Ticket from a town I've never been in

[carambola]

Gentlemen(and the occasional Lady),
I never ask for help, usually I try to be the guy giving advice and instructions to someone who needs it.
This is different.
Today I received a notice stating I will have a warrant out for my arrest, my license suspended and will be pursued civilly if I don't pay a parking ticket.
For a town i have never been to in my life.
I have free time at work-for the first time in my life-and i just quit smoking. So my Irish is up.
Since my first reaction to receiving this notice was that it was a scam, I plan on going full nuclear.
First call is to the court to get an original of the ticket. Second is to the PD to request every a copy of every ticket the officer has ever written. Third is to the Town Attorney out of consideration. The fourth is to the State to warn of a possible scam and the Fifth is to the Feds(through the post office) to request video footage.

Monday should be fun.

Am I missing anything?

[Steve Carlton]

A life.

[carambola]

I'm a Middle to Late aged man with young kids and no soccer this weekend.

A summons to court out of the blue kinda is like a low blow.

I know i have no life, but i keep moving forward.

[Superman]

You list a number of options. I recommend implementing them one or two at a time rather than all at once. Consulting with an attorney is not a bad idea, too.

I am not familiar with arrest warrants being issued for parking infractions. Perhaps a call to the jurisdiction supposedly alleging a parking infraction.

[carambola]

Those aren't options, that is my plan of attack.

All of those calls should be completed by 10:00 Monday.

Am I forgetting something?

[Eric Coffey]

Originally Posted by carambola

Gentlemen(and the occasional Lady),
I never ask for help, usually I try to be the guy giving advice and instructions to someone who needs it.
This is different.
Today I received a notice stating I will have a warrant out for my arrest, my license suspended and will be pursued civilly if I don't pay a parking ticket.
For a town i have never been to in my life.

Sounds like a scam.

Just for shiggles though:

What type of "notice" was it (email, certified mail, process server, etc.)?
Where did it direct you to go and what info was provided (what was the court address, website, phone number, etc.)?
Was a copy of your citation included?
If so, did it list the make/model/plate/VIN of your vehicle and location/time of the infraction?

[carambola]

This is what was inside an Official Legal Notice

[p911dad]

Do you live in the same state as town issuing the ticket? I once got a red light ticket from NYC, it turns out NY issues some of the same tag numbers to livery (cabs), I got it straight at the license bureau. In your case maybe the person writing the ticket transposed a number or letter, and since you didn't ever physically have the ticket to respond to, you now have a problem. It should be easy to clear up. There should be a description of the offending vehicle on the ticket. If it is the same state the license bureau would trace the transposed, wrong license tag to you. Bingo. Of course, you are dealing with the license bureau, so YMMV.

[Evans, Marv]

We received a notice of a citation violation for not paying a toll fee in S.F. We hadn't been there for years. A picture of the rear license plate was attached. I contacted the jurisdiction saying we hadn't been there for more than a decade, and the car in the picture didn't seem to be ours, plus the license photo was a bit bleary so the number, which wasn't ours was suspect. I got a notice from them it wasn't our car. You might contact them & discuss it. It pisses me off too when they threaten arrest, license suspension, court action, etc., etc. I can understand why you'd want to go ballistic.

[carambola]

Same state, I'm supposed to drive from Cape May to Guttenberg to illegally park my car when I'm working in Camden.

I already hate my commute, if you want to add this ****e on, i'm going to fully burn everything associated.

I really think this is some sort of scam where you take people living at least two-three hours away and hope they pay the fine.

[Eric Coffey]

Originally Posted by carambola

This is what was inside an Official Legal Notice

[Noah930]

Could be an honest mistake. Maybe some sort of typo/transposed digits. I received a parking ticket for am infraction in Boston. I was living on Cape Cod at the time, and knew I hadn't been in Boston on that date. (Plus I parked in a parking garage whenever I went to Boston for work, so I knew it would be impossible for me to park illegally on a public street.) So I wrote a letter explaining the above and that was that.

[KFC911]

Ya know what I'd do....ignore it . Yep...

Did that when the bogus red light cameras were up here years ago.

I ain't payin', nor playin'....go pound sand

Last I heard from them....

[Sooner or later]

Be calm when you call.

[LWJ]

Be curious and pleasant when you call. It opens doors.

[Zeke]

Hold on. Civil action? Nope. Send a copy of your so called notification to the appropriate court, follow up and see what's going on. Do not use any address or phone on your 'notification'. Find the name of the court online and communicate with them thru the info you find. Call them once just to be sure and hope that there is a menu tree you can follow.

Only a scammer would answer the phone unless it's a 3 person court in a dinky town.

[A930Rocket]

We got a ticket for not paying at a toll booth in the NE. Had a picture of the back of our car.

Bu we paid the toll.

For all I know, it’s a scam by a toll worker, NY or NJ to get folks from out of town to pay because they probably travel to fight it.

[mepstein]

My wife got a ticket similar to yours from a town 8 hours away that she hadn't been to. She called, explained where she works and lives and they made the ticket go away. Mistakes happen all the time. We've had the missed toll on ez pass as well. It just took a note to explain the issue and the toll was removed. It's a pain but I don't think it's usually malicious, just common mistakes.

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by Eric Coffey

Sounds like a scam.

Just for shiggles though:

What type of "notice" was it (email, certified mail, process server, etc.)?
Where did it direct you to go and what info was provided (what was the court address, website, phone number, etc.)?
Was a copy of your citation included?
If so, did it list the make/model/plate/VIN of your vehicle and location/time of the infraction?

All good questions yet to be answered...

[svandamme]

How can a Parking ticket unpayed

Escalate to

warrant out for arrest
license suspended

Arrest and license suspension for what is essentially an administrative infraction?