License plate readers like those used on Bay Area bridges have come under a lot of scrutiny as creepy privacy invaders. But what happens when instead of accurately tracking a driver's movements, they screw up and mistake one plate for another, resulting in fines and collection fees for people who never broke the rules? Don't ask the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) that question — they're too busy making it harder for those innocent folks to appeal their tickets.

License plate scanner tech is notoriously problematic, known to miss actual toll evaders and to ding folks who never crossed into a toll area with fees over citations they didn't realize were legitimately sent. That's what happened to San Diego woman Heidi Allingham, who tells the Chron that though she hasn't crossed a Bay Area bridge in over ten years, she got an unpaid toll nastygram for a Golden Gate Bridge crossing.

The same was true for Jessica Musicar, who no longer owned the car a collections agency was arguing she owed $75 worth of tolls and fees on for a Richmond-San Rafael Bridge crossing she never made.

Though Musicar and Allingham got their tickets dismissed, it sure wasn't easy, requiring many many calls and emails. Usually, this is where we'd talk about how government officials apologize and say they'll try to serve the innocent public better with the limited funds and resources granted to them by your meager tax dollars. That's not the case here.

In fact, an MTC spokesperson says that the transit agency makes the appeal process intentionally difficult, because "if a citation was easier to overturn...the system would be flooded with calls from people who were legitimately billed," the Chron reports.

"The way we have to work, to function as a retail business, is for people to go through the system," MTC spokesperson Randy Rentschler told the Chron.

According to the MTC, they sent out 575,000 notices of Bay Area bridge toll violations last year. How many of those were appealed or overturned? Officials aren't saying. And, of course, it's even harder to figure out how many of the citations are incorrectly assessed, but, come on, if it was that easy for the Chron to find two folks who've suffered this glitch, there has to be more.

Meanwhile, we're left wondering how many people decide that this isn't a war worth waging, and just pay up. Musicar almost gave in to this impulse, saying that "At one point, I almost just paid the thing to get it over with."

Getting people to pay fines for offenses they never committed? That's a pretty sweet deal. And, yeah, that's certainly one way to "function as a retail business."

[Chron]