My California DMV nightmare -
My car registration renewal was due. First I checked the online renewal service. DMV was charging $59 for e-service and $25 for some fee. One has to pay an extra $84 for renewal+ plus a $156 renewal fee (a few years back it was $88). I am at home opted to go to DMV and pay and get a sticker today. Stood in line with 50+ people. Went inside and they asked me to pay through Kiosk. The machine was also charging an extra $84. I told them, I don’t want to pay extra, I will pay here at the counter. They told me I can’t do it. Just drop envelop at Express box. I did. One Vietnam DMV employee told me to get a receipt from a Black DMV employee, just for your own record, in case of cops stop you. I asked a black DMV employee, he refused to give me a receipt, then the Vietnam DMV employee made a slip and told me to keep it for the record because stickers may take months to process.
My take, an online processing company had bribed the DMV head to force people to use e-service so that they can make money. DMV is not issuing on the spot stickers which they used to do. Now they have a big COVID excuse but I think they are getting paid to push work to somewhere else and in return gets under the table deal.
I never go to the DMV to register my vehicles.
I go to the website & pay there. The stickers come in the mail in a few weeks. I my son his stickers & he didn’t put them on for over 6 months (actually I ended up putting them on). He never got stopped.
I haven’t been to the actual DMV in probably 20+ years. Even the DL is renewed via the internet.
How can people even afford it? They probably have a program to pay for some people, and make everyone else pay for it.