A Redflex employee hard at work in the company's North Phoenix processing office. (All tickets are reviewed by multiple "Homers," a derogatory phrase used by corporate managers to refer to the paper processors who usually make little money.)
Ticketing and surveillance giants Redflex and American Traffic Solutions are doubling down on their favorite methods of revenue generation: fraudulent business practices, blatant incompetency, and lawsuits.
Michael Evans got the surprise in the mail that no one wants, a ticket for running a red light in Sioux City.
When he looked at the video of his offense he was confused to say the least, because his pickup is clearly on the interstate.
He alerted the police about the mistake, and they sent out a letter of apology to about 500 people who also received the wrong type of ticket, but along with the apology came new tickets for speeding violations.
Town dunce and Sioux City Police’s Cpt. Melvin William was quick to defend the “theft-by-shiny-badge” scheme, presumably at the request of his new private-camera-contractor overlords:
“Because in one spot we didn’t change the wording that the whole thing should be thrown out? No…There is no error when it comes to the fines that were imposed. They were the right fines for what had occurred. There is no error when it comes to the evidence,”
…Except for the whole “accusing 500 people of the wrong crime” thing.
American Traffic Solutions: “Circle Jerk” Lawsuits In Houston
The ruling was a major victory for the legal strategy of ATS General Counsel George Hittner, who worked with the Houston city attorney to create a lawsuit in which city officials, who want the cameras back, sued ATS, which also wants the cameras back. The case was not filed in state court, which would be the proper venue. Instead, Hittner had the case filed in the federal courthouse where his father happens to serve.
…Phony signatures. Phony tickets. Phony corporate cops that defend revenue schemes instead of constituents’ life and property. Phony lawsuits. Laws and due-process ignored.
Happy Phony Forth of July from CameraFRAUD. Because the USA is where your ability to serve as a milking cow to the state and its corporate allies is patriotic job number one.Now get back to work, slave!
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." George Washington
To: Arizona State Senators and Representatives From: CameraFRAUD
2/25/2011
Two of the largest automated ticketing vendors on the planet have substantial roots within the State of Arizona. Combined, these corporations employ many Arizonans and generate tens of thousands of dollars in revenue each day.
And there’s never been a better time to finally say goodbye.
Photo ticketing schemes extract enormous amounts of cash from the local economies in which they pretend to serve. Instead of this money staying within our community, Redflex and American Traffic Solutions virtually launder these stolen funds through pseudo-local offices… and back to their respective faceless investment banks.
In one corner, American Traffic Solutions sounds downright patriotic in name. Their surveillance cameras even boast a sticker as being “Made in the USA.” Don’t let the smoke and mirrors fool you though: ATS is a pawn of the massively-corrupt investment firm and former bailout recipient Goldman Sachs.
In the other corner, Redflex is being purchased by Macquarie Ltd and the Carlyle Group, two firms which are equally disinterested in the well-being of Arizonans. These faceless monsters only care about profits, and how every last dime can be extracted from their voiceless victims.
Just like the large, faceless investment banks which helped contribute to our current national recession, ticketing vendors Redflex and ATS also create local booms and busts within local municipalities. Unfortunately, the local elected “leaders” are asleep at the wheel, and aren’t paying attention to this modern game of “Three Cup Shuffle.”
Cities and towns are lured in by the prospect of “free money,” usually to the chipper reminder that such ticketing programs are “violator funded.” Contracts are haphazardly entered into, cameras go up, and the money starts to pour in. But as with any scam, there’s always a catch. Programs which start out profitable usually end up in the red, as is the case with the City of Mesa’s beleaguered relationship with ATS.
Citizens revolt, avoid areas with overzealous enforcement, or simply grow savvy to methods to avoid detection. Unintended consequences include a population that has become savvy to avoiding process service, making a mockery of the supposed “rule of law.” Increases in yellow light timing can and have destroyed these profitable schemes, sometimes incurring the wrath of these money-sucking vampire vendors.
Attempts to cancel contracts administratively are met with threats of lawsuits. Cities actually forced to end their contracts due to citizen’s ballot initiatives have been sued by these vendors, proving that there truly is no honor among thieves once the honey pot runs dry.
When Goldman Sachs dumped $70 million worth of mismanaged assets in 2006-2007, they were called “toxic.” Then Goldman conned its way into receiving $12.9 billion in TARP funds through AIG, while turning around and handing out $14 billion in executive bonuses.
Now, it’s Arizona’s turn to drop two toxic “assets” once and for all: the physical presence of American Traffic Solutions and Redflex within the Grand Canyon State.
