Phantom license plates leave drivers haunted by tolls, tickets
Experts say combination of toll avoidance behaviors and use of old DMV data can result in erroneous bills
(InvestigateTV) — Millions of vehicles travel New York City’s busy streets each day, and as they do, traffic cameras capture their license plates to bill for tolls or tickets. But despite being behind the wheel, some of those drivers never pay those fees or fines.
Instead, they become automotive apparitions — escaping the bills by hiding behind license plates with dubious registration numbers.
Sometimes, people who don’t live anywhere near New York City end up haunted.
Calvin Lawrence, a retired veteran on disability, lives more than 750 miles away in Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife and two children. He homeschools his kids and said he hasn’t even visited New York City in years.
Yet, in May 2024, a notice from New York transit authorities arrived in his mail: a toll bill for $22.38.
The license plate on the bill matched one Lawrence once had, with the beginning letters ‘CJB.’
The problem — documents from the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles show Lawrence surrendered that plate 16 years ago, in 2009.
He said he promptly called the toll authority in New York to explain the situation.
“‘I live in South Carolina. So I don’t know how this tag, you know, how it could be me,’” he said, recalling the initial conversation. “[They] took that information, said, ‘Oh, we’ll handle it.’”
But that was only the beginning.
Despite those assurances, more bills followed, along with traffic tickets and notices threatening to send Lawrence to collections or garnish his income.
InvestigateTV found people from coast to coast have opened their mailboxes to find similar specters of financial responsibility linked to their license plates, with bills coming from toll and ticket agencies across the country.
The entities that send those bills have said these ‘ghost plates’ result in tens or even hundreds of millions in lost revenue — money that would normally help fund infrastructure costs.
While some cities and states have attempted to crack down on the sale and use of fraudulent plates by individual drivers, some experts say the way toll and ticketing agencies gather and use license plate data to collect their fees may be an even bigger issue.
‘You know exactly what you’re doing’
Soon after Calvin Lawrence first spoke with the New York toll authority, another bill arrived, this time for four tunnel tolls. Then came the bus lane tickets.
Violation videos sent to Lawrence show the same vehicle — an SUV using Lawrence’s old plate number — illegally driving and making stops in city bus lanes, each time generating a $50 ticket that was sent to the Lawrences.
Even after Calvin’s wife, Nicole, submitted the couple’s South Carolina documents to the agencies in New York to prove they weren’t the culprits, they say the bills continued to arrive. These included bills for 73 congestion tolls, which are charged each time a vehicle enters Manhattan’s Central Business District during high-volume hours.
In August, they received a bill from New York City’s Department of Finance that said they owed a total of $3,350.07 in parking tickets and other fees.
“We call New York, again, talk about the paper we sent,” Nicole Lawrence said. “They said, ‘You have to go back to South Carolina. This is a South Carolina issue.’”
The couple is just one of the numerous examples InvestigateTV found across the country of people who say they’ve received spurious toll bills or tickets.
In reviewing complaints filed with the Better Business Bureau against major toll agencies, InvestigateTV found more than 160 instances across 24 states where the complainant reported getting a bill linked to a vehicle that wasn’t theirs.
Beyond the BBB, vehicle owners being haunted by ghost plates have also taken to social media and local news outlets to air their frustrations.
Like the Lawrences, many of these instances were tied to a license plate that’s no longer active.
“I don’t know whose car they’re on, I don’t know why they’re there, I don’t know how they got there. But I just know that somebody’s costing me money with those tags,” Joseph Jackson said in an interview with InvestigateTV affiliate WWBT in Richmond, Virginia.
Jackson said his expired personalized plates were stolen during a move, and a month later, he started accruing toll bills that eventually totaled $317.25.
But active registrations where vehicle owners still have their tags safely in their possession can be just as susceptible.
In Connecticut, Mary Smith discovered someone was using her current license plate number in New Jersey, even though the actual, valid plate was still on the 1966 Ford Mustang she and her husband owned. Smith told InvestigateTV affiliate WFSB the couple hasn’t been to New Jersey in at least five years, and that while the photos provided by the toll authority aren’t high quality, the vehicle is nothing like the classic car in their garage.
“It’s like fraud”, Smith said, “and we didn’t do it!”
Financial incentive
In New York City, the problem with ghost plates is so bad, the city council’s oversight and investigations division launched a formal investigation. In a report submitted to the council earlier this year called “Plate and Switch,” investigators called what they found “alarming” — saying “nearly one in five out-of-state-plated vehicles” in their survey had plates “not registered to the vehicle.”
Sam Schwartz is a former New York City traffic commissioner and consultant who has dealt with the problem and said ‘ghost plates’ is truly an appropriate moniker.
“A ghost is something that is just an illusion. May or may not be there,” Schwartz said. “And these cars are illusions because the plates don’t go back to any particular car.”
Schwartz said cars with untraceable or misrepresented license plates effectively disappear and said they likely do so because the drivers “have a financial incentive” in avoiding the cost of bridge and tunnel tolls, congestion fees and bus lane or parking tickets.
Schwartz’s opinion is supported by the findings of the city’s investigation, which found that vehicles with mismatched plates owed an average of $667 in outstanding fines — more than double that of legitimate plates.
Nicole Lawrence said she certainly views the driver’s actions in their case as “intentional.”
“It makes me angry because it seems like you know exactly what you’re doing”, she said. “You know exactly what you’re doing. You know this tag does not belong to you. You know, you’re racking up hundreds of dollars of tickets for someone else to pay.”
