oscarandpenelope

By legit I meant, before you send them any additional personal information, you might want to make sure that you're not corresponding with a Nigerian in Paris. Check first with a French consulate or the embassy if you want, and you can use English to communicate with them.

Sojourntraveller

There are several different topics involved in this and all require different answers.

First, scam notices of 'traffic tickets' do exist. So determining if that is the case or not would be the first thing to do.

Second, in today's world, selling debts to collection agencies (of which the USA is the leader in having) is common. Any suggestion of ignoring a real ticket is not good advice. If it is a real debt, the debt will increase over time and WILL be legally collectible.

Often if a debt is ignored it is sold after it has increased and a period of time (perhaps 2 years) has passed. Instead of a 45E ticket you then owe 450E and have a collection agency calling you every second day until you cave in and pay. So it is very foolish indeed to ignore a real ticket.

If this is not a troll then the issue does need to be dealt with. First to determine if it is legit and if it is, to get it cleared up.

Jan159

It happened. Hope it never happens to you. When you appeal they collect identifying information. When you call your Sentor's office, you speak to one of their staff. I once was fluent in French. The letter accurately conveyed the necessary information. Once I wrote the letter I did forget about it. The response from the ministere de la justice came months later. When the ticket arrived I did make sure it wasn't a scam. have dealt with collection agencies concerning a relative's debt. It's ugly. I do have a contact in France but I first wanted to see if I could find anyone else who had had this problem. I haven't.

Jan159

My advice to anyone who gets an envelope with the return address Republique Francaise is to mark it addressee unknown, return to sender. As my husband says, Belgium had Poirot, France had Clouseau.

sofarsogood

This is all very odd.

First, have you replied appealing against the fine via the attached guidance notes? Send a covering later in English of you want, I wouldn't waste time writing in French if you're not confident.

https://www.antai.gouv.fr/en/rubriqu...tionsgenerales

Second, names and addresses of individuals are not produced out of thin air; there must be a reason. You say, "My best guess is my name and address were on the Internet". I can't imagine the French authorities googling your details from the Internet (even if they could find them). After all, why do they believe it was you in the car? Was it a rented car and the rental agency gave them your name and address. Your name may be similar to this other person but your address will be entirely different. If you haven't a passport then any passport recorded by the rental agency won't be yours. Problem solved.

I wouldn't let it go unchallenged. If it's a bureaucratic cock-up (though it's hard to see how) that's one thing, but if someone has given your name and address that's verging on identity theft, which is more concerning.

Possibly, even contact the US Embassy in Paris and say that as a US citizen you are receiving demands from the French Govt. and would like their advice and how to stop it.

StuDudley

>>If you haven't a passport then any passport recorded by the rental agency won't be yours. Problem solved. <<

I don't recall a car rental agency asking for a passport - only a drivers license & Credit Card, which could have been stolen/forged by someone else.

If Jan is not a troll - I bet this is identity theft by the person who rented the car. I would just sit tight. Jan has the "get out of jail free", card by telling the collection agency/whoever that she doesn't even have a passport. Let someone else do all the work to prove otherwise. If Jan has some CC transactions or something else "solid" that proves she was not in France at the time - put that in front of the collection agency. They are not going to spend a lot of time on a "lost cause", IMO. Perhaps a little intimidation and "tough talk" at first - but that probably won't last long.

If you do contact some French official - give them info that they can use to find out if you have a passport or not, and also the proof that you were elsewhere at ticket time.

Stu Dudley

kerouac

It is of course very simple to prove that you were not in France if you used any of your credit cards at home at the same date as the infraction.

DebitNM

Nothing was, said about it being rental car.

StuDudley

It was a speeding ticket, probably detected by radar (we have several of them). Most likely it was a rental car because all the identity thief (if that's what it was) had to do was to present a driver's license from "somewhere" and a credit card to the car rental place. The driver's license could have even been an easy-to-forge International Driver's License. I don't know how much car rental clerks scrutinize driver's licenses - perhaps not much.

If the car was owned by someone else instead of the car rental company, getting license plates with forged or stolen documents would have been more difficult and costly, I presume.

We've had Capital One cancel our CC twice this year because "someone else" tried to charge something with it. The thief could have easily found out my name and address and created a phony driver's license.

Just my best guess....

Stu Dudley

bvlenci

It seems to me as though the owner of the car is the one that came up with the name of the presumed actual driver. I don't know why they would have taken his word for it. If there is another person in the owner's country with a very similar name, maybe it was an innocent mistake.

In Italy, if you say another person was driving the car, that other person has to confirm it by attaching something to the ticket, along with the sum owed. It's quite common for speed demons who get multiple tickets to blame a compliant relative who doesn't drive much and is not at great risk of getting the maximum number of points. It's amazing how many elderly grandparents get tickets for going 200 kmph in a 70 kmph zone!

StuDudley

If the owner/speeder of the car wanted to "blame" someone else, I would think the owner/speeder would choose someone at least living in the same country. It would seem hard to convince the police to "chase" someone in the US who might have a VERY good alibi - which is the case here. If the owner/speeder is really stupid and did blame a US resident (with no passport) - I think the police would find this out quickly & the owner/speeder would then REALLY be in trouble.

