(OT) Rant - Department of Motor Vehicles and other absurdities

(I apologize if I already posted about this. Had some problems with
individual.net the other day. All this happened last Friday. It's a long
rant, and I apologize for that, too.)

/begin rant

My car tags & registration are coming up for renewal in April. It's
registered in Tennessee. (I still have an apartment there.) It occurred to
me I may as well go ahead and register it in SC. But my car title is locked
in a file cabinet in TN and I'd need it to register the car in SC.

So I called the DMV in Tennessee to request a duplicate title. The woman
was extremely rude. (I understand she's a harried and possibly underpaid
government employee, but hey! at least she has a job. Would it have killed
her to be polite?) She cut me off mid-sentence and informed me I can't
possibly have the title to my car because it still has a lien on it. I said
no, I paid the loan off in May, 2004. She came within a fraction of an inch
of calling me a liar. She said (snippily) I couldn't possibly have paid it
off because that's not what her computer shows.

We all know computers are never wrong, don't we? (GIGO - garbage in,
garbage out.) She asked "What bank do you send your payments to?" (Note:
she used the present tense, not past tense.) I sighed. I said I made my
last payment in 2004 and it was financed through the dealership, not my own
bank. I sent the payments to the dealership. She stiffly informed me
there's no way I paid off the loan for the car.

[I ask you, if I still owed money for this car don't you think the
dealership would have come after me by now? My address (in TN) didn't
change from the time I financed it to the time I paid it off. Neither did
my phone number. If I owed them money they'd have been tracking me down...
especially since the final payment was over $6000.]

So I called the dealership. Oh, we don't keep records longer than 3 years.
WHAT?! You have no record of me buying a car from you in 2003 and paying it
off in 2004? Nope, sorry. (In this wonderful world of modern technology,
their computers only go back 3 years?! My god, I was able to track down a
life insurance policy issued in 1947 but these people can't tell me I bought
a car from them in 2003. How utterly ridiculous!)

The woman at the dealership asked me what bank. I again patiently explained
I financed it through them, I didn't get a loan from *my* bank otherwise I'd
be talking to my bank. She said sure, she understood that, but what bank
was the dealership using then? Now how the hell am I supposed to know that?
More importantly, why don't *they* know that?! When I was making payments I
just put my check in the supplied envelope with the payment coupon and
mailed it. I don't remember the address it went to; we're talking 5 years
ago. She suggested I call my insurance company.

So I called my insurance company. They were very helpful, insofar as
possible. They gave me the name of a bank that probably handled the
financing for the dealership at that time. But that bank doesn't seem to
exist anymore. Great, what do I do now? She suggested I call the corporate
offices of the car dealership and explain the problem. huge sigh

Okay, so I called the corporate office of the dealership. You know by this
time I was tired of trying to explain the situation. The woman I spoke with
there said someone from the dealership where I bought my car would have had
to sign the title over to me. They probably forgot to inform the state.
Great, what do I do about that? They don't keep records older than 3 years!
She didn't know what to tell me.

I'll call MY bank tomorrow to see if they can get me a copy of the check I
wrote in 2004 paying off the car. That might give me a clue to work with.
(Hopefully my bank keeps records longer than 3 years! LOL At least it's
still the same bank, wasn't bought out or subject to the bail-out.)

Meanwhile, come April I'll just register the car in TN again. Legally I can
do that; I'm still a resident of TN. But what a huge bureaucratic nightmare
this one seemingly simple thing turned into!

/end rant

Jill

"jmcquown" wrote in message
...
(I apologize if I already posted about this. Had some problems with
individual.net the other day. All this happened last Friday. It's a long
rant, and I apologize for that, too.)

/begin rant

My car tags & registration are coming up for renewal in April. It's
registered in Tennessee. (I still have an apartment there.) It occurred
to me I may as well go ahead and register it in SC. But my car title is
locked in a file cabinet in TN and I'd need it to register the car in SC.

So I called the DMV in Tennessee to request a duplicate title. The woman
was extremely rude. (I understand she's a harried and possibly underpaid
government employee, but hey! at least she has a job. Would it have
killed her to be polite?) She cut me off mid-sentence and informed me I
can't possibly have the title to my car because it still has a lien on it.
I said no, I paid the loan off in May, 2004. She came within a fraction
of an inch of calling me a liar. She said (snippily) I couldn't possibly
have paid it off because that's not what her computer shows.

We all know computers are never wrong, don't we? (GIGO - garbage in,
garbage out.) She asked "What bank do you send your payments to?" (Note:
she used the present tense, not past tense.) I sighed. I said I made my
last payment in 2004 and it was financed through the dealership, not my
own bank. I sent the payments to the dealership. She stiffly informed me
there's no way I paid off the loan for the car.

