Bad parking ticket issued with ICBC's help
Another B.C. parking-lot company issues fines based on obsolete information
A southeastern B.C. man says the Insurance Corporation of B.C. is carelessly giving dated information to parking lot companies to help them issue parking-fine tickets to car owners.
Steve Duckworth, of Castlegar, hadn’t been to Metro Vancouver for the previous 18 months when he was issued a ticket for allegedly parking his car in October in a lot in Richmond operated by the Imperial Parking Corporation, or Impark.
The $80 ticket was issued to a licence plate on a vehicle Duckworth cancelled the insurance on almost two years ago.
"This situation has almost become a joke to me," Duckworth told CBC News. "I have a hard time believing, in this day and age, I can even get a ticket 600 kilometres away for a license plate that hasn't even been active in two years."
Duckworth said he tried to fight the Impark ticket, but was told by the company it submitted the plate number to ICBC, whose records showed he was the last owner of the plate.
'Obsolete information'
Duckworth said ICBC is providing personal driver information to private parking lot companies without properly checking its own records.
"I'm wondering how it is that ICBC would even be providing old, obsolete information to a third party."
The Better Business Bureau gives Impark an "F" rating, the worst mark it hands out, after receiving 146 complaints — 101 of them to do with billing and collection issues.
When CBC News contacted Impark Thursday about Duckworth’s complaint, the company quickly cancelled the ticket, admitting it made a mistake.
A CBC News investigation in September captured video of workers from another parking lot company — Diamond Parking — handing out hefty violation notices to drivers who'd parked legally.
In a case similar to Duckworth’s, CBC News reported on a Victoria man was ticketed in October for parking at a Kelowna Diamond Parking lot he'd never visited. It turned out that ICBC helped the company issue a ticket to the man’s B.C. plate — even though the ticket was originally issued to a seven-number Alberta licence.
ICBC promised a review of Diamond parking and now says it will also consult with Impark about the foulup.
With files from the CBC's Eric Rankin