Do you remember precisely what you were doing on a specific day in 1997? Chances are you don't and neither does former Chicago resident Maya Holcomb. But one thing the current resident of Indiana does know: she never received the parking ticket on 217 South 24th Street she's accused of getting nearly 20 years ago. How can she be so sure? Because the street doesn’t exist. Still, that didn’t stop the city and its collection services from tracking her down nearly 20 years later, demanding that she pay up.
Her story started in October, when she got an intimidating letter from a law firm, notifying Holcomb she owed the city $73 for a parking ticket dating back 19 years.
"When I took the letter out, I looked at the date and I said March 1997? I said that was 19 years ago," Holcomb recounted. “So right away I said this is ridiculous!”
Holcomb had never seen the decades old ticket before and her window to fight it was long over.
"It said, you know, that the time has passed to contest this ticket and I'm like of course I mean it was 19 years ago, you know," Holcomb said.
The City has unlimited time to dig back into archives and chase down a driver for a parking fine, a fact we reported on back in 2015.
But it was what Holcomb learned when she plugged the address in to Google maps, that made her jaw drop.
Local
"The address on that ticket does not exist. There's no such thing as South 24th Street. It's either East 24th street or West 24th Street,” Holcomb said.
She’s right. We checked. 24th Street is an East West street.
"That ticket clearly says South 24th Street and it's not an accurate address. I'm not going to pay for something that is not valid. I'm just flat out against it," Holcomb said.
That’s when she decided to reach out to NBC 5 Responds.
“So I went online and I filled out the online form and 10 minutes later I got a phone call from you and I just thought that was amazing,” Holcomb said.
After our call, the city moved to vacate the ticket and the $73 fine. It was news Holcomb was happy to hear.
“Wow, OK. I think it's awesome, I mean I think it's absolutely awesome,” Holcomb said.
A spokesperson for the city tells NBC 5 Responds the ticket was wiped out because of the error. The city said it sends multiple notifications to ticketed drivers, and pointed out Holcomb never contested her ticket. Holcomb said that’s because she never got the ticket.