CameraFRAUD Demands FBI Investigation
Media Inquiries: media@camerafraud.com
Attorney and CameraFRAUD member Michael Kielsky has uncovered potentially damning information regarding photo enforcement process service within Arizona.
The revelation? Widespread, illegal certificates of service, admittedly completed by office workers instead of the actual server.
Developing…
Just got back from court with another Photo Radar case win — but how I won “shocked” even me.
The case was set for a process server hearing, and the process server was there, seemed to remember the service, and otherwise was a credible witness, leaving me little room to challenge the service.
I then asked if he had notes from the day of service, which he confirmed, and I asked if I could see them. I compared his notes to the certificate of service, and saw that some of the demographic specifics were off (the height was 5″ off, the age was specific instead of the range in the notes, the weight was off by 5 lbs.).
I then asked him about the differences (in that, more than anything else, the height seemed significant).
Bombshell alert:
He answered that he sends his notes in to the process service office, and then someone there fills out the certificate of service with all the details, and adds a digitized image of his signature, and the files it.
My jaw hit the desk. I asked him to confirm that the certificate was completed from his notes, and that he did not review it before it was signed, under penalty of perjury, with his digitized signature, and he confirmed, and said that’s the way they always do it, in 10’s of thousands of cases.
I argued to the judge that I had no issue with the digitized signature, but that the certificate of service was void, as it was completed and signed without his review, and it did not accurately reflect his own notes regarding the service.
The judge questioned the process server some more about this process, and, among other things, he admitted, that, well yes, for eviction service, that’s not how they do it, but for photo radar they do.
Case dismissed.
UPDATE: The FBI is the agency assigned to investigate public and judicial fraud. Their contact information is as follows. We encourage any reader who feels they may be a victim of false service to immediately file a report.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Special Agent Nathan T. Gray
201 East Indianola Avenue Phoenix, AZ 85012
Phone: (602) 279-5511
Fax: (602) 650-3204
E-mail: phoenix@ic.fbi.gov
The “superheros” find themselves snapped by what appears to be a Hollywood adaption of the infamous “Redflex scamera head.”
Response to the “cash flash” is swift, as a missile is launched from the vehicle which subsequently dispatches the scamera to a fiery, explosive demise.
The Solution
The highly-rated BBC program “Top Gear” recently used a similar, real-life sequence to terminate the existence of a Gatso lookalike.
The tables were turned in the 2008 action-thriller “Eagle Eye,” in which a rogue central computer named “ARIAA” used red light cameras and license plate recognition to locate and scramble missiles against a driver and passenger who were attempting to shut the system down.
Actual removal of the ticketing devices around Arizona is proving to be much less entertaining. Observers report that the Redflex – DPS cameras on the US-60 have started to come down, with cameras in the highway median being removed first.
Redflex’s piezo in-ground sensors will remain in place, becoming the property of Arizona Department of Transportation. They will likely remain unused as ADOT has their own network of sensors to anonymously monitor freeway traffic speeds.
A former officer with the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s now-defunct Redflex “photo enforcement unit” was allegedly caught forging documents and using “state” resources — a DPS airplane — to stalk an ex girlfriend.
According to AZCentral, “[Geoffrey] Jacobs wrote a fake obituary regarding another ex-girlfriend and sent it to Hawaiian Airlines, along with a letter detailing how Jacobs was trying to cope with the “huge loss” of his fiancee. The letter was sent so Jacobs could transfer his ex-girlfriend’s ticket to another woman…”
If this officer was corrupt enough to forge documents for an airline ticket change, did any of the members of the public stand a chance when their citations were in his hands?
But wait, there’s more… This one’s for the “if you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about” crowd:
He also was found to have abused DPS resources when he flew a state-owned plane over the neighborhood where he believed an ex-girlfriend lived in an attempt to locate her new home.
And who better to help run the accident-increasing photo enforcement scheme than an officer who had great first-hand experience causing accidents:
Jacobs joined DPS in late 2002. Less than one year later, he was served with his first letter of reprimand for an October 2003 wreck in Tucson. The next year, Jacobs was in another wreck and lost eight hours of vacation pay.
Jacobs, according to the New Times, “was the trooper who arrested Republican Party Executive Director Brett Mecum in May 2009 for criminal speeding. “
Now Jacobs is redefining irony, by suing the state over his dismissal. His claim? “…Defamation and violation of privacy and constitutional rights. “
Perhaps one would be more compassionate for the troubled cop if he didn’t work in a police unit that defamed and violated privacy and constitutional rights on an automated level.
Hi, Vince here from Redflex! Get ready to "snapshot" your way out of wreckless, drunken government spending with our new ScamWow! It's so easy!
