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How to pay your Los Angeles Superior Court Traffic Ticket
Pay traffic ticket online or in person
On this page you will learn about:-
- GC Services, LGBS or Harris & Harris & paying your ticket when you have an FTA
- Alternative to paying GC Services or other collection agency
- Paying your ticket when you have an FTP Failure To Pay
- Paying your ticket when you have NOT missed your court date
- Paying your ticket online, paying at court or paying by mail - which is safer
Keep in mind that if you just pay off your traffic ticket you are pleading guilty to the charges that the officer wrote down on your ticket. If the officer wrote you a ticket for a stop sign violation or a speeding violation these are moving violations which can result in a point going on your driver's license record which will most likely make your insurance rates go up. Read more about why it is better to fight your traffic ticket rather than just pay it.
GC Services, LGBS or Harris & Harris
About these collection agencies
As of September 2022, the Los Angeles Superior court has started using 2 new collection agencies instead of GC Services. They have assigned 5 Courts with their tickets to Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson LLP (LGBS) and the other 14 courthouses have been assigned to the other collection agency Harris and Harris Ltd. All traffic tickets that were transferred to GC Services for collection have now been transferred to Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson LLP or Harris and Harris Ltd. Read more about these collection agencies.
#1 Paying Your Traffic Ticket Fine when you have a Failure to Appear (FTA)
If you did not take care of your ticket in time by the due date and you never went to court, the Los Angeles Superior Court will charge you with a Failure to Appear (FTA), and place a VC 40509.5 hold on your license. This will most likely cause your license to be suspended.
Because of your Failure To Appear (VC 40509.5 hold) the fine on your ticket will be greatly increased. In order to collect this big fine, the Los Angeles Superior Court will then refer your ticket to a collection agency (Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson LLP, Harris and Harris Ltd or GC Services). If you contact the Los Angeles Superior Court to try and take care of or pay your ticket, you will be told your ticket has been referred to LGBS or Harris & Harris and the Los Angeles Superior Court now has nothing to do with your ticket.
One option you have if you are in this situation in order to clear up your ticket and suspended license is to pay off the collection agency online or in person at the courthouse marked on the bottom of your ticket. (To pay Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson LLP online, see lgbswebpayments.com. To pay Harris & Harris Ltd online, see harriscollect.payweb360.com/.) However, be aware of the risks if you decide to just pay off your ticket to a collection agency.
Risks when just paying off ticket to a collection agency
These risks only apply if you have not gone to court to see a Judge regarding your ticket. If you have already seen a Judge about your ticket please read our explanation of FTP.
Risk #1 - If you have not seen a Judge and you pay off your ticket to GC Services, LGBS or Harris & Harris, you are paying that collection agency a lot of money and basically pleading guilty to all the charges that the officer wrote down on your ticket. All of these charges on your ticket will then go on your DMV driver's license record. So if you got a speeding ticket and you pay off this ticket to the relevant collection agency, you are putting a speeding ticket on your DMV record as well as a point and your insurance rates will most likely go up. You will be adding a DMV point to your license record and if you get 4 points in a 12-month period you will be deemed a Negligent Operator by the DMV and they will attempt to suspend your license for 6 months.
Risk #2 – We have spoken to people who did not get their license hold cleared up for a couple of weeks after they paid GC Services and others who paid GC Services and their license did not get cleared up at all. This may possibly be true of LGBS and Harris and Harris. If you decide to pay the collection agency, make sure you do get a guarantee that they will clear up your license hold.
Alternative to paying GC Services, LGBS or Harris & Harris
We offer an alternative to paying the collection agency that big fine. If you have not seen a Judge regarding your ticket, we can remove your ticket from the control of GC Services, LGBS or Harris & Harris so you do not have to pay the collection agency anything. Unlike these collection agencies, we can oftentimes clear up your license so you can drive again with a valid drivers license. In addition, we fight all the fines, charges, and any DMV points you are facing from your ticket. Please call us at (310)285-1516 to discuss.
#2 Failure To Pay Ticket Fine after you have seen the Judge
Paying Your Traffic Ticket Fine when you have already seen a Judge and You Have a Failure to Pay
If you went in front of a Judge and pled guilty or no contest and the Judge ordered you to pay a fine or do community service and you did not pay your fine or do your community service by the due date, you will be charged with a Failure to Pay and there is a chance your fine will go up and your ticket will be referred to LGBS or Harris & Harris.
If you have already seen the Judge and pled guilty or no contest to your ticket WE CANNOT HELP YOU IF YOU ARE IN THIS SITUATION - WE CAN ONLY HELP YOU IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN A JUDGE. Once you have seen a Judge, you will not be able to see a Judge again but you can go see the Traffic clerk and petition the court to lower your fine.
A Failure to Pay means you have already seen a Judge and you failed to pay the court-ordered fine or do the court-ordered community service by the due date. We cannot help you if your ticket is now a Failure to Pay. When you don’t pay your fine by the due date or do your community service after seeing a Judge they will probably refer your case to LGBS or Harris & Harris for collection. They normally don’t give you a second chance to do community service or pay the original fine. However, you do have the right to file a petition at the courthouse requesting your fine be lowered.
#3 Paying your traffic ticket off if you have not missed your court date
Pay ticket online
If you have not missed the due date on your traffic ticket, you can usually pay your Los Angeles Superior Court traffic ticket online here:-
www.lacourt.org/division/traffic/TR0100.aspx
Once again keep in mind that if you just pay off your traffic ticket you are pleading guilty to the charges that the officer wrote down on your ticket. If the officer wrote you a ticket for a stop sign violation or a speeding violation these are moving violations which can result in a point going on your driver's license record which will most likely make your insurance rates go up.
Pay ticket by mail
We do NOT recommend that you send payment for your ticket by mail.
We do NOT recommend that you send payment for your ticket by mail – due to budget cuts the courts are very short staffed and it can take a long time to process the mail and your payment. Oftentimes people mail in payments to the court and then they are charged with a Failure To Appear because the payment was not processed by the ticket due date and their license is then suspended and the fine on the ticket goes way up.
However, if you live out of state or out of Los Angeles County, and you cannot pay your ticket online for some reason and mailing payment for your ticket is your only option, we recommend you:-
- Make copies of whatever you mail
- Put your citation # on the check
- Mail the payment the fastest way you can such as by Federal Express or express mail – that way you will also have proof of a delivery date.
After your traffic ticket due date
Mailing payment after your ticket due date will probably not be accepted by the court and will most likely result in a Failure to Appear (FTA) charge.
Paying your traffic ticket at court
If you live in Los Angeles County, instead of paying by mail we recommend you pay your ticket in person at the courthouse marked on the bottom of your ticket. That way you know your payment will be promptly processed and you will be given a receipt for your payment.
You must pay your ticket at the courthouse that the officer marked at the bottom of your traffic ticket. Here are the locations of all the various Los Angeles Superior Courts in Los Angeles County:-
We can help in Los Angeles County
Call us to speak with a Los Angeles Traffic Ticket Attorney for a Free Legal Consultation (310)285-1516.