Fought a ticket bot for 3 weeks over one wrong digit in my plate

I got a $140 camera ticket in the mail for running a red light at 5th and Main in Columbus, but the plate in the photo was one digit off from mine. I called the city and they said I had to dispute it online, and the online form kept rejecting me with a generic error message. So I mailed a written dispute with a photo of my car and the ticket side by side, certified, and 19 days later I got a letter saying it was dropped. Turns out a human had to read it because the bot couldn't handle the plate mismatch at all. How long did your automated dispute take to get in front of a real person, if it ever did?

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emeryfox6d ago

Did you ever try just paying it and fighting it after? Honestly that sounds like a nightmare and I see it the other way. If the plate is one digit off, that's clearly not your car, so why should you have to jump through hoops at all? The city should toss that on their own without you mailing certified letters and waiting almost three weeks. Tbh the whole thing bugs me because they make it easier to just hand over $140 than to prove you're right, and most people probably pay it.

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