NBC10 Responds<\/a> the citations listed a license plate number that wasn\u2019t his and showed a photo of a vehicle he had never driven.<\/p>\n\u201cI certainly don\u2019t drive a Mercedes,\u201d Clements said.<\/p>\n
A canceled plate that kept coming back<\/p>\n
Clements said the plate number on the tickets had previously been assigned to a white Buick he bought in 2022, but he replaced the tag after purchasing the vehicle. He contacted the Texas DMV and obtained a letter confirming the plate had been canceled that year.<\/p>\n
He said he shared the letter with the PPA but could not get the tickets dismissed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just so frustrated, you know. And I tried to explain myself, but they were just adamant that, \u2018hey, this is on you,’\u201d Clements said.<\/p>\n
After Clements contacted NBC10 Responds, the station reached out to both the Texas DMV and the PPA. Texas confirmed his paperwork was accurate and that its records showed the plate had been canceled. The PPA asked NBC10 Responds to provide the cancellation letter, even though Clements said he had already submitted it.<\/p>\n
Nine days after the station re-shared the document, the PPA notified Clements the fees had been waived.<\/p>\n
Plate appeared on 10 different cars<\/p>\n
The PPA told NBC10 it had sent the plate number to Texas and the search returned Clements\u2019 information. Texas said that when someone searches the canceled plate, Clements\u2019 record may still appear even though the plate is also marked as canceled.<\/p>\n
An NBC10 Responds Philadelphia police source said the license plate number on Clements\u2019 citation has appeared on 10 different cars.<\/p>\n
That raised a broader question: how could someone be driving with a canceled plate?<\/p>\n
Sgt. Joe Escribano of the Travis County Constable\u2019s Office in Texas, who investigates license plate fraud, said anyone can buy a custom metal plate online with whatever letters and numbers they choose.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you have somebody that\u2019s 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,\u201d Escribano said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you get something like that and put it on your car, go commit a crime, I mean, that\u2019s gonna be tough to detect,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Speed cameras can\u2019t catch the fraud<\/p>\n
Because cloned plates can look real, law enforcement may not know who is behind the wheel unless an officer pulls over the driver and runs the plate in person. If a speed camera captures the plate, the ticket goes to whoever the database links to that tag number.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is that the victim like the person that you have is being victimized and they\u2019re having to go through all the hoops,\u201d Escribano said.<\/p>\n
For anyone in Northeast Philadelphia or elsewhere who receives a ticket for a vehicle or plate that isn\u2019t theirs, the advice from NBC10 Responds is simple: don\u2019t ignore it. Even if you don\u2019t owe the fine, the violation could remain linked to your name in other databases, and late fees could pile up. Law enforcement says anyone who believes someone is using a plate that doesn\u2019t belong to them should report it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Dallas man who says he hasn\u2019t set foot in Philadelphia in more than 40 years received two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-272319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272319","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=272319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}