State lawmaker wants hearings in Albany on license plate fraud

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – A state lawmaker is demanding that hearings be held in Albany to tackle the growing problem of license plate fraud — after hearing from drivers in his district including Watertown, who’ve gotten bogus toll bills.

And it’s not just happening there.

A local attorney says he’s seeing more and more cases right here in Western New York.

“They’re starting to pile up,” said Eddie Sundquist, an attorney with offices in Buffalo and Jamestown. He said within the last six months, he’s seen an uptick in calls from drivers claiming to be victims of license plate fraud and getting relentless toll bills in the mail from places they haven’t been to.

“All related to individuals that are here locally in the Southern Tier in Chautauqua County,” Sundquist said.

Drivers who have gotten an onslaught of toll bills from other states on cars that aren’t theirs after they surrendered their license plates at the Jamestown Department of Motor Vehicles for their numbers to be destroyed. The Jamestown DMV is located at 512 West 3rd Street.

“People really need a lot of help navigating through the bureaucracy that is part of these systems whether that’s working with law enforcement or whether that’s trying to deal with a state agency or the state agency’s contractor, it’s a lot to know exactly what to say, when to say it, and how to send it,” Sundquist said.

Assemblymember Scott Gray, a Republican from Watertown, has sponsored a bill in the Assembly that would increase the penalties for those engaged in license plate fraud.

It’s the same bill State Senator George Borrello has introduced in the Senate in direct response to WIVB News 4’s Call 4 Action investigation. Assemblymember Gray says people in his district — which runs along the U.S border with Canada in Northern New York — are also becoming victims.

“What I can tell you is we have had the same circumstance probably about ten-fold with several different constituents,” Gray said.

Assemblymember Gray says his office has received 15 separate complaints of drivers getting multiple violations from New York City, everything from toll violations, speeding tickets and parking tickets tied to their old license plate numbers which have already been surrendered and current plates.

“The concern over identical plates whether they’re being falsely produced or being manipulated or just being erroneously replicated in the system when they’re supposed to be destroyed is a major concern,” Gray said.

Assemblymember Gray says he wants to stop the issue of license plate fraud in it’s tracks and is calling for hearings to be held on the issue in the new legislative session in Albany, which starts in January.

“There’s a whole host of questions that really need to be asked and they should be whether we take the time to ask those during our budget hearings or whether we have independent public hearings on those issues, I think they need to be dealt with and they need to be reconciled,” Gray said.

The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles says it is “actively investigating,” concerns of fraud at the Jamestown DMV and in Chautauqua County.

Jamestown Mayor Kimberly Ecklund has issued a statement on the situation saying:
“The City of Jamestown is aware of serious allegations involving the potential misuse of license plates that were properly surrendered at the Jamestown DMV. These reports raise significant concerns for affected residents.”

If you feel you’re a victim of license plate fraud, the Mayor’s Office says you should:
contact the Chautauqua County Clerk’s Office and the state DMV, also file a report with the Jamestown Police Department, and submit a formal complaint to the State Inspector General’s Office.

You can also contact Call 4 Action at (716) 879-4900, we have been able to get bogus tolls stopped from being sent to people impacted by license plate fraud.