Call Kurtis: The Wrong Car Is In Our Name

The Durham family bought a 1996 Honda, but the car that's in their name is a 1994 Honda that was sold from the same dealership around the same time. The family has been trying to fix this since September, so what's the holdup?

Running a daycare out of her home, Robyn Durham says she doesn't have time to deal with three parking and toll tickets that aren't theirs.

"My son had turned 16 in June and he wanted a manual car. So, we took our time trying to find him one," says Robyn.

After buying the Honda from Bay City Motors in San Leandro in July the tickets started coming.

"We were at Folsom Lake for a family party and got a ticket from the bay area," recalls Robyn.

She says the dealership admitted it mistakenly switched the paperwork with another car sold around the same time. But even after Robyn tried to fix it by filling out new paperwork for the dealership, it still isn't fixed.

"I'm tired of being responsible for this. This isn't my job. You need to do this," says Robyn.

"I've never heard of this happening. It's highly unusual," says Phil Reed of Edmunds.com

Reed says before sealing the deal on a car you have to double-check the documents.

"Most people are focused on price, but it's also extremely important to make sure that all of the details of your vehicle, and that would be the vehicle identification number, are correct and in the right place," says Reed.

We called Bay City Motors to see what's taking so long to fix this. They tell us the customer who bought the other car involved is unresponsive and has not turned in the documents to correct the problem.

But we got the DMV involved. The dealership then sent in the Durhams' paperwork and the DMV made the switch, even without the other car's papers.

"That's great, it's resolved. That's what I'm looking for," says Robyn.

The DMV says it will also work to get those tickets out of the Durhams' name and to the driver who really got them.