Ticket Ninja CA — Local services in Shaver Lake

It’s a scam! Avoid at all costs. They don’t offer legal support. The only thing they do is provide you with generic letters which you can find on google and they kind of provide the information on how to act in your situation which also can be found online. My wife got a ticket for holding a phone in her hand (not using it) in traffic on PCH in LA. I am an idiot to pick the Ticket Ninja by trusting their reviews - they also seem fake now. Anyways, i sent them a note and they immediately asked for a payment before even starting the work. I said NO and wanted to back away but this John (i bet it’s not a real name since he or she never provided the last name) started to sell me their services: 100% money back guarantee, easy case with 99% success rate, best in california…all was a pure BS. You can only get your Money back IF your initial request for a trial by declaration (first step) fails and you go all the way to the point of appearing in the court in front of the judge! And if that fails - you can get your money excluding some costs. I missed this point while signing the contract but the contract is made in a way that you wont see this note anywhere. This is exactly how their business is built: They won’t provide legal support. Just useless consultations. They convince you that YOUR CASE is super easy with 99.9% success rate. They never mention this 2 step money back guarantee anywhere and it’s hard to find on site. They push you and tell you that the sooner you pay, the faster they can help. So you being in a stress and hurry won’t pay attention. They will say that its your voluntary decision to work with them and its your fault that you missed something in the agreement and wont return your money, knowing that your level of frustration and lack of time and money will make you give up on them. I made a huge mistake trusting these scammers so you don’t have to do it. Their reviews are fake. Their businesses is fake. They don’t help you. They just take your money.

AVOID AT ALL...

My ticket was for rolling over a red light in San Mateo which was caught on an automated camera. I contested the ticket with traffic ninja through trial by written declaration and was unsuccessful. I ended up paying $120 for the traffic ninja service (fast track option) on top of the $490 fine.

The main argument in the trial was that the photo of my face was unclear and the case should therefore be thrown out. Traffic ninja cited all the correct laws and wrote the argument up nicely (though it clearly was a standard copy / paste job). The photo itself was very blurry so I was hopeful but clearly not enough to sway the judge.

Ninja was responsive to my questions and pretty fast, but I did feel somewhat mislead, hence the three star review:

Firstly that you get points on your licence which result in your insurance going up. I've realized this is now only true if you dont attend the 8-hour online traffic school (for $20).

Secondly regarding the timeframe, my decision to go with the fast track was based on having 6 working days until the deadline and thinking I had to mail the response traffic Ninja provided, but you can actually just copy past the arguments into the online portal which means the overall process is a lot faster, and you would only need to use the fast track if you were within 3 days of the deadline.

Thirdly, they claim 80% success rate with blurry photo arguments which seems extremely high in hindsight. And I imagine, if this is true, it probably varies a lot on the cameras and counties the photos were taken in.

Overall if this was a no-win-no-fee service, I would have probably given it 4-stars despite loosing the case. But they clearly have an incentive to make you try even if they think you'll...

My ticket did not get dismissed. I went through both steps, trial by written declaration which the court declined than I trial de novo. I would not go through the second part but I had to in order to get my refund from Ticket Ninja. I suggest if you get a ticket that you should do this by yourself which is pretty simple and appears that Ticket Ninja uses a template anyways. The first form is TR-205 which can be downloaded online, and just fill in court name, your name, and citation number in page 1. On the second page your name, citation number and the statement of facts. I attached a sample if you would like to view. The court will either dismiss your ticket or say your guilty if they say you are guilty you can try doing the trial de novo form TR-220 which is the second step usually the only chance of winning and getting your ticket dismissed if the officer doesn’t show up. I heard CHP always show up and all the five others that were contesting a citation from different agencies that day, the officers that issued them a citation all showed up. In the future if I need to contest a ticket, I am just going to download the forms since there are online and type my own statement of facts. Again if you want to save taking a day off work or save $99 to have Ticket Ninja fill out the statement of facts, just go online and download TR-205 and TR-220 and do it yourself. Good luck...