[I ask you, if I still owed money for this car don't you think the
dealership would have come after me by now? My address (in TN) didn't
change from the time I financed it to the time I paid it off. Neither did
my phone number. If I owed them money they'd have been tracking me
down... especially since the final payment was over $6000.]

So I called the dealership. Oh, we don't keep records longer than 3
years. WHAT?! You have no record of me buying a car from you in 2003 and
paying it off in 2004? Nope, sorry. (In this wonderful world of modern
technology, their computers only go back 3 years?! My god, I was able to
track down a life insurance policy issued in 1947 but these people can't
tell me I bought a car from them in 2003. How utterly ridiculous!)

The woman at the dealership asked me what bank. I again patiently
explained I financed it through them, I didn't get a loan from *my* bank
otherwise I'd be talking to my bank. She said sure, she understood that,
but what bank was the dealership using then? Now how the hell am I
supposed to know that? More importantly, why don't *they* know that?!
When I was making payments I just put my check in the supplied envelope
with the payment coupon and mailed it. I don't remember the address it
went to; we're talking 5 years ago. She suggested I call my insurance
company.

So I called my insurance company. They were very helpful, insofar as
possible. They gave me the name of a bank that probably handled the
financing for the dealership at that time. But that bank doesn't seem to
exist anymore. Great, what do I do now? She suggested I call the
corporate offices of the car dealership and explain the problem. huge
sigh

Okay, so I called the corporate office of the dealership. You know by
this time I was tired of trying to explain the situation. The woman I
spoke with there said someone from the dealership where I bought my car
would have had to sign the title over to me. They probably forgot to
inform the state. Great, what do I do about that? They don't keep records
older than 3 years! She didn't know what to tell me.

I'll call MY bank tomorrow to see if they can get me a copy of the check I
wrote in 2004 paying off the car. That might give me a clue to work with.
(Hopefully my bank keeps records longer than 3 years! LOL At least it's
still the same bank, wasn't bought out or subject to the bail-out.)

Meanwhile, come April I'll just register the car in TN again. Legally I
can do that; I'm still a resident of TN. But what a huge bureaucratic
nightmare this one seemingly simple thing turned into!

/end rant

Jill \

I am so sorry, Jill. Sending you calming purrs. The one thing about these
giant bureaucracies I really hate-- besides the fact that they screw up all
the time -- is that they are totally incapable of admitting it. They never
back down from their asinine position, whatever it is, and you are left
scrambling or hanging out to dry.


--
Theresa and Dante

Stinky Forever: http://pets.webshots.com/album/125591586JWEFwh

"Kreisleriana" drtATearthlink.net wrote in
m:

I am so sorry, Jill. Sending you calming purrs. The one thing about
these giant bureaucracies I really hate-- besides the fact that they
screw up all the time -- is that they are totally incapable of
admitting it. They never back down from their asinine position,
whatever it is, and you are left scrambling or hanging out to dry.

But think of all the people demanding that the government be responsible
for their pet project, whether it be health care, education, the
environment, or bailing out the economy. The people who will handle that
will be working under exactly the same conditions as the DMV, with all that
"quality" (smirk) that you've come to know and love.

Next time you think "there oughta be a law", think again. Let's NOT let the
government handle it.

"jmcquown" wrote in
:

My car tags & registration are coming up for renewal in April. It's
registered in Tennessee. (I still have an apartment there.) It
occurred to me I may as well go ahead and register it in SC. But my
car title is locked in a file cabinet in TN and I'd need it to
register the car in SC.

If that's how SC handles a neighbor from TN, I dread to think how they'd
treat a Californian like me!

jmcquown wrote:
(I apologize if I already posted about this. Had some problems with
individual.net the other day. All this happened last Friday. It's a
long rant, and I apologize for that, too.)

/begin rant

My car tags & registration are coming up for renewal in April.snip
Jill



Lots of purrs and hugs,
Polonca and Soncek

"hopitus" wrote in message
...
On Feb 22, 6:27 am, "jmcquown" wrote:
I'll call MY bank tomorrow to see if they can get me a copy of the check I
wrote in 2004 paying off the car. That might give me a clue to work with.
(Hopefully my bank keeps records longer than 3 years! LOL At least it's
still the same bank, wasn't bought out or subject to the bail-out.)

Meanwhile, come April I'll just register the car in TN again. Legally I
can
do that; I'm still a resident of TN. But what a huge bureaucratic
nightmare
this one seemingly simple thing turned into!

