Brooklyn, NY – Drivers in New York City have come up with a new scheme to try to avoid paying their parking tickets – collecting and sharing used Muni-Meter receipts.
The scam has motorists with outstanding parking violations rummaging through a box of receipts until they find one with a date and time corresponding to those on their tickets. In an effort to defraud the City, drivers then fraudulently allege that they did, in fact, purchase a Muni-Meter receipt, and submit the receipt as evidence to counter their parking summons. Receipts displaying remaining time are also among those being distributed.
The Daily News reports (http://nydn.us/THMn3E) that one such box of receipts was discovered at the Boro Park Lumber & Home Center at 4601 New Utrecht Avenue. But the store manager insisted the box, labeled “gemach” or “free loan”, was not an internal initiative. “Somebody outside the store did it. We are not involved in it,” he said.
One store employee said visitors come to the store regularly seeking receipts. “People come in here all the time to check it out,” he said.
A total of 9,012,854 parking tickets were issued in fiscal year 2012, bringing in $513 million in fines into City coffers. “No one can dispute the fact that our city is ticket-happy,” remarked Councilman James Vacca (D-Bronx) who chairs the Transportation Committee. “But fraudulently helping people fight tickets when they are actually guilty is over the top.”
The Departments of Finance and Transportation declined to comment.
They’ve all moved to NJ & LI. wonder why? when the Giants won, a gazillion people came in from NY suburbia.
I’d stand on street corners handing out bumper stickers saying @%*& Bloomberg.
For his third term, Bloomberg scumbag paid $175 per each vote for himself from his own money, for advertising/campaigning etc. The other guy paid btwn. $8-10 per each vote from money collected from the masses. And it was still a close vote. This is because while there are limits as to how much each individual/corporation can contribute to a campaign, a candidate themself can contribute as much as they want to their own campaign. So there was no contest. The masses are too stupid, and do not have long enough memory to remember the city pre-Bloomberg/ticket blitzes.
It’s very telling that the dept. of violations and finance declined to comment. It is absolutely sick what NYC has become like in this regard. To aggressively ticket people in this way is wrong. Ticketing should be a slap on the wrist to discourage certain things, not as a primary source of income for the city. It should not be so punitive, and it should not criminalize people. The government should be working for it’s people, not trying to fleece them. The government should not be against the people. It should not be us versus them.
When a city and its mayor are ruthlessly devoted to ticketing at all costs–I got six tickets in 8 months, all on COMPLETE fabrications–and when ticketing becomes the main occupation of the police force, i’m not so sure it’s a chillul Hashem when people find ways to outsmart.
totally illegal. Against halacha, and a chillul hashem.
stealing from a goy is also asur (recently in rambam 3 perakim per day)
Thats awesome. i gotta say jews are smart
uhm. why should the city be allowed to charge a resident to park on the street? i pay taxes through the nose already which pays my share over the top for the street and its upkeep. i ahve no probelm getting out of a icket any way i can. i’m preventing theft from me.
There is no justification for this. It is simply wrong. The only thing that may be ok is when leaving a spot passing on a ticket with unused $ on it. Maybe that was what the store thought it was for?
That’s theft.
that crazy
happened to me too
Let’s start getting a databse going with all the dates available. The ticket in question can be mailed for a fee.
Help raise money for a Charity!
A loving NYC’er
Much bigger problems than tznuis is right.
And yet all our community talks about is the tznius problem
this was seen by a friend of mine
a lady parked her car & walked to the muni meter.
while she was putting $$$ in meter she got a parking ticket
There tens of millions new yorkers, and one government, when a citizen does something wrong its bad but when the city gives illegitimate tickets that’s a hundred times worse, correct wrong is wrong regardless of who is doing the act but when the city gives tickets for garbage on a property that was not there that’s way worse because there is no one to talk to and paying for tickets that were uncalled for outrageous, I believe that if a citizen goes to court and wins the case meaning the judge believes he I in the right the city should… Read more »
To all those complaining about this, can I assume that you never fight your parking tickets and lie to try to get the ticket dismissed???
Good job!
Fight back against the evil that NYC Bureaucrats and public servants do to the citizens.
THey can probably trace the ticket back to the cc that purchased it.
whats wrong with us our mosdos chinuch are suffering from tuition we don’t want to pay or cant pay
i wounder how much we pay out in parking fines that could of been spent on yidishe gashmius
i would walk a mile before i let the city have a dime of mine
yes, you are helping yourself save some money.
i wouldnt do whats written in the article but to have a box at the muni meters where you can drop off you unused time would be a great idea
perhaps even bigger issue than what they’re doing IS THE PERSON THAT SNITCHED!
u aint helping nobody when you cheating like that.
wow! why don’t WE come up with such great ideas to help one another. you can count on boro park and williamsburg for that. here in CH, you’ll have tzadikim like the comment #1 only.
It is theft, what message are we teaching our children!
By submitting those tickets we are committing fraud and sending it via mail is ‘mail fraud’, or over the internet commits another federal felony etc. Lying to a government official etc.
There are enough Jewish men and women in prison, there are enough children growing up with a parent in prison, do you want your children to be in that category!
And to announce it using the title ‘gemach’ is using a holy name for the worst use!!!!!!!
if you hate your children, parents, family why not shoot them!!!!