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Parking ticket purgatory ensnares Tustin man - over car he no longer owns
December 8th, 2008, 6:30 am · 47 Comments · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
(See the update!)So the lease was up on Bryan Olive’s sporty Nissan 350Z on March 15. He dropped it off at the dealership, Tustin Nissan, and meant to get on with his life.
The car, apparently, had other ideas.
It got new plates, a new owner - and some trouble. It was in Los Angeles on Aug. 19 - parked in a yellow zone on East 11th Street - when it was ticketed by the beloved Los Angeles Parking Violations Bureau.
Why the heck does Olive know this? Because in September, he got a “Notice of Delinquent Parking Violation” from LA. Even though he wasn’t the Z’s owner. Even though the Z’s plates had changed. The ticket was for $40, doubling to $80 after Sept. 25.
So Olive called the LA Parking Violations Bureau, explaining the situation. Its response? ”On the basis of your ’statement of facts’ there is insufficient evidence to dismiss your citation, and, therefore, the citation must be considered valid,” it wrote to Olive on Sept. 22.
Argh. So now Olive writes a letter to the PVB, including documents proving that his lease was over months before the car was ticketed, and that he no longer had any relationship to the Z. There’s the letter from Chase Auto Finance saying it took possession of the car on April 9, the letter dated April 11 showing itemized closing costs on the lease, etc.
Done, right?
Not even close.
Instead of interpreting that letter as an “affidavit of nonliability,” it interpreted it as a request for a hearing - which was denied, because you must pay the ticket before you can get a hearing.
So Olive gets back on the phone with the PVB twice in October. It’s not pretty. The PVB ends up asking for more documentation, including a copy of the “notice of transfer and release of liability form” filed with the Department of Motor Vehicles at the time of the transfer.
Olive sends the stuff to the PVB on Oct. 24. The PVB receives it on Oct. 27. Olive knows this, because he sends it via certified mail.
On Halloween, Olive gets another letter from the PVB. Happy ending?
“You must request an administrative hearing and submit payment of the amount due on the citation … within 21 calendar days following the mailing of the initial review decision,” the letter says. “Once the dates have passed, the right to request a hearing is forfeited. Since we received your request after the time limits have passed, you have forfeited your right to an administrative hearing and the citation must now be paid in full.”
Arrrrrgh!!!
The PVB does not know that it is messing with the customer service manager for the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine - a group of folk not known for love of government bureaucracies. Olive contacts The Watchdog. “I would at least like to make it difficult for them to violate my rights,” he tells us.
The Watchdog contacts the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, the PVB’s overlord. Spokesman Bruce Gillman promises to look into the situation and get back to us - and to Olive.
“I feel bad we put people through the ringer on this,” Gillman says. “When we access the DMV records, it’s not showing the change, and that’s what we go by.This happens sometimes.”
The fault often lies with the leasing company, which neglects to update records with the DMV, he said.
He can’t speak yet to the odd back-and-forth correspondence between Olive and the PVB yet - “It’s a contractor handling these cases, not us,” he said - but he’ll be looking into it. We’ll let you know how things turn out.
We’ll also be looking deeper into Olive’s hunch that the city tickets everyone who has owned a particular car in the hope that someone will pay.
And we just hope that the Z stays out of trouble in the meantime.
More Watchdog:
- Free at last! Parking ticket purgatory ends for Tustin man
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I feel for Mr. Olive! I owned a Ford Windstar, which was traded in for a Honda Odyssey at my local Honda Dealer. It took a year and a half with the DMV to straighten out the transfer paperwork. In the meantime, my state tax return was garnished for the back fees. My attorney finally wrote a threaten letter to the Dealer, and low and behold the transfer appeared and I got my money back.
When State or Local Government become so unhuman it is time to gut the system and completely start over. The PVB and The DMV need a major house cleaning and system changing. It is up to the people we elect to get on this or they themselves become part of the very problem that needs to be done away with.
Just think… we all want government health care. Imagine going through all this when it occurs.
Hey Scott, speak for yourself. I dont want government healthcare! And this is exactly the reason why! We need less government, not more of it!
