Just how bad is the DC city government at treating people who don't pay their parking tickets?
Emily Miller at MyFoxDC has this story from October 2014:
Megan Johnson got about ten parking tickets, and they all doubled. Then, Megan's car was booted, towed and sold. . . . .
Johnson's problems started when she had about ten parking tickets that she could not afford to pay. The fines doubled after 30 days, so the total got to about $1,000. . . .
Meanwhile, Johnson's car was booted and impounded -- for which the city charged her $700 in fees -- and then the car was sold out from under her.
I asked Megan if the city sent her a check after it auctioned off her car for $500. She said that the city was supposed to credit that amount to her debt but never did.
I've asked the DMV, the Department of Public Works and the Office of the Chief Financial Officer about the city profiting $500 from the sale of Megan's car, but not one of these agencies will help rectify it. . . .An earlier story by Pamela Brown at ABC 7 in DC from August 2012 noted:
More than 230,000 drivers have been turned over to the District’s debt collector this year. The reason – unpaid parking tickets. It’s an aggressive new measure that’s caught many off guard.
Once the debt collector takes over, a person’s credit score can drop significantly.
“Someone with a higher score in the 700s is likely to get hit as much as 100, 125 points,” explained Anthony Sprauve, FICO spokesperson. FICO provides credit scores to consumers. “The better your score is, the bigger hit you're going to get.”
In 2011, nearly 300,000 drivers were reported for unpaid parking tickets. There are several warnings about deadlines on the back of a ticket. However, those warnings do not mention collection agencies. . . .Apparently the debt collectors weren't enough.
Labels: thugishgovernment
posted by John Lott at 11:08 PM
2 Comments:
Isn't this one of the things they charged about Ferguson's racism? That minor infractions added up to fees the poor blacks couldn't afford to pay?
Aren't you overlooking the social benefit of hiring all those otherwise unemployable ghetto kids as ticket writers?
My story; I went to get in my car only to find that my car and all the other parked cars on the street, for several blocks had been moved by the city to random local locations without warning. They were repaving the street and we were all in the way.
I eventually found my car, unlocked and with a ticket on the windscreen.
Washington DC is a third world kletocracy.
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