CLEVELAND -- When Todd Fitzwater left work Wednesday, he found a sheet of paper on his car. He said it look like a real ticket except for some fine print on the very bottom that said "April Fools'." But for him, this wasn't so funny.
"It had my name in and had my license plate so I thought there was something to it," said Fitzwater.
Fitzwater says he likes an April Fools' joke as much as the next guy, but not this one.
"It was a $35 balance that was owed," he said. "If it's not paid in full I would owe $238. You may be subject to civil judgment which could result in garnishment of your wages or ceasement of your property, I thought that was a little extreme for the city of Cleveland to be doing over a parking ticket, a $35 parking ticket."
He called the ticket office and found out they didn't have the ticket on record. Then he noticed in fine print, hidden in some between some random numbers at the bottom of the ticket it said April Fools'.
"Ha ha got you," he read. "So April Fools' on me."
Fitzwater admits a lot of things don't add up, but because he just saw a police officer drive-by minutes ago he said maybe, just maybe this could be legit.
"It's so coincidental that I saw Cleveland police officer in a marked cruiser come through, so I thought it was legitimate," he said. "It made sense to me."
We showed that ticket to city workers who say this isn't funny.
"It's pretty surprising the ticket does look pretty legitimate," said assistant director of media relations for the city of Cleveland Daniel Ball. "What happens is people get scared into giving payments and they rush it and they'll give money away and we don't want that."
"Maybe some elderly citizens wouldn't think of anything and they would just send the $35 and with today's day and age, the phishing scams that are out there, this is not funny," said Fitzwater.
Fitzwater says he is going to be requesting some surveillance video tomorrow from his office to figure out if he can get to the bottom of this.
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