This happens when your car is stolen as well. Whoever stole my car got a parking ticket - which told me where the car had been on a certain date, interestingly enough. I had to pay for a copy of my stolen car report, and miss work to show up in court to get the ticket dismissed.
ocballfan, did the Honda dealer also reimburse you for your attorney fees? It’s a shame that in addition to all the hassle it cost you financially to get it cleared up.
YEA AYN RAND!
This type of scam has been conducted by the City of Los Angeles, as well as Pasadena, for years. I dropped my leased car off at Tustin Lexus (See the pattern … ‘Tustin’ car dealerships!?), and received all the turn-in paper documents. One year later (!?) I started getting parking citations from Los Angeles, Long Beach, Pasadena, etc., well over $1500 in collective fines. I sent Certified Mail copies of all the turn-in documents to all cities … the California DMV … they all ignored the Certified Mail communications. Finally after over 20 phone calls to CA-DMV Sacramento, they finally told me that the car was still registered to Tustin Lexus.
The California DMV, as well as select Southern California cities knowingly perpetrating fraud on tax payers in order to generate more revenue. Many people simply pay the fines and citations rather than spending months trying to fight the scams with the CA-DMV, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Pasadena, etc.
Despite the thousands of complaints nothing is ever done by elected city officials or administrators … because it generates millions of dollars in revenues for the cities. We keep electing the same politicians …. and they keep appointing their same corrupt, incompetent buddies to fill the same political administrative positions.
On a slightly different front but still dealing with government bureaucracy, don’t expect the DMV to automatically erase old traffic violations off your driving record after a certain number of years. I was surprised when my insurance agent told me I had something on my record that was over 10 years old and when I called DMV about it, the guy tells me it’s not necessarily automatic anymore. You have to contact the DMV and request your record be updated. The guy at DMV says since this has to be done manually (by a real person) but they can’t go through every CA drivers record.
Dear Watchdog writer,
Do you think you could try writing in the appropriate tense in your articles?
“The Watchdog contacts…”
“Gilman promises…”
“The leasing company…neglects…”
These are better in the past tense - both journalistically and grammatically - being as the beginning of your article is in the past tense. You aren’t telling a story at a party, blog not withstanding.
Love,
A reader
I had a similar situation a few years back, with a different government / independent agency, and needless to say, I finally went OVER their heads as well, to the government board members who oversaw their operation (who, BTW are ELECTED officials), and within a week, I had a formal apology, and THEY paid ME (for my troubles).
No matter WHO you are (private or government run), if you mess with an honest customer or citizen, be prepared to have pie in your face in the long run!
Good luck with this one. I had the same situation. We sold our car (traded in with the dealer) and received the same type of citation. Every avenue we tried lead to our having to pay the citation and then try to be reimbursed after the hearing and reams of documents, etc. We simply paid it due to the time and expense of litigating the issue.
we all DON’T want universal health care. we all would LIKE heath care reform. item #1, no more free $200 aspirins, would be nice!!
OMG i am going thru this right now ! i had a 1998 camry and traded it in 2001 (thats right 7 years ago) when a couple of months ago i got a letter saying i had a delinquent parking ticket.
i called the ca dmv and they said it was not even in my name ! i sent all documentation to PVB and they said it was declined, i got sent a hearing and then was told to pay. i finally have called “customer service” but the fees just keep adding up. HELP.
They should investigate and fire all those idiots that Mr. Olive talked with. We need competent workers in our government.
I had the same situation with the LA bureaucrats20 years ago.
Can’t be a coincidence. Looks like a thoughtful plan of action.
It was lss expensive for me to pay the fine than to fight it … and thy know that.
No matter how much thigs change, things never change.
bpsquerty,
Stay on topic please!
It’s Villaraigosa’s attempt to get everyone to ride public transportation that no one wants. Ticket the driving public to death. Nimrod.
If the DMV, which is a government agency, can’t handle title transfers, how the heck will government handle the Obama health care system? Scary times!
This was an eye opener, thanks, I can feel the torment that you guys went through. It appears that the problem was not with the DMV but the car dealers and the transfer paperwork. Nothing like screwing the customer. That is why car dealers are so loved. Good to list the dealers you had a problem with. I will insist a copy of the DMV Transfer paperwork from the dealer upon sale. Still that is not fool proof, but it may help to force there hand to do the work.
