New York Woman Faces More Than $40,000 in Parking Fines Over License Plate Mix-Up

A 70-year-old woman in New York City was hit with more than $40,000 in parking fines after a possible administrative error linked hundreds of parking violations to her vehicle, even though she had no connection to most of the incidents.

Carole Blank Brown, a lawyer and real estate title agent living on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, discovered the problem after updating the address on her vehicle registration. Shortly afterward, she received two parking tickets: a $65 fine for allegedly driving without a license plate and a $95 fine for blocking a driveway. However, she said neither she nor her BMW had been at the locations where the violations occurred.

The problem appeared to be linked to her personalised license plate, which reads “BLANK,” a reference to her maiden name. The parking records reportedly contained empty license plate fields, which may have been incorrectly matched with her registered plate.

After contacting the city’s 311 helpline, Brown discovered that more than 400 parking tickets had been issued in her name, amounting to over $40,000. The alleged violations included double parking, stopping in no-standing zones, blocking fire hydrants and driving without a license plate.

Brown began challenging the tickets through administrative hearings in April. She had to attend multiple hearings before different judges, who reviewed and dismissed the citations. At one point, she spent more than $400 just to obtain printed records of the outstanding tickets.

Despite surrendering her personalised license plate in an attempt to prevent further mix-ups, new tickets continued to arrive. Brown said she had to go through the lengthy appeals process at least 10 times, with each round involving fines worth $10,000 or more.

In September, she contacted the New York City Office of the Parking Summons Advocate, bringing the issue to the attention of senior officials. However, another 36 violation notices, carrying nearly $3,000 in fines, arrived by October 7.

The city’s Department of Finance later informed Brown by email that the issue had been resolved. Department spokesperson Ryan Lavis said officials had been reviewing the case since mid-September but did not explain how the error occurred or how it was corrected.

Following intervention by officials from the Department of Motor Vehicles, the city’s Finance Department and the Traffic Department, all the incorrectly assigned tickets were dismissed. Brown has also applied for a new personalised license plate reading “KNALB,” which spells “BLANK” backwards.