A Texas man who says he hasn’t visited Philadelphia in more than 40 years received two Philadelphia Parking Authority speeding tickets for a Mercedes he doesn’t own, prompting questions about how a canceled license plate was linked to his name.<\/p>\n
Ronald Clements, who lives in Dallas, said the violations included a license plate number that wasn’t his and a photo of a dark Mercedes.<\/p>\n
“I certainly don’t drive a Mercedes,” Clements said.<\/p>\n
Clements said he contacted the Philadelphia Parking Authority to explain the problem. He said the license plate number on the tickets had previously been on a white Buick he bought in 2022, but he replaced the tag after purchasing the vehicle.<\/p>\n
“‘This particular tag is coming up under your name, and you’re responsible for this.’ And I go, ‘no, I don’t think so,'” Clements said.<\/p>\n
Clements then went to the Texas DMV and obtained a letter confirming the plate wasn’t his and had been canceled in 2022. He said he shared that letter with the PPA but was unable to resolve the issue.<\/p>\n
“I’m just so frustrated, you know. And I tried to explain myself, but they were just adamant that, ‘hey, this is on you,'” Clements said.<\/p>\n
That’s when Clements contacted NBC10 Responds.<\/p>\n
NBC10 Responds reached out to the Texas DMV and the PPA. Texas confirmed Clements’ paperwork was accurate and its records showed the plate had been canceled.<\/p>\n
The PPA asked NBC10 Responds to provide the letter stating that Texas had canceled the plate. Clements said he had already provided the document.<\/p>\n
Nine days after NBC10 Responds re-shared the letter, Clements received another letter from the PPA notifying him that the fees had been waived.<\/p>\n
NBC10 Responds then followed up with the PPA and Texas DMV to determine how Clements had been linked to the license plate on the citations.<\/p>\n
The PPA said it sent the plate number to Texas and the search returned Clements’ information. Texas said that when someone searches the plate number, Clements’ record may still appear even though the plate is also marked as canceled.<\/p>\n
That raised another question: How could someone be driving a vehicle with a canceled license plate?<\/p>\n
Law enforcement officials say it’s possible someone created a new plate using information from the canceled one.<\/p>\n
Sgt. Joe Escribano of the Travis County Constable’s Office in Texas investigates license plate fraud.<\/p>\n
“We in the past here have seen there has been somewhat of an influx and people still use those plates and they’ll go ahead and get the false ones,” Escribano said.<\/p>\n
“If you have somebody that’s selling stuff illegally, I think the best thing for them to do like they did on this one, they just go ahead and pick a random. It was probably just random. They just pick that number or they found it and they just put it in there,” Escribano said.<\/p>\n
Escribano said anyone can buy a custom metal license plate online with whatever letters and numbers they choose.<\/p>\n
“If you get something like that and put it on your car, go commit a crime, I mean, that’s gonna be tough to detect,” Escribano said.<\/p>\n
Because the plates can look real, law enforcement may not know who’s behind the wheel unless an officer pulls over the driver and runs the plate in person. If a speed camera captures the plate, it can result in a ticket being sent to the wrong person.<\/p>\n
“The problem is that the victim like the person that you have is being victimized and they’re having to go through all the hoops,” Escribano said.<\/p>\n
An NBC10 Responds Philadelphia police source said the license plate number on Clements’ citation has appeared on 10 different cars.<\/p>\n
If you receive a ticket for a vehicle or license plate that isn’t yours, don’t ignore it. Even if you don’t owe the fine, the violation could still be linked to your name in other databases and late fees could add up over time.<\/p>\n
If you believe someone is using a license plate that doesn’t belong to them, law enforcement says to report it.<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC Philadelphia. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC Philadelphia journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Texas man who says he hasn’t visited Philadelphia in more than 40 years received two Philadelphia Parking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[21563,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-271707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-nbc10-responds","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}