List of Offenses Expands at Traffic Ticket Site

Traffic ticket solution service GetDismissed has added new offenses to its list of infractions that it can help resolve. The Westlake Village company’s website was designed for speeding tickets, but now works for clients with illegal U-turns and seatbelt and failure-to-yield violations. The company’s software helps customers request a trial by written declaration set up by the courts. Trial by written declaration is among the four options a driver has when getting ticket. An advantage to this method is the driver does not have to go to court and the police officer who issued the ticket must submit paperwork defending it. Since police do not like doing extra paperwork, many times the officer does not respond, said GetDismissed Chief Executive Steve Miller. “It is all done in writing so the judge has a better opportunity to find you not guilty and dismiss the ticket,” he added. GetDismissed has a free mobile application and website where drivers can download images of their ticket and license and answer a few questions. The system generates a complete trial by written declaration package that is signed and sent to the court. “It is very simple system and very automated to make it painless for everybody,” Miller said. “It is the best way to fight a ticket in California.” GetDismissed charges $99 for one its reports although it just introduced this month a yearly membership model of unlimited reports for $59 a year. If the ticket does not get dismissed, the company offers free traffic school. In addition to its expanded list of contestable offenses, the company recently signed an agreement with Road Protect, an automotive services firm in South Africa, and with Rideshare Guy, a leading newsletter blog in Los Angeles covering the rideshare industry. The blog has about 160,000 subscribers. “We signed an agreement with them to offer all their California drivers a discount on our service,” said Miller. Auto Insurance Comparisons Encino insurance brokerage Answer Financial has partnered with Verifacto, a cloud-based risk management technology company, to provide insurance comparison information to auto dealers and lenders. Verifacto, in Norcross, Ga., helps lienholders track auto insurance compliance for their customers. On the other side of the deal, Answer has technology that compares policies from the 20 insurance carriers it represents. Under the agreement, Answer will provide to Verifacto an insurance comparison and shopping guide to go with Verifacto’s notifications of non-compliance. “Verifacto has first-hand and immediate knowledge when a customer defaults on their insurance, and we’re the perfect partner to help these customers find a new policy and get back into compliance on their car loans,” said Tom Capp, senior vice president of business development at Answer Financial, in a prepared statement. Answer was founded in 1997 and acquired in 2011 by Allstate Corp., the largest publicly held personal line insurer in the U.S. The brokerage works with banks and financial institutions to make insurance products available to their customers. Also, earlier this year, Answer Financial introduced the Streetwise Drivers Club application that can detect safe driving habits and turn that into discounts on auto insurance premiums. Deluxe Acquisition Post-production company Deluxe Entertainment Services Group Inc. has acquired Sfera, a cloud-based technology company offering quality control and other services for audio and video. Financial terms of the transaction between Deluxe, in Burbank, and Sfera, with locations in Santa Monica and Bangalore, India, were not disclosed. Following the deal, Deluxe made Sfera part of a new division called Deluxe Localization. Derek McKellar, a former head of global language services at Google Inc., was named president of the new business unit. He starts in December. The acquisition brings to Deluxe the ability to localize content with subtitles in more than 50 languages, closed captioning and subtitles for the hearing impaired, metadata creation and associated quality control for both video and audio. Deluxe Chief Executive John Wallace said that buying Sfera allows the company to bring to its clients the technology required to reach global audiences. “The Sfera cloud platform lets us harness our global workforce and the data generated across our businesses to build more efficient operations capable of serving the growing appetite for content around the world,” Wallace said in a prepared statement. Sfera is made up of Sfera Studios and Sfera Labs. Deluxe, owned by New York private investment firm MacAndrews & Forbes Inc., provides production, postproduction, distribution and archiving services for film and television studios. It operates multiple locations in Burbank and Valencia. Staff Reporter Mark R. Madler can be reached at (818) 316-3126 or [email protected].