Something like this happened to me but luckyily I got it reversed. After I traded in my truck at the Mazda dealer, three months later the new owner went thru the toll road w/o a transponder and I got the ticket in the mail for it.
Could this have been avoided by sending in a a Notice of Transfer and Liability form (DMV form REG138)? Yes.
They will send you a notice if the car is impounded, and nobody else picks it up. I guess that gives you a chance to own your old car.
Just a little advise from someone that owns an auto registration company. As soon as you sell, trade, give, or take a car out of this state, remember to file a Release of Liability. You must do it within 5 days that this occurs. NO EXEPTIONS!!! No one is responsible for doing this but yourself. Do not depend on dealerships or towing companys for they will tell you they will do it but never do. I have been dealing with situations like these for many many years and you will never get away with anything if this is not done correctly. It is so easy to file that Release of Liability form, that you can even do it online. It does not take more than 2 minutes and you can print out your receipt showing they received that filing. The dmv website is http://www.dmv.ca.gov.
I would let it add up and then when I was arrested, take the jail time and get a good lawyer and retire on the settlement money for wrongful imprisonment and a litany of other issues.
If the ambulance chasing lawyers can get some j/o 1.2 million, why can’t I get mine on the city’s and state’s dime?
Trust but verify, as RR used to say. When you turn in a lease, go to the DMV site, download the transfer form and DO IT YOURSELF. Even if you happen to duplicate the dealership’s efforts, better twice submitted than never.
The bureaucracy does the same thing with broken meter tickets, BTW. I called the number on the meter to report it and everything, when I questioned the ticket the same parking agency that wrote the ticket said it re-considered and rejected my request. Gee, what a surprise, I really thought they would keep money out of their own pocket!
wANNA bet if the car gets impounded they will contact the correct owner and not the person they send the parking citations to!
Sounds like the ‘contractor’ is trying to carpet bill everyone who’s ever been on the title in hopes of getting thier cut and impounding isn’t done thru these same contractors
“It’s a contractor handling these cases, not us,” he said
Uh… sorry, wrong answer.
When you hire a contractor to do work for you, that does not absolve you of liability. That contractor now BECOMES you.
..and this nation elected a candidate on a platform of MORE government?!
This is what happens when bureaucracy runs amok.
And I love the comment about the DMV not automatically updating records when violations are supposed to drop off.
A manual process?
THAT’S WHAT COMPUTERS ARE FOR!!!!!!!
Idiots. Idiots. Idiots.
It’s probably a change lobbyed for by the insurance companies….
this same thing happened to me i was leasing a truck from Villa Ford & turned this truck in at the end of my lease. then in the next couple of months i get a letter regarding outstanding parking tickets, then the next month i get a visit at work from Orange PD the truck was involved in a hit & run.. yes it was still in my name & went through hell trying to get this matter cleared up.
Had a similar episode. Received a bill from the folks who run the pay lane on the 91 free-way for three violations that occured a month after I traded in my car foe a new one. Turns out one of the mechanics was using the car for personal errands and jumped into the pay lane whenever he felt like it. Took me a good two months to get it taken care of. Thank God they took a picture that showed the driver. He was wearing his uniform.
Hey, what do you expect from a CONTRACTOR! I bet their agreement is that they keep part of each ticket they collect, so there is no reason for them to be reasonable: Admitting a ticket is no good means money out of their pocket. The people of Los Angeles should rise up and ask why they pay taxes of the city hires contractors to process city paperwork.
We need a law in California that permits California citizens to hold the agency responsible for lost wages, time, and resources due to erroneous judgments.
As it stands, this guy is being forced to push a law suit with City of Los Angeles in order to get this matter resolved.
How many businesses and people are harmed by government agencies making false claims, ignoring documents, and then pronouncing guilt?
exactly the reason why we need less government intervention.
Here’s a tissue, crybabies!
Like a few of the smart posters mentioned, DMV requires you to fill out a Release of Liability within 5 days of selling or turning in a lease.
Stop complaining about what you had to go through, when you obviously couldn’t follow directions. Release of Liability is not the Title Transfer, it’s to make sure you aren’t held liable for things like….parking tickets, toll fees, etc.
Here’s an idea. All you folks who didn’t fill out the required form should get billed for the time it takes to resolve your situation.
