RICHMOND, Va. --One Richmond woman said she was mailed a parking ticket from the city of Norfolk and has been fighting for nearly five months to clear her name because it isn’t hers and the matter is creating complications in her life.
Angela Brown reached out to the CBS 6 Problem Solvers after months of calling and being unable to sort it all out.
She said she was floored to get the bill in the mail because the ticket was written nearly 100 miles away at a time when she says was working in downtown Richmond.
“Everybody makes mistakes and stuff, but this is a big mistake,” Brown said. She’s said there must have been a serious mix-up between her car and another vehicle.
It’s a mix-up that Brown says is about to cost her money, prevent her from registering her car at DMV and possibly impact her credit because the matter was sent to a collection agency.
“That’s one of my big worries because my credit is good, and I want to keep it like that,” Brown explained.
Brown showed a bill she received in the mail reminding her to pay $135 for an outstanding parking ticket written by a Norfolk officer on March 2. The problem is, she said she was never in Norfolk that day – nor was her car.
Brown believes it is just a case of someone writing down the wrong tag number. She explained what happened when she called a Norfolk customer service rep to try and clear it up.
“She told me what it was and I said ma’am this is not me and you need to fix it. When she gave the description, I knew it wasn’t mine,” Brown said.
She pointed out the differences between the two vehicles. Brown’s Dodge Charger is white, and she says she was told the other vehicle was either silver or blue with a tag that expired in May.
Brown showed us her tag which expires in September. The Richmond woman says the description of a sticker on the bumper of the ticketed vehicle is nothing like the sticker she has in the window of her car.
CBS 6 Problem solvers contacted a customer service line for the city of Norfolk. We were told the citation number matched a black Ford SUV registered to a man.
We contacted DMV on Brown‘s behalf and connected her with officials there.
A day later Brown shared emails she received clearing her name and halting the collection activity.
The emails also explained that the officer mistakenly wrote down the tag number wrong. The SUV’s tag is just a few letters off from Brown’s.
Now that her issue is cleared up, Brown says she is no longer worried about the $135 bill and she will be able to register her car at DMV next month.
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