Beda Koorey, a retiree in Long Island, New York, stopped driving four years ago. She had serious sight and hearing issues, so she sold her car. A lifelong Star Trek fan, she paid for a plate customized to have the same lettering at the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701. Koorey had the plate for many years and was sad to see it go.

Suddenly Koorey began receiving expensive tickets from states she doesn’t live in, for various reasons. The violations had one thing in common: Star Trek license plates that read NCC-1701.

“Red light, speeding, parking, school zone,” Koorey told CBS. “I don’t have a car. I don’t drive. Those plates were turned in.”

Though, they weren’t real plates like the ones she had. Reporters found novelty plates people can buy from eBay, Amazon, or Etsy for around $15. The Star Trek plates are meant to be decorative, but drivers are putting them on their cars like real plates and going through toll zones with them.

The drivers are getting away with the tickets, but it costs Koorey her sanity.

“They are persistent and they keep sending me tickets,” she continued. “These came in yesterday from Chicago, they’re speeding tickets. They are $100 each.”

Koorey says the most frustrating part is how the plates are becoming more than a waste of paper. Crimes are being committed and are being tied to her.

“I got a phone call from Ohio, a police chief looking for plates because they were involved in a robbery,” said Koorey.

She’s close to $20,000 in debt

All the tickets from various states caused her to have a balance of just over $14,000, with $2,000 in penalties adding up to a balance of over $16,000. She’s called the DMV and the Department of Transportation, and neither offered a solid answer.

The DMV said drivers using novelty plates instead of real plates is illegal and is up to law enforcement to stop. As far as the data being used by the police and toll cameras, the state of New York is on the hook for providing the most up-to-date data.

She answers every court summons with an explanation and sends as many letters as she can to avoid her credit being harmed, but there’s still nearly $20,000 she’s responsible for.

“Yes, because I can’t afford it,” she said. “I’m on a fixed income.”