City to Slap Metal Boots on Cars with Unpaid Tickets

By next week, the Bloomberg administration will likely give the go-ahead for a private company named PayLock to place new-age tire boots on any car whose owner has accumulated $350 or more of unpaid tickets.

Finance Department workers have been feverishly rewriting computer codes on the agency’s customer payment website for months to have the new system ready to go by Tuesday.

Agency spokesman Owen Stone said Thursday the initial rollout in some pilot areas will begin soon after, but declined to say when.

Finance Commissioner David Frankel told the City Council last month that the new system will “facilitate debt collection while also reducing inconvenience to motorists.”

But internal agency documents obtained by the Daily News show motorists will be smacked with the same — or even higher — fees than under the current towing system just to shake loose the contraption, known as the SmartBoot.

Frankel’s aides resisted saying how the program would work until they learned The News had obtained the internal documents. Stone confirmed that the mayor’s office Wednesday approved the contract with PayLock, the New Jersey firm that landed the five-year $70 million no-bid deal to operate the new system.

“This PayLock system has all kinds of problems and hasn’t been properly tested, but they’re still rushing to get it up and running,” a city manager with knowledge of the program told The News.

Under the program, a city marshal will be deployed with teams of PayLock employees. The marshal will verify that a car has more than $350 in judgments, then authorize PayLock to boot it.

The scofflaw can then call a toll-free number and pay his bill immediately by credit or debit card. PayLock will give him a code to self-release the boot.

Or the driver can travel to a city payment center and pay his tickets and fees in cash, then get the release code.

A motorist who owes $355 in parking tickets, for example, will have to pay an additional $180 for Paylock’s “boot fee,” $70 for a marshal’s “execution fee,” plus a “poundage fee” of 5% of the entire bill.

In this case, that would be another $30. And, if the driver pays by credit card, he or she will be charged a small additional “convenience fee.”

Drivers would be forced to shell out nearly $300 on top of the original $355 in tickets. That’s virtually the same amount as under the current towing system — even though the city will be towing far fewer cars.

If the motorist doesn’t pay within two days, however, the booted car will then be towed, and the owner will be charged both a $180 booting fee and a $185 towing fee.

The motorist who pays on time must also return PayLock’s boot to a city payment center within 24 hours or face additional penalties of $25 per day — up to a maximum of $500, the documents show.

Under the current system, a driver who fails to immediately reclaim his car from a pound is charged a storage fee of only $10 per day for the first three days and $15 per day afterward.

Stone, of the Finance Department, urged the public to look at the bright side.

“Motorists who have been booted do not have to miss work, family events or any other important appointment because they don’t have access to their car,” Stone said.

He said nothing of the lighter wallet many of those motorists will be carrying.