Man stuck with tickets and suspension after crooks steal plates

COLLIER COUNTY, Fla. – A Golden Gate Estates man has spent the last three years fighting to get a suspension off his driver’s license for something he never did.

In 2012, Dean Meyers went to renew his driver’s license when he discovered it had been suspended. When he asked the clerk at the Department of Motor Vehicles counter, he was told his license was suspended due to unpaid toll tickets, but that did not make sense to him. So, Meyers contacted SunPass to ask for billing records for the unpaid tickets.

A short time later, Meyers received a bill in the mail and a picture of an SUV with his license plate driving through the toll booth. The only problem was the SUV was not his, and the plate on the vehicle was supposed to be registered to a white Mustang Meyers had lost the year before in a traffic accident.

“Back in 2011, our vehicle was in an accident…He [Meyers’ son] was sitting at a red light and was hit from behind by a drunk driver…and the car was totaled.”

Meyers said his insurance company, Progressive towed the car to their lot in Saint Petersburg, and he never saw the car or the car’s plate again. The Mustang was an extra car for the family, so they had no need to renew the plate. However, what Meyers did not know at the time was the plate was stolen from Progressive’s lot.

“Whoever stole it, put it on some SUV and was driving around the state of Florida going through SunPass tolls not paying the tickets, and thus my license got suspended.”

Meyers said he never received a bill in the mail because he moved from Saint Petersburg to Southwest Florida not long after, and the bills were never forwarded. Once Meyers realized what had happened, he contacted Progressive and had them send him a letter acknowledging the plate was stolen. He sent that letter to SunPass, hoping the company would waive the fee, but that did not happen. Instead, he tells us he spent three years fighting with several different toll agencies in the state to clear his name.

“I had to start with SunPass, then I had to go to the police, then I had to go to Progressive, I had to go to the collection agencies, I had to go to an attorney, I had to go to the Miami court system and finally when the Miami court system denied our hearing, I had to go to you,” Meyers said referring to WINK News Call for Action. “She [his wife] has to take her time to drive me everywhere, for any faucet of my life, to get my diabetes medication, to go to Home Depot, to go see my children, anything. So it’s been extremely frustrating.”

WINK News Call for Action contacted Progressive, who is working with Meyers to pay off the unpaid toll bills, since the plate was stolen from their lot. They tell us they worked with Mr. Meyers in 2012 and thought that the problem had been resolved. In fact, they said had Mr. Meyers called them back to explain he still needed help, they say they would have stepped in again and sooner to solve the problem for good. Progressive also sent us this statement:

There’s no doubt this has been a frustrating experience for Mr. Meyers. His plates were stolen after his vehicle was totaled and someone proceeded to rack up fines and tolls while illegally using those plates. Each time Mr. Meyers has contacted us, we’ve responded and helped as requested. Recently, we were notified that Mr. Meyers hadn’t used the documentation we gave him to prove he wasn’t in possession of the plates when the infractions occurred, but to help him resolve the matter, we’ve agreed to pay all fines and tolls to put the matter to rest.

We also reached out to SunPass after Mr. Meyers contacted us and sent them the letter from Progressive saying the license plate was stolen. They sent us this email explaining why they could not forgive the tickets.

“SunPass procedurally requires legal documentation releasing liability of a toll payment (divorce decrees, police reports, official motor vehicle records, etc)  this covers us when we need to issue any credit adjustments.  Mr. Myers [sic] was advised in 2012 that we needed a police report that said the tag was stolen.”

While Meyers said he sent the initial crash report to SunPass, what SunPass really needed was a police report documenting the stolen plates. It is a document that does not exist. We recently learned that Progressive reached out to SunPass on their own and SunPass sent us another update:

“…although the customer did not get the police report, we did work directly with Progessive to get a clear, original copy of the letter.  We have therefore waived the fees owed to the Turnpike.  We are closing this matter.”

The easiest way to avoid having something like this happen to you is to make sure you cancel a car’s plate if that vehicle is involved in an accident and you do not plan to register the plate to another vehicle.