/end rant

Jill

I don't blame you for your distress mode! I didn't think any state
would outdo
FL for beaurocratic messes...but TN looks like a winner.
Listen, I'm not knocking your method of inquiry but if you don't mind
I have
a suggestion that may or not work.
My relatives and I have successfully mailed *keys* - both to homes
*and* to
vehicles - back and forth from state to state...like when one of them
dies and
the survivors (us) need to get in some safe deposit box or post office
box the
deceased had.
Could you call a pal in Memphis, mail he/she the key to your house and/
or
your file cabinet key....and have he/she mail *you* the car title?
That's what I'd do myself. Hell with the rest of them you mention.
Hopefully
you can then register your car with SC.
Nops cannot resist a tiny dig. So glad you are not either "fitting in"
with the
majority of residents there...nor now driving that Buick...ROFL.
Forgive me
you know where I come from....if that's an excuse....or not.

This suggestion is appreciated but there are a few reasons it won't work.
Well, you know I'm not about to give my brother a key to my apartment. And
my friends wouldn't have any idea how to figure out my filing system. I'm
one of those people who has an "organized mess". It makes perfect sense to
me. I could put my hands on the car title in an instant. But I couldn't
begin to tell someone else how to find it in the file cabinet. I should
have put it in a safe deposit box.

Jill

Almost makes you wish you had just driven to TN to get the original, eh?


I went through something similar last year, but not quite as bad. When we
paid off our Land Rover, we got the title in the mail, where the loan
company (Land Rover Capital) had signed off and released it to us.

It went missing. I went to get a replacement, but they couldn't give it
to me as the loan company's name is still on it.

I went home, called them and they faxed a lien release to the BMV (here in
IN, it is called what it is BEAREAU of Motor Vehicles LOL).

Went back to BMV and they STILL couldn't release it to me - seems they had
Jaguar listed as the lei holder, not Land Rover (same company, different
names) and to top it of, some inexperienced typist somewhere had
misspelled it as Jaquar (who's ever heard of them). 1.5 hours, and 5
faxes explaining that Jaquar is a typo, and it should be Jaguar, and that
Jaguar and Land Rover are one & the same (at least here in USA, the
majority shareholder is Ford Motor Company), and that neither company
still held a lien on the vehicle, I walked out with a duplicate title and
it is now locked in our 'fireproof' safe.

"jmcquown" wrote in message
...
(I apologize if I already posted about this. Had some problems with
individual.net the other day. All this happened last Friday. It's a
long rant, and I apologize for that, too.)

/begin rant

My car tags & registration are coming up for renewal in April. It's
registered in Tennessee. (I still have an apartment there.) It
occurred to me I may as well go ahead and register it in SC. But my car
title is locked in a file cabinet in TN and I'd need it to register the
car in SC.

So I called the DMV in Tennessee to request a duplicate title. The
woman was extremely rude. (I understand she's a harried and possibly
underpaid government employee, but hey! at least she has a job. Would
it have killed her to be polite?) She cut me off mid-sentence and
informed me I can't possibly have the title to my car because it still
has a lien on it. I said no, I paid the loan off in May, 2004. She
came within a fraction of an inch of calling me a liar. She said
(snippily) I couldn't possibly have paid it off because that's not what
her computer shows.

We all know computers are never wrong, don't we? (GIGO - garbage in,
garbage out.) She asked "What bank do you send your payments to?"
(Note: she used the present tense, not past tense.) I sighed. I said I
made my last payment in 2004 and it was financed through the dealership,
not my own bank. I sent the payments to the dealership. She stiffly
informed me there's no way I paid off the loan for the car.

[I ask you, if I still owed money for this car don't you think the
dealership would have come after me by now? My address (in TN) didn't
change from the time I financed it to the time I paid it off. Neither
did my phone number. If I owed them money they'd have been tracking me
down... especially since the final payment was over $6000.]

So I called the dealership. Oh, we don't keep records longer than 3
years. WHAT?! You have no record of me buying a car from you in 2003
and paying it off in 2004? Nope, sorry. (In this wonderful world of
modern technology, their computers only go back 3 years?! My god, I was
able to track down a life insurance policy issued in 1947 but these
people can't tell me I bought a car from them in 2003. How utterly
ridiculous!)

The woman at the dealership asked me what bank. I again patiently
explained I financed it through them, I didn't get a loan from *my* bank
otherwise I'd be talking to my bank. She said sure, she understood
that, but what bank was the dealership using then? Now how the hell am
I supposed to know that? More importantly, why don't *they* know that?!
When I was making payments I just put my check in the supplied envelope
with the payment coupon and mailed it. I don't remember the address it
went to; we're talking 5 years ago. She suggested I call my insurance
company.

So I called my insurance company. They were very helpful, insofar as
possible. They gave me the name of a bank that probably handled the
financing for the dealership at that time. But that bank doesn't seem
to exist anymore. Great, what do I do now? She suggested I call the
corporate offices of the car dealership and explain the problem. huge
sigh

Okay, so I called the corporate office of the dealership. You know by
this time I was tired of trying to explain the situation. The woman I
spoke with there said someone from the dealership where I bought my car
would have had to sign the title over to me. They probably forgot to
inform the state. