Man has license plate stolen but is on the hook for parking tickets racked up by thief
Saginaw, Michigan resident, Joe Polzin, has received the bill from parking tickets for infractions committed by the thieves who stole his old license plate. As reported by WNEM TV 5, Polzin reported his license plate missing in November of 2013 and he received a replacement from the state. Mr. Polzin said, “Yeah I got the paperwork here from Lansing that shows that I paid a five dollar fee and that I reported it missing or stolen.”
The Secretary of State’s office told the station that such a report would have been updated in their system in 24 hours. But Polzin’s filing clearly flew under the radar because he was issued six parking tickets by the city of Saginaw, which were racked up by two different vehicles in January and February of this year. The different vehicles did not raise any red flags, and Polzin has been left with $300 in fines. It’s money he says he just doesn’t have. “Well its pretty stressful and quite upsetting, makes you mad,” said the victim. “They told me I gotta prove myself innocent before they’ll do anything about the tickets.” Despite having the paperwork to prove his case, the tickets have been unchanged.
Calls by WNEM to the city of Saginaw were unanswered. The debt from the half dozen tickets has been turned over to a collection agency. Polzin was resigned saying, “There’s nothing really I can do about it at this time.”
So what can you do to prevent the theft of your license plate? YouTube user Charlie Sarsfield has a pretty clever trick. He demonstrates that you can go in through the back of the license plate holder and put a bolt through a nylon insert locknut, making it so that someone screwing from the outside of the car will just endlessly spin the bolt around. Also, quick side note, if you have registration stickers on your license plate, Lifehacker points out that you can prevent those from being stolen by slicing the applied sticker with a razor blade. If you do that, removing it will have to be done in pieces, something a robber on the go doesn’t have time for.
Video and more info: WNEM, YouTube/Charlie Sarsfield, Lifehacker
