Unpaid Photo Enforcement Citation from another state

Darkewolfe

Just got a debt collection agency notice for a rather large amount on behalf of the District of Columbia. I'm not a DC resident, but I definitely drive through there and wouldn't be surprised if I got tagged by one of their many speeding ticket cameras.

That said, I've never received a ticket or bill from DC for getting hit by their speeding cameras, ever. I'm confident that it didn't just get misplaced. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't have a good address on file to send the ticket to.

Now, if it was a cheap ticket, I'd probably pay it and not worry about it. That said, this is a sizable amount, and it has apparently been turned over to a debt collector.

What should I do, considering the district never actually sent me a ticket, and the first I've heard about it is notice from a debt collector? I plan to write a letter disputing the debt, as required, but what else can I do, or is there anything in particular I should say in the letter?

E.Coyote

The address associated with your license has to be updated whenever you move within a certain amount of days. If they sent the ticket to whatever address was on file associated with it you might be out of luck.

zepherin

I owe a rather substancial amount to dc, some of it coming from a pair of tickets sent to a bad address. I am interested in any info that comes from this thread.

Darkewolfe

E.Coyote wrote: »

The address associated with your license has to be updated whenever you move within a certain amount of days. If they sent the ticket to whatever address was on file associated with it you might be out of luck.

The address with my license should be correct, I think.

schattenjaeger

The DC camera tickets aren't cheap (compared to Maryland), and I know from experience that after a relatively short amount of time without you paying it, they just outright double it, so it's not too hard for even one or two tickets to get pretty hilarious in price. Note that I don't think these are properly called "tickets" - Like I don't think you can lose your license from accumulating these or anything.

They send it to an address based on the license plate, which will involve your car being registered and you having a license. If you had moved without updating your driver's license, it'll get sent to the wrong address (which is what happened to me, and my automatic forwarding failed on the first notice but got the second, doubled, citation to me. Pretty steamed about that). A little research told me that they don't give even the smallest amount of a damn if that's what happened. Technically you are required to update all that stuff fairly promptly after moving.

Of course you're right to confirm that these tickets do exist. I'd say ask for copies of them, and see them yourself, with the dates and times (and possibly the actual images? In Maryland they send you the picture at least).

If it turns out they're legitimate, my experience (limited only to this single example, but hopefully this is the norm) with debt collectors tells me that they will be willing to settle the debt for a comically small amount. I once owed about 1000 dollars thanks to [poor choices in my youth]. When I finally decided to actually answer a call (years later), and told them it was really impossible to get that much money from me right now, they called it even for 200. According to the DC DMV, they have a contractual obligation with the collection agency they use to delete the whole thing from your credit report upon payment. If true and without fine print, that is significantly better than normal, where the debt hangs around for seven years.


Edit: I'm slow so in response to:
The address with my license should be correct, I think.

In your first post you said you wouldn't surprised if they didn't have a good address on file...is that really what you meant?

Djeet

If they're picking up address from the license plate it has nothing to do with your drivers license. Your license plate is associated with your state registration tags, so if the address hasn't been updated with the authority who deals with registration tags (usually your county tax assessors' office) then the bills and the notifications for tag renewal will go to the wrong address.

Darkewolfe

Djeet wrote: »

If they're picking up address from the license plate it has nothing to do with your drivers license. Your license plate is associated with your state registration tags, so if the address hasn't been updated with the authority who deals with registration tags (usually your county tax assessors' office) then the bills and the notifications for tag renewal will go to the wrong address.

My plates are definitely registered to the right address because I have gotten information on registration, etc. from the county at my current address.

So, I don't think it's that I had the wrong address on file.

zepherin

schattenjaeger wrote: »

If it turns out they're legitimate, my experience (limited only to this single example, but hopefully this is the norm) with debt collectors tells me that they will be willing to settle the debt for a comically small amount. I once owed about 1000 dollars thanks to [poor choices in my youth]. When I finally decided to actually answer a call (years later), and told them it was really impossible to get that much money from me right now, they called it even for 200. According to the DC DMV, they have a contractual obligation with the collection agency they use to delete the whole thing from your credit report upon payment. If true and without fine print, that is significantly better than normal, where the debt hangs around for seven years.

I am going to try this for my thousand dollars in DC tickets.

Darkewolfe

Alright, I did some research on this, and the specific group that does collections for the DC tickets apparently can't fight audits with the credit report agencies, because their shit just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

What this means is I just need to write the credit agencies and ask to have each of the tickets removed. I'm not entirely certain how to do that, as I haven't done it before, but I'm sure there's guides on the interwebz.

supabeast

Darkewolfe wrote: »

Alright, I did some research on this, and the specific group that does collections for the DC tickets apparently can't fight audits with the credit report agencies, because their shit just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

What this means is I just need to write the credit agencies and ask to have each of the tickets removed. I'm not entirely certain how to do that, as I haven't done it before, but I'm sure there's guides on the interwebz.

