West Allis woman fined after stolen license plates zoom through tollways, red lights
WEST ALLIS (WITI) -- There's a lot of paper work. Letter after letter. Ticket after ticket. Each trip to the mailbox more frustrating than the last. And it was what a West Allis woman didn't do, that started it all.
"At the time, I never thought this would have turned into as big of a deal as it is. The sales guy told me he would take care of it," Ashley Popovich says.
Ashley Popovich
Popovich was trading in her car, buying a new vehicle, and driving happily off the dealer's lot. She didn't need her old license plates anymore because they were for her old car, and she had just purchased a truck, which requires different plates.
"The guy said 'the license plates are fine. You can leave it here and we will take care of it.' You know, 'thanks for buying a car.' And away we went," she recalls.
She didn't think she had anything to worry about.
Until, that is, she started getting tickets. She got tickets for unpaid tolls on the highway. She got tickets for running red lights in Chicago. All of those tickets were adding up to hundreds of dollars in fines and late fees -- and it was a mess trying to prove she wasn't behind the wheel.
As it turns out, somebody had her old license plates. And every time they broke the law, Popovich was getting the bill.
"I don't know if they were taken from the dealership and then sold to someone down in Chicago? Or maybe someone took them out of the garbage at the dealership? I have no idea. They said that they could suspend my license, garnish wages, put a lien against my home all for a stolen license plate," Popovich said.
She didn't have the plates anymore. But it was hard to prove even after she reported them stolen to the state of Wisconsin.
"If it shows in the system as stolen, it shouldn't be coming back to me. I don't own the car. I don't have the plates," Popovich says.
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation says it's not that simple.
"She should have taken them home with her and destroyed them," says Stephanie Gehrand, a Department of Transportation Supervisor based out of Milwaukee.
The Wisconsin DOT says car dealerships should always destroy unwanted license plates. It's not a state law, but it's something that all dealers do. When that doesn't happen, though, your plates could end up in the wrong hands. Gehrand says that's a risk people take if they leave the lot without them.
"You are liable for those plates from the date that you purchase them. For that reason we can cancel them -- but where the physical plate is -- matters," Gehrand said.
Even after you cancel plates, or report them stolen, they can still come back to haunt you. This is especially true in other states, which may not have access to Wisconsin driving records.
In this case, the dealership Popovich bought from says it has a strict policy to remove and destroy plates. What happened, it says, doesn't make sense.
"They obviously dropped the ball somewhere," Popovich says. "Somebody did."
"It doesn't happen frequently, but it happens," admits Jim Tolkan, President of the Auto Dealers Association of Mega Milwaukee.
Tolkan says every car dealership does the same thing.
"You take the plates off and you destroy them," he says. "Literally cut them and throw them away."
The next time Popovich buys a car, though, she won't be taking any chances.
"Take your license plates when you trade in a car," Tolkan says.
Popovich is anxious when she opens her mail.
Popovich worries the people who have her plates might do something worse than run a red light. And if they do, she says, she could be held liable.
"If these people were to, let's say, rob a bank and Joe on the street only sees the license plate and tells the cops -- they will come after me," she says. "They can arrest me."
The DOT says what happened to Popovich was a serious problem in Wisconsin between 2007-2009. It happened so frequently, the state actually created a special unit to deal with these types of cases.
If you don't know where your old plates are, you can cancel the plates at any time by filling out this form as a precaution: http://www.dot.state.wi.us/drivers/forms/mv2514.pdf.