7 On Your Side: Sanitation trashing woman with mistaken fines

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Imagine getting fined for polluting the environment with illegal flyers and business cards that you didn't post. Well, that's what happened to a Bronx woman who says a phone number mix-up put her on the hook for thousands.

In big cities, phone numbers get recycled all the time. But one number was getting a young woman in serious trouble, when the city kept tracking illegally posted cards back to her.

"This is crazy, I'm being accused and I'm innocent," Karen Matias said. "They say I was illegally posting these business cards all around the Bronx."

She gets angry every time she spots one of the cards advertising rooms for rent plastered on poles or phone booths. The 32-year-old is not in the real estate business, but she got slapped with hundreds of violations.

It turns out one of the phone numbers previously belonged to her mom for an old apartment they shared. But the number hasn't been her mom's for nearly five years.

The New York City Department of Sanitation can fine up to $200 for every card they find, and they found thousands with Karen's mom's old number on it and have gone after her for each and every one.

"I thought it was a scam," she said. "I'm like, this has to be a joke."

But it was no laughing matter. She was ordered to appear in court, but before she went, she tracked down the business using the number now.

She brought a picture of the business to court, and a sanitation officer told the judge they were going to shut the business down. Instead, they went after Karen three more times.

Each time, she proved by the phone company's own records that the information was inaccurate.

"The judge kept finding me innocent because of insufficient evidence," she said.

But then, last August, she got a packet of violations again, accusing her of missing a court date. She was ordered to pay $1,600.

"Because I was a no show," she said. "I was found guilty."

Eyewitness News contacted DSNY to see why the phone mix-up kept landing Karen in hot water. And within a work week, the violations and fines were dismissed for good.

"I was like so relieved," she said. "Thank God, and thank 7 On Your Side."

The sanitation department has notified their enforcement agents to take extra care not to mistakenly charge Karen for any new illegally-posted handbills, and the manager of the business responsible also promised to take all of them down.