Yeah, but if you ever get pulled over while driving DC you’re going to have a rough day. You might be better off to make a long-term plan for paying your speeding tickets.

Darkewolfe

I don't think I actually owe them any money, though. They never actually served me with any tickets, or gave me the chance to contest said tickets.

ceres

Have you tried calling and asking the DC traffic whatever handles this stuff what they have on file for you, checking the address and all of that? It might be good to know what's going on on their end, especially if you otherwise can't be sure you actually owe them anything. If they got nothing, there may be someone to whom you can report the collection agency if you want to, but you can at least go to the credit agencies with "yeah there was never a ticket."

Darkewolfe

ceres wrote: »

Have you tried calling and asking the DC traffic whatever handles this stuff what they have on file for you, checking the address and all of that? It might be good to know what's going on on their end, especially if you otherwise can't be sure you actually owe them anything. If they got nothing, there may be someone to whom you can report the collection agency if you want to, but you can at least go to the credit agencies with "yeah there was never a ticket."

Apparently once they send it to collections they take it out of their records.

ceres

If it's that far out of their records that they can't tell you if it exists, I don't think anyone is going to hassle you if you get pulled over.

Darkewolfe

Yeah, that's what I think.

At this point I guess I just need to do some credit dances and see what I can figure out. I'm a little frustrated that I can't figure out what's actually RIGHT to do, though, like, "Did I ever actually fairly receive a ticket?"

ceres

Yeah.. normally I would say "you did it, pay up and learn," but if there's no ticket telling you that you did it, no way to find out, no evidence there ever was a ticket, and the collection agency has a reputation... what are you supposed to do? I certainly wouldn't pony up a grand without some pretty solid evidence I did something wrong.

SammyF

Darkewolfe wrote: »

E.Coyote wrote: »

The address associated with your license has to be updated whenever you move within a certain amount of days. If they sent the ticket to whatever address was on file associated with it you might be out of luck.

The address with my license should be correct, I think.

It sounds like you've got most of this sorted out, but I wanted to circle back to this real quickly -- they usually send these out to the address attached to your vehicle registration, not your license. You also have an obligation to make sure that's updated after you move primarily for tax purposes, so dig it out the next time you hop into your car and make sure it's valid.

(Having said this, when you file for a change of address on your driver's license, a lot of municipalities are also smart enough to proactively have the state update any vehicle registrations associated with your name because they want to make sure they're not missing out on any related personal property tax revenue, so if the paper copy of your vehicle registration reflects an old address, the next step is to call the DMV and ask what they have on file for you, as their own records might already be correct).

Aioua

I'd start with asking the Debt Collector to provide proof of the debt. There's a nonzero chance they've lost that and then you're off the hook.

Darkewolfe

SammyF wrote: »

Darkewolfe wrote: »

E.Coyote wrote: »

The address associated with your license has to be updated whenever you move within a certain amount of days. If they sent the ticket to whatever address was on file associated with it you might be out of luck.

The address with my license should be correct, I think.

It sounds like you've got most of this sorted out, but I wanted to circle back to this real quickly -- they usually send these out to the address attached to your vehicle registration, not your license. You also have an obligation to make sure that's updated after you move primarily for tax purposes, so dig it out the next time you hop into your car and make sure it's valid.

(Having said this, when you file for a change of address on your driver's license, a lot of municipalities are also smart enough to proactively have the state update any vehicle registrations associated with your name because they want to make sure they're not missing out on any related personal property tax revenue, so if the paper copy of your vehicle registration reflects an old address, the next step is to call the DMV and ask what they have on file for you, as their own records might already be correct).

I am 99.9% certain that the car registration has always had the right address on it, because they take property tax pretty seriously around here, and I've always had to keep it up to date to even be able to legally park on the street in my neighborhood.

Djeet

I would dispute the debt with the debt collector. You should find form letters for this, but basically you state who you are, any account numbers associated with the debt, put in a quote from the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act and declare that the debt is not yours.

At the same time write a letter disputing the debt with the CRAs. You should be able to find online examples of what needs to go in the letter, but it boils down to "this account, from this collections agency/creditor, is not mine". The CRAs will either drop the debt off your report (requiring the debt collector to prove the debt, or notify the debt collector that the debt is in dispute).

I would send both these mails via certified mail and in the mails indicate you are CC'ing the FTC.