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Parking ticket gets paid --twice with single check

By Jon Yates, Chicago Tribune staff reporter

Published February 26, 2006

THE PROBLEM

After Bob Dougherty received a parking ticket, the City of Chicago mistakenly cashed his $50 check twice. He has been waiting more than two years for a refund.

THE OUTCOME

The city said it will mail Dougherty a check for $50.

Bob Dougherty received a parking ticket from the City of Chicago on Jan. 7, 2004. "I deserved it, too," Dougherty says.

What he didn't deserve was to pay the ticket twice--and then wait more than two years for a refund.

The story of the double-paid parking ticket began when the 62-year-old Dougherty parked in the 100 block of West Illinois Street without the proper neighborhood permit. After finishing dinner with his cousin at nearby Ben Pao, he walked out to find the ticket stuck to his car window.

Dougherty, director of a halfway house for ex-convicts, said he sent the city a check for $50 on Jan. 12, 2004. Sixteen days later, he received a notice saying the ticket had not been paid. By then, his bank had already sent him the canceled check. So Dougherty set out to prove he had paid. He intended to send the city a copy of the canceled check, but mistakenly sent the check itself. And the city cashed it again.

Dougherty says he called the city's Department of Revenue in March 2004 and was told that because he had paid $100 instead of just $50, he had a $50 credit in the system. The city told him he essentially had a parking freebie--he could get another $50 parking ticket, and it would already be paid with the credit he had in the system.

But Dougherty didn't want credit. He didn't want to park illegally again. He wanted his money back. Two years later, he still doesn't have it. "I don't mind paying for the ticket once," Dougherty wrote What's Your Problem earlier this month. "But I'm not happy to pay for it twice."

Dougherty said he filled out an application for refund and was told more than a year ago that his $50 would be sent to him. Then ... nothing. His theory? The city wanted him to forget. "They just wait you out," Dougherty said.

The wait is over. After a call from the Problem Solver, the city promised to cut Dougherty a check. "I want to thank you for bringing this to our attention and giving us the opportunity to refund his money," said Efrat Dallal, spokeswoman for the city's Department of Revenue. Dallal said Dougherty's check went through an automated system and was cashed, even though it had already been cashed by the city once before. "We have a program that processes the payments for us," she said. "We didn't do it intentionally." Dallal said she could find no record of Dougherty's application for refund. Dougherty said he spoke several times to a city employee named Cyna. Dallal said that employee apparently no longer works for the city. "We were not able to find his application at all," Dallal said. "I don't know why; I can't explain it. It might have gotten lost in the mail."

Last week, Dallal called Dougherty and told him he should get his check in the next two weeks. "This is exciting," Dougherty told the Problem Solver later. "I'm going to see my $50 again." But he wonders whether others face similar obstacles. "I know, of course, that in large systems it's very difficult to keep track of everything," he said. "But you'd like to think they'd be a bit more responsive when people go looking into things like I did."

Problem solved