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City clears up red light ticket confusion after On Your Side report

6 years 2 months 1 week ago Thursday, February 08 2018 Feb 8, 2018 February 08, 2018 3:01 PM February 08, 2018 in News
Source: WBRZ

UPDATE: The city says Hayward's ticket problem has been cleared up, citing an administrative error as the likely cause of the confusion. 

The collection agency, American Traffic Solutions, added that this is a rare occurrence and couldn't say how often this has happened in the past.

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BATON ROUGE - A woman says she did the right thing and paid off her red light ticket violation, but months later she's being haunted by the same ticket.

A collection agency sent a notice alerting Catherine Hayward of the outstanding debt that she says, she doesn't have. She kept her receipts and showed them to 2 On Your Side.

"I'm very angry because I don't have money to waste," said Hayward.

In May 2017, Hayward was on the way to the store when she rolled through a red light on Nicholson at Burbank. She knew she has made a mistake and was waiting for that ticket to show up in the mail.

"I was clearly in violation," she said.

It's why she paid the $117 ticket via Money Order by its due date in August at Baton Rouge City Court. She also got a receipt, confirming payment had been made.

Fast forward to January, Hayward received a second notice in the mail saying that same violation went unpaid and now she owes even more for being late.

"They said they were going to send it to a collection agency if I didn't pay it," she said.

It didn't sit well with Hayward, who immediately began calling the City-Parish about her new paperwork. She says she was asked to send in confirmation of her payment to City Court, which she did three times.

Each time, Hayward was told the information was not received and she'd have to send it again. Identifying a pattern, she called 2 On Your Side to help clear it up.

Hayward has no intention of paying the additional fine and is asking it be cleared up immediately.

WBRZ has sent the paperwork, including Hayward's receipt of payment, to the City-Parish. It's waiting for a response.

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