to put in my front window, and I had to put $25 in the account for them to draw from. I will be checking the account regularly to make sure I’m not charged for trips I never took.