LEGAL APP TO NIX TIX
Fights city for you
Can’t fight City Hall? Get aan app to do it for you. A new service, WinIt, says it will battle New York parking tickets on your behalf — and collect only half of what the city would.
A group of lawyers and exjudges comb through every line of a summons looking for a technicality that can get you off the hook.
Joseph Ortega, 57, a Staten Island telecommunications worker, says he drives his cherrypicker van all over the city and averages one fine a week — ranging from $65 to $115 — as he’s forced to park illegally to access job sites. He had three tickets dismissed using the app.
Iff WinIt wins, you pay themm 50 percent of the dropped fine. If you lose, you pay the fine but don’t owe WinnIt. They’ve won about 50 percent of cases since launching in March.
Last fiscal year the city issued 9.4 million parking tickets, exceeding $546 million in fines.
“For the life of me, I cannot figure out why you wouldn’t dispute a ticket,” said Christian Famma, 30, one of the coowners of WinIt and an exec at Empire Commercial Services, a company that fights parking violations for businesses.
WinIt’s founders, Ari Lemmel, 25, and Dan Azeroual, 27, partnered with Empire, who research the tickets and send their lawyers to the city’s tribunal on John St. to fight the tickets.
One lawyer can dispute hundreds of tickets per day, arguing everything from license plates or car models were filled out incorrectly, to alternateside parking rules changing due to the weather, or misdated tickets.
“We’ve got over a quarter of a billion tickets dismissed over a 25year period. We know how to beat the tickets,” said Fama.
The dark side, of course, is the app seems to embolden scofflaws.
One realestate developer, who’s had six tickets dismissed in the last two months, says it’s cheaper and easier to park illegally and fight the ticket than to follow the law.
“It’s worth $32.50 to not have the hassle of using the [parking meter] machines that never work,” he said. “I know this sounds bourgeois and snobby and ridiculous but this is the math I’m making in my head.”