Paying that red-light camera ticket can be tricky

By DAVE LIEBER

watchdog@star-telegram.com

Here’s another way to get annoyed that didn’t exist a few years ago:

You get a red-light camera ticket for driving through an intersection. Oops. You try to pay the $75 civil fine on your computer using a credit card. But the camera company’s Web site is slow to respond.

You’re not sure whether your payment went through, so you hit the enter button again. Maybe a few more times.

Later, you notice on your credit card bill that you’ve been charged more than once. You call the city where you got the ticket, but somebody there says your problem must be handled by the vendor hired to run the program.

But dealing with that vendor is as troublesome as a yellow traffic light that changes too quickly.

That’s what happened to Thom Lake when he got a ticket in Fort Worth. Same thing happened to Kristin Engels when she got hers in North Richland Hills.

Both admit their guilt. How could they not? Video taken by the camera proves it beyond a reasonable doubt. The issue here is what came next.

Fort Worth

Lake paid the fine along with a $4 service charge. When he found out he had been double-charged, he called the city and was told to print and send in a refund form from the city Web site. He did, and he got his $75 back. So far, so good.

But there was a second $4 service charge. He wanted that refunded, too. He called the city but was told to call the vendor, American Traffic Solutions, in Arizona. He left three voice mail messages before he heard back.

The rep wouldn’t budge on a refund until Lake threatened to protest at a City Council meeting.

Almost two months after paying online, he received his $4 refund from ATS in a FedEx envelope. Fort Worth "didn’t make too much of an effort to help me out," Lake says. "I’m the one that had to make the long-distance calls to chase it down. Nobody was rude, but nobody made the effort.

"I had to push it. A lot of people would just blow it off, and that’s where they would generate more money because of people that don’t have time to pursue this."

Fort Worth city traffic engineer Randy Burkett says: "Sometimes when a person makes a payment, they hit the payment twice. We’re trying to work with our vendor to make it more user-friendly so that we can reduce these additional costs to everyone."

Karen Edwards-Fisher, traffic enforcement coordinator, says she can mail a refund a week after she receives the refund form. But only the vendor can refund service charges.

Josh Weiss, spokesman for American Traffic Solutions, says the problem occurs when the payment Web site "may take a little bit to refresh and get confirmation."

"Starting this summer, they have a new screen that pops up in Fort Worth," he said. "It cautions against somebody accidentally doing that kind of double payment."

The new screen alerts a user that a payment was recently made and asks whether the user wants to continue.

Weiss says the best way to get the $4 refund is to dispute the charge with the credit card company. During the investigation, ATS will see the double payment and agree to a quick adjustment.

Looking for comments?