Lobbyists who visit local city councils for Redflex are compensated on a commission-based scheme, and in one instance the cash was promised to be split with the wife of a local judge:
[Redflex] which also operates Victorian red light cameras – is at the centre of several court actions in Louisiana after a local council outside New Orleans turned off the cameras last January amid concerns company lobbyists were earning a share from camera fines…
Redflex Holdings allegedly agreed to pay 3.2 per cent of its share of camera revenue to the former United States councillor, who subsequently arranged to split the cash with the wife of a local judge.
Okay, camera apologi$t$: tell u$ again how it’$ not all about the money?
It’s hard to find a mainstream media piece as perfect as this one. Enjoy the video and post your comments below.
Good: The lovely Tracy Grimshaw of A Current Affair asks the question of automated ticketing: “Life savers or just revenue raising cash cows?” CameraFRAUD as well as FireRedflex.com are mentioned in the story.
Better:
Quotes from the video: “Governments all around the world are in a lot of debt, they have to raise more money, and what better place to raise money than from penalties and speeding fines.”
“The cars are unmarked and there’s no warning sign until after you’ve driven past, and even then it’s tiny.”
REPORTER: “What do you do to pass the time when you’re sitting in here?”
REDFLEX DRIVER: “We watch the instrument.”
REPORTER: “And you need all three of you in here to do that?”
REDFLEX DRIVER: “That’s correct… at the moment…”
Best: The closing video of the UK show ‘Top Gear’ using a vehicle-mounted rocket launcher to take out a Gatso scam cam.
“I thought maybe I ought to send them the money and not worry about it, and that’s the last thing you should do.“
The victim thought upon receipt of the “notice of violation” that the ticket was a scam (and rightfully so) and got the matter resolved only after involving the local media.
Firm doubles Palm Coast’s fees Here’s something to make Palm Coast officials see red: The company that runs its traffic light camera system is asking to more than double what it currently charges the city.
Seeing red over camera contract
A CITIZENS’ revolt against red light cameras in New Orleans has led to claims a Victorian company agreed to pay a share of the fines to a former city councillor if it won a contract.
Red light photo enforcement is no longer active in Yucaipa
“The program was not very productive in terms of paying for itself,” Hemsley said. The city anticipated a revenue of approximately $140,000, but has only collected $27,500. Since it is the court collection system that has resulted in lack of revenue, Hemsley said the Redflex and the city could not find a good solution or alternative to canceling the contract. “After negotiations with Redflex, we agreed to pay the balance due of $198,000 and terminate the agreement.”
Redflex really likes watching you. They want your every move on AZ freeways tracked and documented. Why? Because they can turn your right to travel in to a profit scheme.
Redflex says they can control you. Jay Heiler said on Fox News that their cameras are all about “compliance.”
Now Redflex wants you scared. After all, that’s how they pulled one over on the entire state and had their lobbyists stick a massive state-wide contract in to a budget proposal, courtesy of Janet Napolitano. They convinced State Legislature that Arizona Freeways were so dangerous that only cameras could save us from ourselves.
What they didn’t tell anyone is that their cameras would be taking live video, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. What Redflex does best is lie. In fact, they lied and mismanaged their way from having a license to print money off the backs of Arizonans, to a complete money losing failure.
Now all they have left is to keep tabs on you for a couple more months. They’ll try to make a case that the freeways have fallen in to chaos now that the threat of them sending drivers a bill for $181 is gone. Never mind that most tickets were ignored and many were immune from them, including Redflex employees.
“This should be a wake-up call to everyone in the community to be even more careful and watch for a large increase in aggressive, dangerous driving,” said Shoba Vaitheeswaran.
Photo Radar / Photo Enforcement has never survived a public vote in the United States
Breaking News: Automated ticketing schemes– including red light cameras– appear to have been defeated by public vote in two communities in Ohio as well as one in Texas.
Beleaguered Redflex Group of Australia appears to have failed in their attempts to keep their invasive surveillance and ticketing products on the roadways in Heath / Chillicothe Ohio, while American Traffic Solutions faces termination in College Station, Texas.
UPDATE: ATS paid community outsiders to hold pro-cam signs and call police on actual voters:
News 3 asked a consultant from “Keep College Station Safe” and ATS, if the two men were paid. The consultant, also from
Houston, told News 3 at least 12 people were “under contract.”
American Traffic Solutions: “Circle Jerk” Lawsuits In Houston
Redflex Mail Fraud In Spokane
Posted by site administrator 
American Traffic Solutions scameras in Bluff City, TN 
CameraFRAUD.com - The Cameras are Coming Down 