ORLANDO, Fla. — Almost a year after SunPass went down for maintenance, causing a billing backlog, customers are still feeling the effects — and you could be getting bills meant for someone else, a Spectrum News WatchDog Investigation has found.

That's what happened to Barbara Pappas. She admittedly went through a toll on State Road 417 in July 2018 while taking family members to Orlando International Airport. Pappas says she was sent a bill for $1.90 in August and paid it.

But in January, she received another invoice, this time for $1, for the Interstate 95 express lane. She says the image captured was not her car.

Pappas refused to pay the new bill, telling Spectrum News that something didn't seem quite right.

"(My) first reaction is, it's only a dollar — poof — I'll just go ahead and pay it. But I just kind of got my back up and spent a lot of time on the phone getting in touch with a real person," she said.

After all that work Pappas says she still had no resolution, so she called Spectrum News.

We reached out to the Florida Department of Transportation. They responded with an email which reads, in part, "The Department reviews and processes approximately 200 million license plate images annually. Many of these images are reviewed more than once for verification and validation purposes. The historical accuracy of the Department’s image review process is 99.95 percentand higher."

That sounds like a great number, but doing the math, that's up to 100,000 license plates that could be misread, causing erroneous bills.

We addressed these potential errors with FDOT Communications Director Ann Howard over the phone, asking whether checks and balances are in place to ensure the right vehicles are being charged. 

"Absolutely, yes, that can happen," Howard said. "If and when somebody receives a bill that is not theirs, once they contact customer service, we will make sure to take care of that. Right now, we are dealing with higher volume, so it is possible we have seen an uptick in the number of these bills that have been sent out erroneously," she said.

FDOT says it's caught up on the backlog and have resumed normal Toll-By-Plate functionality, putting more people back on the oversight team.

Real people, which is what Pappas wants.

"When people are out of the picture, things happen, and they are hard to correct," said Pappas, who didn't have to pay the additional dollar.

If you should find issues with the account, FDOT says it is waiving fees and penalties through at least the end of March.

If there is an issue with your bill, call 1 (888) TOLL-FLA (1-888-865-5352). You can also go to the SunPass website.