FPS staff report
May 7, 2008

The Carroll County Municipal Court has implemented a new credit card service.

According to Judge Charles A. Johnston, the service is being provided by VitalChek Network of Brentwood, TN., at no cost to the Court or county.

Individuals choosing to pay their fines, court costs or civil judgments may use MasterCard, American Express and Discover cards (no Visa). Checks are automatically printed for deposit the same day.

If the credit card user chooses to use his or her debit (line of credit), the transaction fee to the user will be a flat $2.50. Any credit card transaction up to $50 will be charged $2.50 and a percentage ranging from 2 to 4% for anything over $50.

Noting this is the first office in the courthouse to implement such a service, Judge Johnston said the service can be used to pay traffic fines, civil action judgments and fees for filing applications for money amounts for both civil and small claims cases.

Some of the benefits of the new service include easy payment transactions, speeding up the payment processing system and reducing the number of bad checks. The service also guarantees payment to the Court and gives the  consumer the payment option they desire.

VitalChek Network, Inc., a Tennessee based corporation, was founded in 1987 as  payment processor for vital record agencies with document processing services and customizable software solutions and interfaces.

With the case load increasing annually in the Carroll County Municipal Court, Judge Johnston says this new service will speed up the processing of cases, as well as giving the public an option in paying their court fines and costs.

Last year (2007) a total of 3,996 criminal and civil cases were filed in the Carroll County Municipal Court. Those cases included 758 civil complaints and small claims actions and 3,238 criminal cases.