Stolen license plate leads to parking violations for Fishtown woman | Troubleshooters

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- If you've ever had the headache of dealing with the City of Philadelphia bureaucracy, you will relate to the aggravation felt by a consumer who turned to the Troubleshooters for help.

It's a twisty tale involving a woman getting billed for parking violations that weren't hers.

Rachel Dotter, of Philadelphia's Fishtown section, came to Action News after even her City Council person couldn't get the situation resolved. Those violations were issued for a license plate that had been stolen from her car.

The situation unfolded as Dotter was pregnant with her now 8-month-old baby.

"I walked out to my car that was parked just about maybe 50 feet from my house on June 1, and noticed that the license plate was missing," she explained. "I immediately just called 911. I filed the police report."

She got a new license plate and registration.

But weeks later, Dotter got a surprise in the mail -- three different parking violations associated with the plate that had been stolen.

The Philadelphia Parking Authority issues violation tickets and the Bureau of Administrative Adjudication, or BAA, handles billing as well as disputes.

Dotter appealed with the BAA, providing documentation proving she wasn't responsible.

But she was denied due to "insufficient evidence."

"And there was no elaboration whatsoever," said Dotter.

Months later, she was slapped with another notice that all her vehicles would be booted.

"It felt like they were trying to just exhaust me into paying," she said.

So then Dotter went in person to the BAA and was told to submit more paperwork.

"And so I go to City Hall, I'm like on this goose chase," she explained.

Dotter did manage to re-appeal, only to be denied again.

"I also then got a notification that I was going to be sent to collections. I'm under contract for a house and I have good credit, and I just didn't want to risk this affecting my credit score."

So she paid the fines and contacted the Troubleshooters for help in getting back her $306 for the principal of the matter.

As a courtesy, even though the PPA doesn't manage fines, the agency helped Dotter anyway, getting the matter resolved to her satisfaction.

"But I would love to know if something like this happens again, what can be done besides going to a news outlet to find some resolution," she asked.

The Troubleshooters did ask about that and the advice was to appeal the decision, which as you know, Dotter tried to do.