Alix Kozin was getting on the M15-SBS bus in the East Village last week when she did what she had done 12 times before during the past seven days—she tapped her phone on an MTA OMNY reader. Kozin's trip was free, because she had reached her fare cap for the week. Her mother, who was visiting from Long Island to accompany Kozin to a LASIK appointment, also paid by tapping her phone. When they reached 28th Street, however, their bus journey came to an abrupt end. Members of the MTA's fare enforcement unit, known as the Evasion and Graffiti Lawlessness Eradication (EAGLE) team, as well as uniformed NYPD officers, boarded the bus, and demanded to see proof that Kozin and her mom had paid for the trip. ...

Kozin said the officers took out a machine that scanned her phone, but it didn't appear to be working. She explained that she had hit her fare cap, which appeared to agitate the EAGLE team and NYPD officers, she remembered. One of the EAGLE team members told Kozin they were familiar with the idea of a fare cap but that they didn't really know how to verify rides when people hit it, and so they had to pull them off the bus. 

"It was so embarrassing and disruptive," she told Hell Gate of being ordered to get off the bus, which drove off without them. Eventually, an EAGLE team member handed her a $100 ticket and told her to take it up with the MTA's Transit Adjudication Bureau, which handles tickets.