But there are some pretty stupid crooks.

Stu Dudley

Michael

Jan159,

If you have a letter from the Ministère de la Justice, it probably includes a phone number and a reference number for your violation. Go to the local college's Foreign Languages Dep't and ask to see if one of the French teachers would be willing to make the call for you; on your dime, of course.

bvlenci

Maybe the owner of the car meant to blame that "other person in the owner's country" who has a name similar to Jan's.

Christina

I don't believe this, either. Someone in Europe gets a ticket in France and just finds some random person in the US who they claim was the driver, and the French authorities find out their address and mail them a ticket, even though they don't even own the car? That doesn't soudn believable to me.

In the US, it wouldn't even be possible as tickets go with the car, not the driver, as that's the only thing they can legally prove, what the car was (if it's a ticket from a camera, anyway, or a parking ticket when they see the car in front of them).

kerouac, in France, can you really get out of a ticket that easily, just tell the police some random person was driving it, even with no proof? And does the ticket go with the driver, not the car?

kerouac

Obviously, all of us "other people" have insufficient information about the case.

Although it might not at all seem to be the same sort of thing, I was in charge of refunds for about 35 years at the airline where I worked, and I quickly learned that people are very reticent about saying exactly what happened, even when they did nothing wrong. Part of it is not realizing which details are important and part of it is trying to hide any detail which might not be in their favour. So it really takes a lot of questioning to finally determine the situation and make a decision.

Once again I am obliged to say that from the skimpy details that have been provided thus far, there is absolutely nothing to make me want to help provide irrefutable assistance in getting such a case cancelled. It is rather sad if the OP really has never had a passport.

hetismij2

Christina, in France the holder of the car is responsible for the fine, but they must provide the information over who was driving, which is what happened in this case. The owner of the car gave a name, which seemingly was similar to Jan's. How the French got Jan's address instead of the correct one, which presumably the driver provided is anybody's guess. Maybe the person with the similar name Googled their name and found Jan, and used the address to get out of the fine.

If you are a member of AAA I would approach them - they probably have a legal department that can help.

It would perhaps help if you named the other country involved in this question as well.

bvlenci

Why is it sad that a person has never had a passport? More than half of Americans don't have passports. They can travel a lot further than Europeans can without needing one. Besides the large territory of the US, they can visit Canada, Mexico, and a good deal of the Caribbean without a passport. Many of them can't afford to travel to Europe or other continents.

It's sad if people can't afford to eat well, or have a decent home, or pay their medical bills, but I wouldn't call it sad that they can't indulge in transcontinental travel.

Michael

<i> they can visit Canada, Mexico, and a good deal of the Caribbean without a passport.</i>

No more. U.S. Immigration requires a passport for re-entry to the U.S.

Robert2533

"they can visit Canada, Mexico, and a good deal of the Caribbean without a passport" That went away several years ago, not long after that infamous September day, when paranoia gripped America.

I don't know where you are from bvlenci, but despite Congress, Americans, in general, are in much better shape financially then the rest of the world and international travel is up for those with a little extra cash on hand.

Canada requires a passport or enhanced driver's license for entry, but Canadians are not quite as paranoid as their American cousins, so things tend to be a little more relaxed when crossing the border into the land of the Maple Leaf.

>the facts are that of the 311 million U.S. residents, there are over 109 million valid U.S. passports in circulation according to the State Department. 40 million of which are foreign-born U.S. residents.< Huff Post.

Which translates into approximately 35% of all American holding passports, (25% native born) and that means that there are now more passport holders in America then the entire populations of several major countries with larger populations; the UK, France, Spain, Germany, South Korea, Argentina, South Africa and Canada.

It's unknown how many Chinese have passports for international travel, but it's probably no more than 2 to 4% of the population, if not less. A number of Russians have passports, but most, like the Chinese, need them just to travel Internally.

It's difficult to tell where Jan159 is from, but it's doubtful she's from the east or west coast, or one of the border states, where you'll find most of the passport holders.

bvlenci

According to the US State Department, US citizens traveling to Mexico still don't require a passport. They can purchase a "tourist card" at the border. They don't even need that if they stay within the "border zone", about 30 km from the border. The rules were changed in 2010. I checked a few Caribbean islands that I know didn't require passports for US citizens in the past, and see that their rules changed in the early 2000s.

I haven't lived in the US since that infamous day, but I don't understand how US paranoia caused Canada, Mexico, the Bahamas, etc., to change their entry requirements.

There are millions of Americans who can't afford a car, let alone a vacation. There are others for whom a trip to Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon is as much as they can manage.

I myself didn't have a passport until I was 40, and I wasn't poor. Early marriage, early childrearing, divorce, and single parenthood put foreign travel in the realm of daydream for me, although I did manage a few trips to Canada without a passport in those halcyon pre-paranoia days. In those days plane fares were much higher with respect to purchasing power than they've been in the past 20 years; I could drive to Canada, and we (my children and I) camped with a tent.

There are also many Italians who don't have passports. Many older Italians have never been on a plane, and Italians who are willing to fly don't need a passport for most of Europe. In fact, I have a feeling the percentage of Europeans with passports will decline now that travel within the Schengen area can be done with a national identity card.