The Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority (FBCTRA) is adding a manual review step for license plates after one resident spent two years fighting erroneous toll violations caused by a single-character equipment error.

Latoya Fontenot, a Fort Bend County resident who holds a valid EZ TAG, told ABC13 the toll road's automated cameras repeatedly confused the letter "O" on her plate with the number "0." That one-character misread made the system treat her as an unpaid driver, generating violation notices she had to contest again and again.

"I had to call every time I received the notice," Fontenot told ABC13 reporter Chaz Miller. "I'd have to just go back-and-forth with the representatives (for two years)."

Fontenot said she called the agency multiple times a month for two years without a permanent fix. The calls never solved the problem. The dispute ended only after she told the FBCTRA she had contacted ABC13 for help. She said she received a resolution email the week of Sept. 3.

The FBCTRA confirmed the misread to ABC13 and told Fontenot in its email that it is now implementing a process to manually review plates that may be incorrectly interpreted during image review. The agency described the change as a direct result of Fontenot's outreach, signaling the fix is meant to catch similar errors for other drivers going forward. The FBCTRA also said it will streamline customer service practices so cases like Fontenot's can be resolved faster.

The FBCTRA operates the Fort Bend Parkway, the Grand Parkway within Fort Bend County and the Westpark Tollway. All three corridors carry Missouri City and Stafford commuters.

It is unclear how many other drivers may have received erroneous notices from the same type of misread. The agency's email referenced a systemic change, but no count of affected accounts has been disclosed.

Residents who believe they have received a toll violation in error can reach the FBCTRA Violation Payment Center at (855) 999-2024, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.