Bullied by Parking Authority, third victim fights back -- his email to Councillor Fielding

The following email was sent to City Councillor Scott Fielding (St. James-Brooklands) and was copied to our show.

This is the case we discussed on-air last Thursday, about how a driver was duped into thinking the Parking Authority was going to deal with him reasonably. Instead he was being set-up to pay an extra $233 for an illegal lien on a car he had sold months before.

He got called "stupid" for not realizing he was played for a fool by a WPA official -- who told him any complaints were to be sent to HER. And 311 was of NO help. The WPA, it appears, can do whatever they want to drivers in Winnipeg, knowing that ultimately, the City pays for their lawyer and the executives and employees responsible face no consequences.

Wednesday after 4 PM on 92.9 Kick-FM, we will ask Coun. Jeff Browaty about this and other recent WPA horror stories; we plan to ask Mayor Sam Katz about them as well, on Thursday when he appears in studio.

**********************************************

My Story begins Wednesday January 27th. I received a registered letter from the city of Winnipeg Parking authority advising me that a vehicle that I traded in back in July (2002 Civic)for a new one had a lien against it.

At the bottom of the notice I was advised to contact Hook Adventures for more information. Being a diligent individual I immediately phoned to get this cleared up. My first thought was that something had happened to the car after I traded it in and I was being blamed. As soon as I started to explain to the gentleman who answered the phone that I didn’t own the car, and hadn’t for over 6 months he advised me to contact parking authority directly because there shouldn’t have been a lien issued for this car and I shouldn’t have to pay the additional $80 for the lien fee.

Again I quickly phoned 311 and spoke to a delightful woman who advised me that she could help me out, she looked up the reason for the lien and found out that I had 4 outstanding parking tickets, one from 2002, two from 2003 and another from 2006. She was also able to see that I do get parking tickets, we live in Winnipeg, who doesn’t? But that every time one was issued I paid the ticket within days, all except these four. The woman from 311 also didn’t understand why parking authority issued a lien against a vehicle that I didn’t own, and her thought were that I shouldn’t have to pay this fee either, but that the parking authority was closed and she would have someone call me the next day to discuss.

The next day I received a call from Olga. She never explained what her role was, but she told me that the Parking Authority had been mailing me notices about these tickets for years. I asked her to clarify that for me, where were they sent? How were they send, and when? Olga proceeded to list two addresses that I never lived at, and then my current address. According to their records 6 notices had been mailed to my house. I explained in all honesty that I hadn’t received them and that I wasn’t disputing the tickets, it was possible that I got 4 tickets years ago and never knew. It’s possible I suppose, I just wanted to pay the ticket fines and was willing to pay the collection fee.

I just explained to Olga that I didn’t think that it was fair to pay to have a lien issued against a vehicle that I didn’t own and someone should have checked records to ensure that I did own the car in question. At first Olga said that there was nothing that she could do, flatly refusing my request. In retaliation, I asked her to explain the process to me that brought about this lien on my old car.

Olga did explain the process, apparently it is all MPI’s fault that Parking Authority had the wrong addresses, odd since I still got my autopac renewal notices, and it’s MPI’s fault that the Parking Authority put a lien on the wrong vehicle.

According to Olga, MPI’s records still list me as the registered owner of the 2002 Civic that I traded in. I explain to Olga that I am not trying to get out of paying this bill, as I said, I never once disputed that these tickets are mine, I just don’t agree that I should pay to have a lien issued on a car when WPA didn’t even check to see if I own the car. Olga’s retort? Apparently the Winnipeg Parking Authority can tow any vehicle belonging to my household. I tell her that I find this hard to believe since they issues a lien on a vehicle and notice was given if I don’t pay the lien, that this vehicle, a 2002 civic would be towed.

Olga continues to explain that they can take any car in my driveway. I again explain that I am trying to take care of this, and it is at this point Olga told me that if I could bring her my bill of sale for my new car, showing the trade in she would take those charges off and I could take care of my bill at her office.

Fast forward a day and in the mail I get a notice in the regular mail of 4 outstanding parking tickets for a total of $360 payable to the Winnipeg parking authority. I of course think that paying this bill is ok since it has finally been mailed to my house.

I stop at the Parking Authority office on my way home from work on Tuesday to pay my outstanding bill of $360. Right away the young woman at the counter gets confused and asks if I received a notice of lien? I begin to explain the story from the beginning and the girl stops me and call over her manager Lucy. Lucy right away asks if I brought the paperwork that Olga had requested?

I again explain the story from the beginning and try to explain that this is the first notice that I received about the $360 and just want to pay it.

Lucy proceeds to tell me that I need to get the bill of sale for my new car, and I need to provide her with the sales slip showing the VIN from the old car proving that I traded it in and then I could take care of the bill that I received in the mail.

She left me with the woman at the front counter to confer with Olga. While she was away, the front counter person explained again to me what documents I needed to collect from the dealership to be able to take care of the bill at the parking authority office rather than through Hook Ventures, thereby bypassing the collection fee and the lien fee.

I wrote everything down that I needed. 1. Bill of sale for new car 2. Sales slip showing title transfer of old car with VIN.

