Ticket Error Getting Sent to Collections Agency

[binchois]

My question involves a traffic citation from the state of: MD

I received a parking ticket for $42 last November. Only one ticket was left on my car, but when I went to the city's website to pay the fine the database showed two tickets for my car - one was the citation that was left on my car, and a second ticket that was entered ~30 minutes after the first for the same violation.

I called the city about the second ticket and was told that I should only pay the fine for the first (which I did) and they would remove the second citation from my record. It's been close to a year now, and the second ticket is still on my record. I've called the parking office several times, and each time I call, the person looking at my record immediately notices that the second ticket is invalid and says that the ticket will be flagged for removal from my record, but then nothing happens. One of the customer service representatives even mailed me a notice stating that the second ticket was a "double booking", but the ticket is still on my record.

Anyway, it's been close to a year now, and I've been notified that the ticket will be turned over to a collection agency soon. I'm guessing that this happens automatically to any unpaid ticket that shows up in the database after a certain time. I'll try calling the parking office again, but I seriously doubt anything will happen.

Any suggestions on how to deal with this? If the ticket gets sent to a collection agency would it be possible to sue for harassment or unlawful collection or anything like that?

Thanks.

[lwpat]

Telephone calls are usually worthless unless you follow up with a letter. Call again and this time get the name of the person and follow up with a letter.