Terms of Service

1Who we are

PlateShield is operated by Automated Reality LLC ("PlateShield", "we", "us"). These terms are the agreement between you and us for the website, the free lookup, watches, Rental Watch, past checks, the fleet form and our emails. By using any of them you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy.

2What PlateShield does

We check New York City's public ticket records for the plates you give us, about once a day, and email you when a parking ticket or camera ticket (speed, red light or bus lane) shows up for that plate, changes, or is shown as paid. The free lookup shows how many open tickets a plate has right now. A past check lists the tickets on a plate between two dates.

We cover New York City tickets only. Tolls and moving violations written by a police officer are not included.

3Information only

PlateShield is an information service. We are not a law firm, we do not give legal advice, and we are not affiliated with the City of New York.

We do not pay tickets or dispute them for you. We never handle your ticket money and we do not represent you. Every alert links to the city's official page, where you pay or dispute the ticket yourself. Paying or disputing on time is still your responsibility (and the registered owner's), whether or not we send you an alert.

4City records can lag or be wrong

Our alerts are only as good as the city's records. New tickets usually take one to three weeks to show up after they are written, and sometimes longer. The records can be delayed, incomplete, changed later or simply wrong, and the amounts and status we show may not be current. We can also miss a ticket or send an alert late because of our own mistake or an outage.

Always confirm the amount and status on the city's official site before you pay or dispute. We do not promise that every ticket will be caught, or caught by any date. If we miss one, the Missed Ticket Guarantee explains what we do about it.

5Your part

• Give us an accurate plate, state and an email address you can receive.
• Only watch or check a plate you have a real reason to: a vehicle you own, lease, rent out, manage, or rented or drove during the dates you enter. Do not use PlateShield to track other people or their vehicles.
• Do not misuse the service: no scraping, reselling our results, overloading the site or getting around our limits.
• You must be at least 18 to use PlateShield.
• Keep the private link in your emails to yourself. Anyone with it can see your watch and stop it.

We may stop or refuse a watch that breaks these terms.

6Prices and billing

Free beta. PlateShield is in a free beta right now and nothing is charged. We never charge you unless you go through checkout and enter a payment card.

Once paid plans are on, the price shown on our site when you sign up is the price you pay. Prices are in US dollars. Payments are processed by Stripe.

• Plate Watch and Fleet: a monthly subscription for each plate, charged when you start and then every month on the same date, until the watch is stopped. Fleet pricing applies to 4 or more plates.
• Rental Watch: one payment that covers daily checks from the pickup date until 30 days after the return date.
• Past Check: one payment, charged only when the check finds tickets. If it finds none, it is free. You pay before the ticket details are shown.
• Discount codes and free periods: they apply as described when you get them, and may end on a set date. When one ends, the watch either stops or goes back to its regular plan.

If we change the price of a subscription, we will email you before your next charge at the new price, and you can stop the watch before then.

7Cancelling

You can stop a watch any time with the Stop button on your watch page (the link is in every email we send), or by emailing us. Stopping ends the checks and alerts right away and cancels the subscription, so you will not be charged again. There is no contract and no cancellation fee.

A Rental Watch stops on its own 30 days after the return date.

8Refunds

Because a watch stops the moment you cancel it, we do not refund the unused part of a month or of a Rental Watch. If you were charged by mistake, for example charged twice or charged after you stopped a watch, email us and we will refund the mistaken charge.

9Missed Ticket Guarantee

"If a ticket on your watched plate shows up in the city's records and we don't email you about it, tell us. Your next month on that plate is free."

To use it, reply to any of our emails, or email us, with the summons number. We will confirm the ticket showed up in the city's records while your watch was active and that we did not email you about it, and then your next month on that plate is free.

The guarantee is a free month of PlateShield on that plate. It is not cash and not a refund, and we do not pay the ticket, penalties, interest or any other fees. It is our whole responsibility for a missed or late alert.

10Changes to the service or these terms

We may add, change or stop features. If we change these terms we will update this page and the effective date at the top, and if the change is significant we will email people with an active watch before it takes effect. Using PlateShield after a change means you accept the new terms.

11No warranties

PlateShield is provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent the law allows, we make no promises or warranties, written or implied, about accuracy, completeness, timeliness, fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability or that the service will be uninterrupted or error free.

12Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, PlateShield and Automated Reality LLC are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any tickets, fines, penalties, interest, late fees, boot, tow or storage fees, rental company fees, or lost profits, whether or not we sent you an alert.

Our total liability for any claim about PlateShield is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us for PlateShield in the 12 months before the claim, or $50.

Some places do not allow some of these limits. Where that is the case, they apply as far as the law allows.

13Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to its conflict of laws rules. Any dispute will be handled in the state or federal courts located in New York, and you and we agree to those courts. Either of us may bring a claim in small claims court if it qualifies.

14The rest

These terms and our Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about PlateShield. If any part is found unenforceable, the rest still applies. If we do not enforce a part right away, we can still enforce it later. You agree to cover our costs from claims caused by your misuse of PlateShield, such as watching a plate you had no right to watch.

15Contact

PlateShield, operated by Automated Reality LLC
Email: alerts@automatedrealityllc.com

See also our Privacy Policy.