When Lucy came back from speaking with Olga, I clarified with her again what I needed to do to be able to pay the $360 bill directly to Winnipeg Parking Authority. We went over both items that I needed to bring in and I asked if I couldn’t get exactly these items if I could get a letter from the dealership, not knowing if I had a copy of the sales slip from the 2002 civic. Lucy told me that they would contact the dealership, but if I could find the paperwork it would be much faster and that she would be at the office until 5:00pm so if I wanted to get this cleared up that day to hurry back.

I immediately rushed home and began searching through all my records in the office. I have to say at this point I wanted to one, get the lien removed from a car that I didn’t own and that may be getting set up to be towed from some strangers driveway, and two thinking that if I could get this done quickly I would save $233 in lien fees and collection agency fees because I could deal directly with the city of Winnipeg.

I find the requested documents and race back to the parking authority office to arrive at 4:50 pm only to be told that Lucy had just left. Early? I remembered Lucy saying that she would be at the office until five and to hurry back to get this cleared up. The girl working the counter phones Lucy, telling me that she probably just left. Lucy tells the girl that she isn’t coming back, but to take the original documents from me and that I can pick them up the next day and that Lucy would call me once everything was cleared up, and Lucy gets off the phone.

When the WPA employee relays this message to me, I politely tell her that I will not leave my original purchase documents with her, but she can photocopy the ones that they need. While she is photocopying, the photocopier is right at the counter, she tells me that she doesn’t know what she needs, but that she is going to photocopy everything and she is wondering if I want to leave a $360 checque so that I don’t have to come back.

Turns out she was working at the till next to the one I was at earlier, and she apologized that her boss left early, even she remembered that Lucy told me she would be around until five. I again, politely told her that I would wait until they got this cleared up in their system, then I would come down to their offices again.

tried calling Lucy the next day and after two messages left it in her hands to call me back. By Thursday I still had not heard from Lucy so I tried calling her again. After leaving two more messages I tried to call a third time and surprisingly Lucy answered her phone.

I began the conversation by telling her who I was and started to re-explain my situation, thinking that my situation must be rare enough that she would remember. Well, she did remember and her reply. “Well, if there was anything that I was supposed to do for you I would have called you back, but since your account has gone to Hook Ventures you need to deal with them.”

Right away I am completely confused because this is the woman that told me that if I could provide her with documentation that I didn’t own my car and that the parking authority made a mistake that she would take the lien fee off my bill and let me pay my outstanding parking tickets at her office.

I reiterate what I had discussed, both with Lucy in the office and with Olga over the phone. Again Lucy tells me that once a file has gone to Hook Ventures there is nothing that she can do in her office. I then ask her why she told me that I could deal with my account at her office if I collected the documents that she needed. Lucy told me that I must have “inferred” what she and her employees were saying incorrectly, because they would never tell me that I could “pay” my bill there. By saying that I could handle my bill at her office, she meant that I would be able to pay future parking tickets at her office. Needless to say we got into a heated back and forth.

All my notes are very clear as to what I had to do, and even two of her employees that work the front counter, the first one that I verified with and the one that I spoke to in the evening when I went back both told me that they understood that I would be paying $360 in their office.

One of them even had the audacity to ask me for a cheque.

Obviously Lucy had told me in front of WPA staff that I could pay my outstanding tickets at her office. When I asked her why they would do this, she told me that they must have been confused. I then asked Lucy why I would run around and spend time trying to collect documents unless her and her staff (Olga) had told me that my bill would be reduced, again reminding her that I want to pay an outstanding bill, and that I never claimed that the tickets were not mine.

Again her reply surprised me

“If you were too stupid and weren’t smart enough to figure out that we needed those documents to transfer the lien to your new car that’s not my fault.”

As I said, I was blown away.

It was then that I got really upset, I asked Lucy who her boss was so that I could write a letter of complaint and she refused to give me a name. She told me to send a letter to her address, attention: Manager of Winnipeg Parking Authority. I then asked Lucy “Aren’t you the manager of the parking authority?” because that’s what she had told me previously, and she said “exactly” Basically stating that I would be sending a letter of complaint directly to Lucy herself.

The back and forth continued with me still trying to understand how a city of Winnipeg Manager could wilfully lie and manipulate someone with no recourse. I asked her how she could flatly lie to me now that I had provided the documents she requested, and she just kept being belligerent. Obviously I was the one lying because no one in her office would ever say what I wrote down that they said.

In all my years as a professional I have never been spoken to in such a disrespectful manner and when I said that to Lucy, she told me that she was surprised because you get what you give. Obviously there was no talking to anyone at the parking authority so I got off the phone.

The next step was to get off the phone and go pay the tickets at Hook Ventures, which I did right away. As I stated from the beginning, I was never trying to get out of paying the tickets, I never denied the tickets were mine, I just wanted to be clear that how everything was handled was unorganized and disrespectful.

I find it disgraceful that we have city employees that are allowed create fiefdoms within city bureaucracy and we as citizens have no recourse.

I was upon calling back in to 311 able to get a phone number for a woman that is supposedly the manager of Lucy, but after leaving one voicemail message and not getting a reply I decided that I had wasted enough of my time trying to get some satisfaction from the Winnipeg Parking Authority

It’s very clear to me that they have no interest in making sure things are handled properly and with respect.