The Check’s in the Mail
Feb 12th, 2008 by Alex
I got a parking ticket in Federal Hill this weekend. The usual complaints about oddly worded parking signs aside, there’s no contesting that I was parked in the wrong place. I did, unknowingly, and I’m not worried. I have good karma when it comes to parking. I usually find it without too many problems and the last parking ticket I received was eight years ago at UMBC, which I contested and got dismissed (because I was really cheap back then).
In order to be a good citizen, I figured I’d pay the thing as soon as possible online. The payment options are laid out on the back on the ticket, including “TO PAY ONLINE GO TO www.baltimorecity.gov and select Online Payments.” While it’s great that you can pay parking and red light fines online — saving countless trees, stamps, fleeing children in Darfur — the Department of Finance sets you up for failure. Either that, or they aren’t quite there yet, technologically speaking.
Payment on parking fines from the City of Baltimore are due within 15 days of the violation date, yet according to their web site “it may take up to 3 weeks from the date of your citation for it to appear in our database.”
Which means that if I insisted on paid online I could be late before the citation even shows up. In addition to some portion of the $16/month late fee that would be assessed, there’s a $7 fee for online credit card payments. There’s also fees for payments by phone. These sorts of fees irritate me. I understand there’s a percentage due to the credit card processing companies plus a per-transaction fee, but we aren’t talking that much money. The City (and others) ought to be giving citizens (and consumers) options that make it preferable to pay online versus writing a check and sticking it in an envelope. So much for the environment.
Update: It’s there now, so I’m guessing that the enforcement types work the weekends but the IT types don’t.
I got a ticket recently b/c I didn’t move my car in a few days and some bus body neighbor got upset and called 311. I paid my ticket online with no fees and on time. It took a couple days to show up, so just keep checking. As for the new fee park you can give them your checking account info and authorize a transfer for the fine for no additional charge.
I know exactly what you mean man. Additionally we see the reversely with purchasing software online. It’s the same software, only without the box, literature, and physical media. Therefore cheaper by far. However nobody gets a discount for buying the online version.
Seven bucks to pay online is a rip-off. It’s like my credit card company wanting another fifteen dollars to pay by phone because they know the alternative is a $39 late fee.
Paul: I just mailed it up. Though I’ve heard everything works okay, the 3rd party payment processing company looked a bit sketchy to me.
DJ: I miss the days of having a box w/ instructions and media. I still buy that sort of software rather than the download-only version.
yellowjkt: Creditors have always been their money on fees. Interest is bad enough, but the fees are pure profit for them.