Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#1

Post by jaredsohn » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 8:53 PM UTC

Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You
techcrunch.com

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#2

Post by rdp » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 9:00 PM UTC

The first question that came to mind upon reading this was: "are lawyers involved in the contest letter filing process? If not, I wonder if they may have a problem re: unauthorized practice of law in CA.

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#3

Post by joeframbach » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 9:15 PM UTC

rdp wrote: post #2

The first question that came to mind upon reading this was: "are lawyers involved in the contest letter filing process? If not, I wonder if they may have a problem re: unauthorized practice of law in CA.

Do lawyers need to be involved? The rules are here: http://www.sfmta.com/services/permits-citations/contest-cita...

All it takes is to submit a letter. Doesn't say who has to submit the letter.

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#4

Post by Karunamon » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 9:15 PM UTC

Don't you usually end up paying more in court costs + penalties if you fight a ticket in court and lose?

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#5

Post by wikwocket » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 9:18 PM UTC

Pretty cool idea. I think it could really take off and go nationwide.

Helping people to deal with government labyrinths is always a good angle, especially when money is on the line. Here in Chicagoland there are dozens or hundreds of law firms that only exist to help residents appeal their property taxes. They do the research to find arguments for lower taxes, and do the legwork of appealing.

I would imagine that local government may have a hissy fit if this started to happen in other arenas, like for parking tickets, but there is clearly already an appeal process for tickets, and so they are really just using the existing system.

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#6

Post by wikwocket » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 9:20 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #4

Don't you usually end up paying more in court costs + penalties if you fight a ticket in court and lose?

I don't know about California, but here parking tickets (as opposed to speeding tickets) are civil matters. They don't go to court, they're handled at City Hall like any other type of fee or fine.

There is an existing appeal process, and it's likely that they either say, "Okay, ticket dismissed" or "Sorry, ticket stands, send payment in."

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#7

Post by wehadfun » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 9:20 PM UTC

Beautiful.

This is probably one of the better legal start ups.

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#8

Post by dbbolton » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 9:22 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #4

Don't you usually end up paying more in court costs + penalties if you fight a ticket in court and lose?

>If Fixed gets your ticket dismissed, you pay it 25 percent of what the ticket would have cost. If it loses, you pay the ticket like normal but pay Fixed nothing.

I assumed this meant that Fixed would be picking up the legal fees (likely with the revenue from winning cases). If not, then there's really no advantage to using it except you don't have to show up to the court date.

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#9

Post by devinmontgomery » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 9:22 PM UTC

But what are future YC applicants going to use as examples of non-computer systems they've hacked?

Re: Hate Parking Tickets? Fixed Fights Them In Court For You

#10

Post by tostitos1979 » Wed, Jan 15, 2014, 9:25 PM UTC

This isn't the same thing it seems but I recall a documentary/movie about the dotcom craze in the late 90s called startup.com. My recollection is that the company portrayed in that documentary (GovWorks?) got the lucrative contract of handling NYC parking ticket payments online. Ah ... memories.