‘I’ve seen it all’
As for how those looking to become a ghost are doing so, former NYPD automotive crimes investigator Tommy Burke said people trying to get out of paying tolls and fees can be extremely creative.
“I’ve seen it all,” he said.
During his interview and on a tour of New York City neighborhoods, Burke showed InvestigateTV both pictures and real-world examples of ghost plates he’s encountered over the years: plates made out of plastic, plates with illegal covers — even a license plate where letters were obscured with what resembled chewing gum.
“[I’ve] seen them put, glue a leaf onto the back of a license plate, so it covers some of the letters and numbers,” he said.
While some seem to prefer to keep their real plate but make augmentations, Burke said, others simply swap theirs for valid tags stolen off another car, or attempt to pass off homemade tags or counterfeit plates purchased online.
“You think of an idea that you can scam somehow, that someone’s not seeing your license plates, you don’t have to pay a toll or fine. And they’re doing it,” Burke said.
InvestigateTV identified multiple websites where bona fide, state-issued license plates are available for purchase — including some with registration stickers sporting dates that, as of publication, have not elapsed or were expired only within the last month.
These websites or listings on online marketplaces typically note that the plates available for purchase are collectibles and for display only — the sale and purchase of which is legal in most states. But research like that of the NYC oversight division has shown that would-be ghosts are indeed sourcing from online venues in order to avoid tolls and other traffic control systems that utilize cameras while appearing less suspicious to the naked eye.
“Replica plates, expired government-issued plates, and out-of-state registration services were openly marketed online,” the report stated. “Online marketplaces hosted vendors offering products and services that facilitate widespread evasion of registration laws.”
Old data
On one of these websites, InvestigateTV was able to source a South Carolina plate that expired in 2009 — one similar to the one Calvin Lawrence turned in a decade ago but has seemingly returned from the grave.
While the Palmetto State does not require most physical plates be returned when a registration is surrendered, the Lawrence’s plate was handed over in person, making it unclear how an SUV in the Big Apple began using the number.
But given the vehicle registration tying that number to the Charleston family has been canceled for 16 years, it’s also unclear why the electronic tolling system connected the tag to anyone at all.
InvestigateTV found the answer may lie with the databases linked to the traffic cameras toll agencies and their contractors use to identify license plate owners in order to send out bills.
DMVs routinely distribute data on vehicle registrations and drivers to outside entities, often in exchange for a lofty fee, with InvestigateTV finding states collected at least $282 million through the practice in 2024.
Some of the largest customers of that information are data brokers — companies that collect, aggregate and then re-package personal data for sale to a third party.
Toll companies or their billing contractors can then purchase that data as a larger package, rather than going to individual state DMVs.
Ian Grossman, CEO of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, said he suspects this kind of data exchange may be at the heart of the problem.
“The primary reason why they would still be getting a bill based on a plate that they surrendered years ago would likely mean that the toll facility or the toll facility’s contractor is using old data that they’ve acquired, either from the DMV directly or through another third party who can purchase those records from a DMV,” Grossman said.
He explained that brokers or the agencies that purchase aggregated DMV data may not always purge outdated information — meaning that a toll agency or its contractor may be utilizing a database where the Lawrences’ old license plate information remains, even though the plate was surrendered back in 2009. This could make the Lawrences still appear to be responsible for any tickets or fines incurred by that plate number, where fresh data from the SCDMV likely would not.
Earlier this year, AAMVA issued an updated best practices document regarding automated license plate readers. While its focus is on the DMV and law enforcement side, the guidance notes that accurate data is crucial to the “effective ‘ecosystem’” needed for accurate use of this technology.
“We’ve tried to work with the toll industry, the toll facilities, to say, ‘If you’re going to be acquiring that data, you need to be responsible to do a regular refresh so you’re not still sending a bill to somebody who is no longer attached with that license plate,’” Grossman said.
It’s unclear exactly where in this “ecosystem” things went off track with the Lawrence’s old plate information, but Calvin Lawrence said it’s clear to him the ball was dropped somewhere.
“Someone’s not doing their job. That’s all it boils down to,” he said. “They’re not doing their job because no tags should be attached to anyone, anywhere, when it’s not theirs.”
Resolution
The Lawrences said they submitted evidence to the New York toll and ticket agencies that shows they surrendered the involved license plate and were not driving the vehicle, racking up the charges. However, they’ve continued to receive notices about outstanding fines and fees, including one dated Nov. 5 from the MTA for $1,374.27 that stated it was a “final notice” and indicated impending legal action.
InvestigateTV reached out to the three agencies who sent bills to the Lawrences to inquire about the hefty balances that have accrued in the 18 months since that first toll bill arrived.
A spokesperson for the MTA, which acknowledged InvestigateTV’s inquiries on Nov. 3, reported on Nov. 6 that a review of the claim “revealed the plate in question was used fraudulently and all tolls and fees billed to that plate have been dismissed.”
In an email, the spokesperson said the plate has been entered into the authority’s toll enforcement system.
“If it is spotted by law enforcement personnel, they will take appropriate enforcement action,” he said, adding in an email the following day that the Lawrences will no longer receive bills related to the license plate.
According to a spokesperson for the NYC finance department, five of the bus lane tickets linked to the plate were dismissed as a result of the documents the Lawrences provided and said the department would request that the final ticket and the parking tickets associated with the plate would be dismissed.
The spokesperson also said the department is willing to help others in similar situations: “We encourage anyone experiencing parking or camera violation issues to contact OPSA at ParkingAdvocate@finance.nyc.gov.”
Associate Producer Jacob Spudich contributed to this report.
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