NY state agency snatching tax refunds for mysterious debts without proof or due process

[Demovictory9]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-yorkers-say-state-agency-snatched-their-tax-refunds/

David Evans, a 59-year-old New Yorker, was making a modest living working as a messenger and enjoying a state tax refund of $150 or $200. But in the last four years, his refund hasn't been coming through, Evans told CBS News.


Two years ago, he figured out where the money went. It was being sent to the New York City transit authority (NYCTA), which operates the city's subways and buses. After some digging, Evans found that there was an outstanding judgment against him for a debt totaling $1,900. Where did that debt originate? Ten tickets issued between 1999 and 2005.

"At the beginning I was baffled. Could this be me? Is this not me? Then I saw the numbers," Evans said.

In New York, you can get ticketed for entering the subway without paying, smoking on the platform or putting your feet up on a seat. But Evans doesn't remember getting the tickets, nor what they are for, he told CBS News.

Evans said he paid multiple visits to the NYCTA's enforcement office but he's never seen the tickets. When he asked to see the documentation against him that led to the judgments, Evans said, he was told these documents might not exist and that he would have to pay to see them—an amount upward of $400, according to a lawsuit Evans and another New York resident filed against the NYCTA.

"At no point have I ever seen the summons with my name on it, my signature, a date saying this and that happened. I've never seen anything. They say I have a ticket from a crossing guard, but I've never seen one," said Evans, who now lives on disability payments since ending his job last year.

The lawsuit, which is seeking class-action status, accuses the transit authority of bilking money from low-income New Yorkers without due process. In this case, due process would include seeing evidence about their supposed violations.

[CrispyQ]

1. He would have to pay to see documents that might not exist?

[Igel]

2. That's his claim.

He might have gotten it a bit skewed. I have no doubt that there'd be a fee for the records search and copies, it's a standard way for a bureaucracy to defray costs that are unpredictable, can be frivolous if they're free, and don't actually do what the agency's set up to do. I also have no doubt that it's phrased in the court filing so as to make him seem as right and wronged as possible--he's clearly on one side here; or that the reporter would merrily have simplified what he said in order to make it more of a hook for readership attention.

It's like a FOIA request, otherwise. There's a fee for the documents, it's a Freedom of Information request, not a Free Information request. If there were no fee, then everybody would always be asking for document searches, and they'd spend hundreds of millions per week on searches just to answer curiosity, random questions, etc.

[Merlot]

3. Something similar happend to me once with parking tickets

I started getting collection calls regarding a parking ticket in a different city I had not been to. Did some digging and found out the parking ticket division had sold a bunch of outstanding tickets to a collection agency. I have no idea how my information got into that cities database but when I asked them for a copy of the ticket they stopped calling me.

Eventually the city stopped the program. Apparently I wasn't the only one to figure out it was a scam.

[Demovictory9]

4. pure profit. hassle random people for $$. Many will pay.