New app will fight your parking ticket for you

By PIX11

NEW YORK— When it comes down to the numbers, parking tickets are New York City's bread and butter.

In 2014, the city issued 9.4 million parking tickets, raking in $546 million in fines.

For the most part, drivers typically cave and pay the fine especially considering the time and energy needed to fight a summons.

But now, however, you're just a few clicks away from redemption.

Christian Fama and Ari Lemmel are the brains behind "Win it" – a new app that will fight parking tickets issued in New York on your behalf.

If their legal team gets the summons dismissed, they collect half of what the city fined you. If you are found guilty, you just pay the fine and nothing else.

"The way that we see WinIt is that we want to take away the entire frustration that is usually associated with a parking ticket," Lemmel told PIX11 News.

"The customer just opens the app, takes a picture of the ticket and that's pretty much it. We'll review it internally and sometimes ask for additional evidence if we need it."

Since it's soft launch in March, the WinIt team has dismissed nearly 50 percent of parking tickets from clients.

Whether it's a technicality or just a typo, every side is argued with the goal of a dismissal.

"It always blows my mind that people never dispute the tickets," Fama said. "It's our job as the experts to make sure the ticket is valid and if its not – we're gonna get it dismissed."

The first step is the easiest: snap a photo.

As to whether or not the app puts the WinIt team at odds with the NYC Department of Finance, Fama insists it does not.

"They should love us because although we are getting tickets dismissed, if the user is found guilty we are going to help them transmit their payment," he explained. "Theoretically we are going
to be helping the city transmit hopefully millions of dollars in payments to them."

As to whether or not WinIt plans to expand the business to fighting moving violations, the developers revealed that it may be on the horizon but right now they are focusing just on parking tickets.

The WinIt app is available in the Apple Store but will also be available for Androids in the coming weeks.

To get more information on it all, visit their site.