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Leased a car? Beware! DMV working on glitch that sows confusion
December 11th, 2008, 1:48 pm · 8 Comments · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
Much of the torture visited upon a Tustin man (who couldn’t shake a parking ticket on a car he didn’t own) was the fault of a wee glitch in the California Department of Motor Vehicles’ computer system.
The DMV computers assured the Los Angeles Parking Violations Bureau contractor that the Nissan 350Z ticketed on Aug. 19 on East 11th Street belonged to Bryan Olive of Tustin. Problem was, Olive’s lease on the car had ended some five months before.
There’s blame to due the contractor - Affiliated Computer Services - for failing to help Olive figure out what was happening. But the genesis of the trouble was information from the DMV.
Contactors can access the DMV’s database when parking tickets have not been paid, so as to track scofflaws down. ”We have an inconsistency in one of our codes,” said DMV spokesman Mike Marando. “The code had produced a very infinitesimal effect on cars that, at some point at their lives, had been leased, then got sold.”
So, if The Watchdog had leased a car in 2001, and Marando had bought it in 2003 and 
piled up the parking tickets, there’s a chance The Watchdog would be getting those tickets.
“It’s not in all lease cases,” Marando said. “About 25 million parking citations make it to our database by way of collection agencies every year. The error rate is .005 percent .”
Sounds really tiny - unless you’re one of the 1,250 or so people getting phantom parking tickets that you can’t shake.
“We understand, and this is a level one priority for us,” Marando said. “We have a half-a-dozen of our people on it for the last couple of weeks.”
In the meantime, if you get a phantom parking ticket that is not yours, work with the pa
rking authority that issued it - and make sure they work with the DMV on the lease glitch. ”Anybody who gets a parking ticket that they know is not theirs does not have to pay for it,” Marando said.
When might this level one priority be resolved? “I’ll be honest with you,” he said. “it’s a complex fix.”
He promised to keep us posted.
Just for the record, the DMV’s budget rose 5 percent in 2007-08, as it tried to get computer systems up to speed; and then rose 2 percent this year (at least, so far!), to $958 million, according to the Legislative Analyst’s office.
The DMV operates 215 facilities and has 8,250 employees.
More Watchdog:
- Parking ticket purgatory ensnares Tustin man - over car he no longer owns
- Free at last! Parking ticket purgatory ends for Tustin man
- Parking violations contractor does not fish for funds, LA says
- AIG to OC workers: Thanks for the bailout, happy holidays, you’re fired
- OC Watchdog contest: Guess what this AIG junket cost!
- Free, cool stuff! OC Archives’ generosity irks history buffs
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The DMV is calling this a priority matter. It affects .005 %. My tax return has a higher percentage of being lost in the mail.
1 in 20,000 tickets are issued in error…
… and now we are wasting tax money and making this matter a priority in the State to fix.
Note to self if you get a ticket in error and you get the run around to resolve the issue and you were 1 in the 20,000 that this affects I think we call that chance.
Pay the Ticket and buy a Lotto Ticket you will have 3 times better odds at picking 4 out of 5 numbers and winning $100 or so.
How many cars are on the road in this state, 40 million? 60 million? Good to see that at least one state agency is aiming for perfection. DMV may never get there, but they ought to get kudos for trying.
That baby looks freaked out. Haha
Marando said:
”Anybody who gets a parking ticket that they know is not theirs does not have to pay for it,”
WHICH IS A LIE according to him(DMV) in a earlier story you have to pay the ticket first in order to dispute it at a later date!
This setup of having to pay then we’ll refund the money back is a scam in which they pay no interest on held monies and/or are hoping that you figure out it isn’t worth your time to dispute the ticket because they give you the run around in hopes of you giving up.
You have a good point Donna.
30 Million Registered Vehicles
1,250 Phantom Tickets
0.0042%
1:250,000 (sorry missed a zero)
… but the government wants to spend millions to make it a priority to fix. Another great waste of tax money!
… oh I forget you have better odds picking 4 out of 5 lotto numbers along with the mega number and winning $1,500 then to get a phantom ticket.
Release of liabilities are sent in when cars are sold. The problem acures when a new title is generated. When this happens, the origional release of liability that was sent in dropps off he DMV record. They need to fix this.
Wow.
Politicians are selling Senate seats, our Calif. legisalture is running up billipons in debt that will shackle us forever and this is what tthe watchdig is up to? The DMV seems like one agency that is actually getting better.