When retired journalist Jim Okerblom contacted the Union-Tribune recently to share a tale of bureaucratic woe involving the DMV, unpaid Bay Area bridge tolls, and a car he sold 11 years ago, he wrote, “I’m not really trying to make this about me. I am quite sure this is happening to others.”
He was right.
After the story about his travails was published, eight readers contacted the U-T to report similar runarounds. Several also received bills for bridge tolls they said they had nothing to do with. One woman spent two years trying to clear things up, eventually hiring a lawyer when the car she had sold was involved in an accident and an insurance company asked her to pay for the damages.
“I feel Okerblom’s pain!” she wrote.
His troubles started in mid-December when he received a bill for a $6 toll on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. The FasTrak invoice included a picture of the car’s license plate — from a Chevy Camaro he’d sold in 2010. More notices arrived in his Escondido mailbox almost daily, eventually totaling about 70.
Apparently, the man he sold the car to never re-registered it, which left Okerblom in the records as the owner, even though he filed the required Notice of Transfer and Release of Liability form with the DMV. That was supposed to clear him of responsibility for any tickets or fines incurred by the new owner.
FasTrak allowed him to appeal the bridge tolls, a cumbersome process, but said he would keep receiving them as long as the DMV records listed him as the owner. The DMV told him there was nothing it could do and suggested he sue the new owner.
After the Union-Tribune contacted the DMV, it investigated further and determined that a record-keeping error had somehow purged the Release of Liability from its computer system. The agency told Okerblom the problem would be fixed. He’s stopped receiving the invoices.
Elisabet Bjanes had a different but equally frustrating experience. In late November, she started getting toll invoices for bridge crossings in the Bay Area, which didn’t make sense because she lives in San Diego. The license plate photos on the invoices captured enough of the car involved to show that it is a dark-colored Cadillac. She drives a gray Honda Fit.
So why were the bills coming to her? Probably because the license plate on the Cadillac is almost identical to the plate on her Fit — just the last digit is different, an 0 instead of an 8.
Bjanes contacted authorities and got nowhere as the number of bills arriving in her mailbox climbed to about 30. She asked for new license plates for her car, figuring that would stop the problem, but the DMV turned her down, citing the unpaid bridge tolls.
After the Union-Tribune contacted the DMV, the agency called Bjanes and said the toll invoices would be cleared from her record. She was also told she could order new license plates.
Another reader has been the beneficiary, not the victim, of the bureaucratic bungling. She bought a used car three years ago and registered it in her name. Occasionally she drives on a toll road, but never gets the bill. She’s contacted FasTrak and offered to pay, but has been told the DMV records don’t show her as the owner.
“Now I just try to avoid toll roads because I feel guilty,” she said.
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Reporter notebook: DMV horror story brings out similar tales from readers - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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