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Citizen complaint of the day: Phantom parking tickets in Dorchester
By adamg on Thu, 12/18/2014 - 5:18pm
A Belfort Street citizen complains:
Caller states this is the 3rd occasion where he has been issued a parking ticket but never got the physical ticket placed on his car. He only knows about the ticket when he receives the late notices in the mail with the additional fees. This ticket was issued on November 5, and he is just receiving the letter in the mail today. He states he has seen the BTD van drive around but never saw anyone get out of the car. He states the same thing has happened to neighbors as well.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
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Comments
might not be the city's fault
when I moved here in the 90's, people warned me about this - other drivers will steal parking tickets off of cars to put them on theirs, figuring they'll skip getting a ticket for whatever (not paying meter, hydrant, whatever) if it looks like it's already been ticketed. possible...
Yup, I was able to serve justice on that once
I had a ticket on a company vehicle when I went to get something from it so I of course left it there when I went back in (cost of doing business in town). When I returned the ticket was gone so I started checking the tickets on the cars nearby and found it on a car about 1/2 dozen spaces away. By a stroke of luck I also saw some meter maids taking a coffee break on the corner and told them the situation so one of them got up and went to ticket that car.
I added a nice note under the windshield wiper telling the person that if they really wanted their own ticket they should just wait a bit to get their own instead of taking one from somebody else as it shouldn't take long.
Parking ticket registration
The city allows you to register an email address. When your car gets a ticket the city sends you an email. I think it is essential for anyone living in the city if you park on street. There are a million reasons tickets aren't there when you get to your car. Most people check their email weekly. It just makes sense to register at the site.
http://www.cityofboston.gov/Parking/portal.asp
Thanks Ralph!
I had no idea they did that........
This happened to my mom a few
This happened to my mom a few years ago when she was living in Dorchester. She didn't blame the city, she just suspected someone had removed it from her car.
Oldest trick
Parking enforcement officer walks the street and records a bunch of plate numbers, then goes to a nice comfortable place and writes out all the tickets. No tickets are placed on cars. You get a notice a month later saying you didn't pay.
Writes out the tickets?
The meter readers that I see downtown appear to be printing them out on a hand-held device.
Sorry
pushes keyboard buttons with their fingers, creating a ticket that comes out the other end of the electronic parking ticket system. Jeez.
somerville and cambridge
Do this all the time. They use some kind of e scanner to record the ticket. Then a month later, you get a ticket for late fees.
This happened to me once. It
This happened to me once. It was a street I had parked on in the past, but I got a late notice saying I had let the meter expire on a day when I wasn't actually parked there and at a time where I would have had to have a resident permit to park there. I ended up writing a letter appealing the ticket as instructed by the automated phone system, and they ended up waiving the ticket "just this one time."