<p>I know someone will have good advice or some experience with this situation:</p>
<p>I got a letter from a collection agency yesterday, referencing Vermont. They said I owed $89 immediately - and by the way, the credit bureaus had been notified.</p>
<p>I really thought this had to be a scam, so I called to find out what was up. All the person would say was it was a “violation of basic rule” from the Vermont Judicial Bureau, with a date of April 15, 1995. As I am pretty sure I would not have been in VT that day, I asked for details: where exactly, for example, did this alleged offense occur, and in which county? They said they were unable to give me any more information.</p>
<p>I asked how I could dispute this - would a letter stating I was not in VT on that date suffice? Nope. I would need “proof that I had paid.” I thought it logical that I could not possibly have proof I paid if I never got the ticket in the first place, and told them so. (Reminder to self: Logic does not work with collection agencies.)</p>
<p>Thanks to the miracles of Google, I looked up the VT Judicial Bureau, which oversees “violations of basic rules” - traffic tickets. Thankfully, there was an email address for inquiries, so I wrote to get more info.</p>
<p>A person there responded very quickly, and said since it had been turned over to the collection agency, they could not give any more info.</p>
<p>So what should I do now - grit my teeth and pay the dang thing, or try to dispute it? Has anyone else had luck with these matters?</p>
<p>Go to clarkhoward.com and look up collections and you will find step by step directions on how to notify company. You do not owe a debt this old but you must send a letter.</p>
<p>We had a similar situation with a parking ticket we supposedly got in a town where we had NEVER driven our car…not ever. We had a heck of a time disputing it, and it also was YEARS later. We contacted the attorney general’s office in the “offending” state and wrote a detailed letter explaining that we had NEVER been in that city…not ever, and asked for the ticket to be voided. We did get a reply saying “it must have been a mistake…perhaps the wrong state license plate had been written down”. My husband was very dubious and wondered just how many folks paid without even thinking twice…to protect their credit.</p>
<p>Oh…the statute of limitations on ours had run out as well.</p>
<p>Many times the sloppy handwriting of a police officer ends up with the incorrect lic. plate being recorded. See if the ticket can be produced- you may find out it is a vehicle you never owned.</p>
<p>Years ago I had the same thing happen - a bill for a parking ticket in a city I hadn’t been in although it was in the state where I lived. I wrote a letter, sent it certified mail, disputing the ticket because I hadn’t been in that city. Upon further investigation, it was the same number as my license plate but from another state. The ticket was voided. </p>
<p>flatlander - Resolving this will be a pain in the derriere, BUT it can be done. In addition to the excellent suggestions above, I can also recommend (1) wallpapering, which is the practice of carbon-copying your letter of outrage to EVERYONE whose name has appeared on ANY correspondence you have received, and (2) contacting the Attorney General’s Office in your state to ask their guidance. You are not the first to fall victim to this, believe me. [Note: The AG in Connecticut had to intercede with the AG in New York because CT residents were getting citations from NYC based on faulty interpretation of traffic control videos.] Good luck with this.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the suggestions - it’s amazing this happens in the first place.</p>
<p>I work in a city that’s notorious for its aggressive parking ticket policies. (I got a $100 ticket from the city because my inspection sticker had expired - and the car is registered in a different state. It was parked on the street; I had no idea the parking officers had that kind of authority.)</p>
<p>Now I’m worried that I did not keep a copies of checks I’ve written for legitimate parking tickets over the past few years…</p>
<p>Cities and towns are pretty desperate for revenue given the economy. I guess that they don’t know that squeeze blood from a stone is eventually counterproductive.</p>
<p>Sometimes it’s a stupid law too. We had a schoolteacher arrested and handcuffed due to a really dumb law over EZ-Pass that an administrator screwed up on. They reimbursed his expenses and apologized and then fixed the law.</p>
<p>Seems funny now, but a few years ago DW got ticketed for parking in a no-parking zone. When she parked there first thing in the morning it was a legal space, but during the day the curb was painted red (and you can guess the rest).</p>
<p>Wait hold on. I know ALL about this. Same thing happened to DH. We didn’t find out until he tried to renew his CA driver license and they wouldn’t let him. BIG problem because his job requires military clearances.<br>
VT recently upgraded all their DMV stuff to a system which reports to all states.<br>
It took me several weeks to clear the matter.
Trust me, pay the ticket.</p>
<p>Forgot to say the ticket was from the early 1980s. He did not recall the incident and I didn’t even know him then. We have been married 20 plus years. These records go wayyy back apparently.</p>
<p>I’m a packrat on records. I have receipts, tax records and appointment books, car records going back 30 years. I sometimes wonder if municipalities are making some of this stuff up. Or being rather sloppy with procedures. As I said before, it sounds like revenue generation in desperate times.</p>
<p>Flatlander, 1995 is too old for them to collect. There is a statute of limitations on these things, and any way you look at it the time has long since expired.</p>
<p>Write a letter back to the collection agency and tell them (1) you dispute this claim and (2) ask them to send you the original documentation that supports this claim. Keep a copy of the letter for your records. Then forget about it. </p>
<p>It is likely that you will never hear from them again-- they know this is too old – it is not illegal for them to ask for the money, but there is nothing they can do to collect it if you refuse to pay. So the agencies pick up this sort of stuff on the off chance that they can get some money. </p>
<p>You should run a free credit report with one of the agencies every 4 months. You are entitled to 1 free report per year, and there are 3 major agencies, so if you rotate among them you can check you can monitor your credit on a regular basis.</p>
<p>Credit reporting agencies cannot report unpaid debts that are more than 7 years old, so I doubt that any agency would pick this up – but if it does, you will be able to follow dispute procedures to have it removed.</p>
<p>You should be getting your credit reports anyway – it simply is good practice for a variety of reasons, such as protecting against identity theft.</p>