I have received red light camera tickets, and toll road violations on vehicles I have sold, and the ONLY form you need is DMV’s Release of Liability. When you trade the car in at a dealership, the finance manager gives you a copy, and when you sell a car privately, make sure you fill it out, and send it in to Sacramento. Make sure to make a copy for yourself, and keep it for your records. California has this little known law that keeps the previous registered owner’s name in the system, until another owner registers the car in their name. The release of liability gets you out of these situations.
I’ve had so many horrible experiences with the DMV. The entire organization needs to be overhauled!!!
The DMV suspended my license for not registering an out-of-state car I borrowed and supposedly not having valid California insurance. This was after filing a DMV accident report - the other driver was at fault and I had injuries. I argued with a stupid DMV employee that I don’t own the car and therefore can’t register it in California - it had valid registration in Oregon and was going back to Oregon. She also argued about my insurance trying to tell me it wasn’t valid… uh, hello?? My insurance PAID for to fix my car and paid for medical bills. Idiot. After finally getting a supervisor, she said she take care it. I followed up two weeks later and they said she went on vacation. Did she fix my license before that? Nope. It took a month to get it straightened out.
The last time I renewed by license I got a new picture. Since I had lasik eye surgery, I no longer needed glasses. I brought in my evidence to remove the “restricted” notation my license. Again, I had another idiot DMV worker who couldn’t figure this out. After going back and forth and being assured the restriction would be lifted, I got my new license with the restriction. I called the DMV and was told I’d have to come back in, wait in line and go through the entire process over even though they had the paperwork to correct.
Seriously, DMV workers are the LOWEST form of intelligence.
Anyone with brains will follow bmovegas’s sage advice. I have probably sold 12 cars in CA in my lifetime. Each time, I followed the DMV required procedure of completing the transfer of ownership form and I’ve NEVER had a problem. Accept personal responsibility and you won’t have any issues. FYI, the form , for several years now, is attached to the pink slip. When you sell the car, have the new owner or Lessor sign at the time of transferring the vehicle. Pretty simple really.
Pay the Bill and forward the claim to the leasing Company.
If it is there fault they will pay it or bill the State.
How much tax money is being spent to resolve this issue because the leasing company failed to perform correctly.
Can we bill them for the time too?
As the guy being discussed here, I think it’s worth clarifying one thing. The DMV does have a valid release of liability on file for me; at least, that’s what they said when I spoke to them. It took them mere moments to confirm that their records showed me to be entirely in the clear. The leasing company did nothing wrong that I can detect, and neither did the DMV.
I just add this to set the record straight, lest blame be assigned to innocent parties.
The Los Angeles Parking Violations Bureau is a business entity and operates extortion style. A few years ago I received a parking ticket for an expired meter near the corner of 7th and Flower St. in downtown Los Angeles. I wasn’t parked on the street but in a private parking lot next to Flower St. during operational hours and having paid my fees. I was angry, bewildered, confused but going to law school and had a video camera with me. I filmed it showing where my car was park edand the license plate of the parking enforcement officer along with a panoramic view of Flower St.. Couldn’t wait to pay my fine and get my administrative hearing. Long story short, got my day in court, showed the video to the hearing officer, got my money back and sent a copy of tape to supervisor of dude that gave me the ticket. Think he had to find a new job.
“The fault often lies with the leasing company, which neglects to update records with the DMV.”
Correction. The fault lies with the entity that is unjustifiably threatening the use of force.
This is like saying that selective tax breaks are the fault of those who persuaded politicians to institute those tax breaks. Wrong. The fault lies with the politicians who accepted the bribes and passed the legislation. The fault always lies with the entity violating rights.
It’s not just LA. I was in Laguna Beach many years ago and something similar happened to me. I was parked in a metered parking space near Las Brisas restaurant. Upon returning to my vehicle I had a parking ticket for being 10 minutes over my time. I paid it since I was truly over my time. However about 6 months later I got a letter of delinquency from the city of Laguna Beach. I had copies of the parking citation, I had the cancelled check with the Court Clerks initials and the court clerk even put the citation number on the back of the check. I thought they simply failed to record the payment. I sent in copies of all of the ducumentation showing that I paid the ticket. They sent back a letter stating that it was insufficent proof of payment. I took copies of all of the paperwork into the court clerk, but get this, I was still told it was insuffucient evidence of payment. One of the benefits of my wife’s work is pre-paid legal, so she contacted them and they contacted the city of Laguna Beach on our behalf with all of the paperwork again. We finally get back a letter from the city of Laguna Beach stating somethign to the effect of “upon reviewing your case, we have determined that there was insufficent evidence that you paid the fee, however we will excuse this, and consider it paid at this time. I simply do not understand how copies of a cancelled check with their courts clerk information and the the citation number on the check does not constitite proof of payment. I spoke to several friends later about this and everyone that received a parking ticket in Laguna Beach was basically given the same trouble. It is almost as if Laguna Beach is hoping that people do not remember that they paid the original ticket and will pay again. However this was about 9 years ago, so things may have changed there since then.
Here’s an idea. All you folks who didn’t fill out the required form should get billed for the time it takes to resolve your situation.
Here’s an idea. All of you fans of big government should be billed for the time it takes to resolve the situations in the lives of the rest of us.
I had a similar thing happen many years ago…I was in process of selling a the first car I’d ever bought (a 1980 Toyota Celica) when it was effectively stolen by the would-be buyer. The purchasing couple were in the process of buying the car and had given me a deposit, and I had signed away the title to them. I also had a contract with them for the remainder of what was owed.
Now, the car was old, and I was glad to be rid of it, even for just the deposit amount, but I figured I should do something.
I was young and didn’t know what to do in this sort of situation, so I called the police and asked them what I should do.
The police told me there was nothing at all that they could or would do, and that I had to call the DMV. The DMV, in turn, told me that the only thing I could do was to call the police. After a few back-and-forth calls getting nowhere, I felt exasperated.
I felt this gnawing sensation that something wasn’t right, and there must be something else that I, or someone should do to lay this to rest, even if I was never to see the car, but when I expressed this thought, both the police and DMV told me that no, really there was nothing else to be done, but I could always call the other agency and ask them if I wanted.
The only other thing I could think of was hiring a lawyer to do something, but I doubted a lawyer could do much, plus the car was only worth a few hundred dollars, and I figured that a lawyer would cost me more than any potential money I could get back, even if a lawyer could do something.
So I decided to give up and go on with my life.
Then, several months later I received a call from a collections agency. Apparently the car had gotten so many tickets that it was impounded. After the tickets, towing fees, storage fees, etc., a few thousand dollars (I don’t recall the exact amount, but it was significant) was owed in total fees and penalties. *I* owed the money.
I explained to the collections agency that the car wasn’t mine, and they told me that it didn’t matter, and that they would only back off if the DMV told them to.
So I called the DMV and explained the whole story of how the car had been taken and was no longer mine when all of this transpired. I requested that they please call off the collections agency. After first telling me that there was no way they would tell the collections agency to back off, they finally reluctantly agreed to look into the matter.
They informed me that while I had completed my end of the title transfer, the new “owners” of the car never completed the paperwork, so therefore I was fully liable for the car. Unless, perhaps, I could produce a police report of a stolen car from the time.
Of course, a police report! Now, this made total sense to me hearing this and looking back on it, but when I was calling the police before, I did not know to specifically request that a police report be filed, and their insistence that the matter was closed and there was nothing further for me to do had persuaded me to do nothing further.
So I called back the police to see if there was perhaps any record of the multiple conversations I’d had with them or any way they could help with my need for a stolen car report.
The police expressed surprise that they would not have issued a report, but assured me that there was absolutely nothing they could do for me at this point. They did suggest that in the future, if I had another car stolen, I should make sure to get a stolen car report.
I was alternately kicking myself for not having realized that I needed to get such a report to protect me, and worrying about how I was going to ever come up with the money to pay the unjust fines. But I saw that I had unknowingly worked myself into a hole and now had to pay my way out.
Now, the next bit is a coincidence that has nothing to do with the car situation, but at the time that this happened, I was working at the Ayn Rand Institute as the mailroom and customer service manager.
Did you wrongfully receive a ticket? Was the parking meter jammed? Are you just tired of getting tickets and don’t know what to do? There is an easy way to contest your parking violation online with http://www.contestmyticket.com