Parking Ticket Problem

Factual Questions
1

I live in the City of Chicago, for jurisdictional information.

Before I left for vacation, I paid an outstanding parking ticket online ($50). I got a confirmation screen that the ticket had been paid, and I have a witness (my girlfriend) who saw me pay the ticket online.

Unfortunately, I did not save the confirmation page.

So, a few weeks go by and I forget about it. Last week, I get a letter in the mail saying my fine is now $100. I look at my credit card statements and, sure enough, I was not charged the $50 I thought I had been charged for paying my ticket.

I sent them an explanatory note, paid them $50, and they sent a note back (as expected) saying, thanks, you still owe us $50 because the $100 fine was a note of final determination and can’t be appealed.

Well, what the hell am I supposed to do? There’s a computer snafu on their end, I assume everything’s paid up and go on my vacation, and when I come back I find out that a final determination has been made against me and now I’m liable $100. Once there’s a final determination, there’s no appeal possible (or so the letter explains).

So, yes, the lesson is print out your receipts. While I can afford the $50, I feel it would be rather acquiescing of me to pay it without a fight. Plus, I have time to argue if need be.

Do you think there’s any reasonable action available for me, or am I completely SOL?

2

I think you answered your own question with your first sentence. :smack:

3

I was in a similar situation before. I paid a ticket online and did print a confirmation screen, but lost it. I thought all was okay, but got a letter a couple of months later saying my license was suspended.

I called and was rerouted and redirected about four times until I finally was told I need to come in person to talk to someone. I went down there and since they had no record (and stupid me forgot my credit card statements), they said too bad, I had to pay.

So I ended up paying the initial money and additional money for the suspended license. Sucked to be me, but you can’t fight the government.

IANAL (as everyone here will say), but I would say you are SOL because it was never paid, you have no proof you paid, and that is it. If they took everyones word for it, tickets and the like would never be paid on time because everyone would use the same excuse. Sorry.

4

IANAL but I see two problems.

  1. The decision is final and not subject to appeal. If I am a sarcastic court, I would say, “What part of ‘final’ don’t you understand?”

  2. Even if you could appeal you have no proof other than your good word and a witness who is not entirely impartial.

You could send an affadavit from your girlfiend saying that you made a good-faith attempt to pay and got a confirmation screen. But you’ll probably just get the same letter back again.

BTW are you sure the confirmation screen didn’t say, “system unavailable, try again later” or some other error message buried in the display?

5

No, I’m sure it was a confirmation screen. Oh well. I’ll try to stall this one out. I know lawyers who I’m sure would do me favors. Can’t I, like, I dunno, subpoeana their online computer records and just be a general pain-in-the-ass?

But, it seems as I figured, I should just bend over and forget about it.

6

A statement on a web site does not mean that it’s a fact. Even if it’s a government web site.

7

I have a folder on my computer for online financial receipts.

EVERY SINGLE PAYMENT CONFIRMATION that i receive (VISA payments, bank transfers, phone bills, gas bills, online shopping, etc., etc.) gets turned into an Adobe PDF file and placed in that folder.

I recommend you do the same.

Sorry to hear that you got shafted.

8

Yeah. Lessons learned and all that. I guess I get what I deserve for trusting the government. I’m just scouring my computer to see if there’s any evidence in any of my temporary internet files or anything that would help my case.

9

A site like that might keep logs of all activity, but the bottom line is that from their perspective the fine was never paid. I see this as a business decision–how much trouble is $50 worth to you?

10

I got a notice of final determination and there was never even a ticket placed on my car! That really sucked. Stupid Old Town School parking lot.

11

I got one of those as well, from a city my car had never even been in. I’m from Milwaukee, the ticket came from Madison. Turns out the cop (or whomever) just scribbled down my tag wrong.

12

What’s an easy (and free) way to do this?

13

On a Mac, it’s one of the options available when you print the page… I suppose on a PC you can always make a screenshot, or import it to Adobe Acrobat (which isn’t free though…)

14

Doing a quick google search leads me to http://www.primopdf.com/

15

I happen to have Acrobat Pro on my computer, which isn’t free.

MannyL’s link might be of some help. Also, it’s not really necessary to save it as a pdf; i just do that because i have Acrobat Pro. You can take a screenshot, or even save the webpage itself to your computer.

16

The PDF is a nice idea, because it saves all the graphics, etc. inside the file, rather than saving them as linked images in a separate folder. While saving the “Complete page” and all ancillary files probably has marginally more probative value, I figure that it’ll never come down to that level of computer forensics. Courts like paper printouts a lot, even if it’s just a paper copy you acknowledge printing that morning

17

Probably won’t help, but I’d share this experience with my alderman if I were you.

Good luck.

18

IE can save a page as one file. Just save as Web Archive (.mht, for “multipart html”). But there are pages that IE will say it can’t save.

19

puly - I’ve lived in and around Chi for most of my 45 years, and other than instances of clear error - i.e., wrong license number written on ticket - I have NEVER heard of someone successfully challenging a Chicago ticket or charges related to their collection system. I have long thought various aspects of their collections seemed hinky, but they have consistently withstood legal challenges.
I strongly suggest you pay the $50. If you don’t, they’ll come back and say it is now $100 - or they’ll boot your car, suspend your license, etc.

Sucks, but I think $50 will be far less than you would spend in time and aggravation trying to fight it.

20

I guess I should have mentioned, don’t overestimate your ability to “be a pain in the ass” to the city employees, with the hope that it will get you any satisfaction. They deal with thousands of these cases, and simply shift them from file to file as they progress.

And if you know a lawyer who will take Chicago on over a $50 ticket - WOW! That lawyer sure doesn’t value his time very highly.
Here’s a question - how many hours of your time would it be worth to gain satisfaction?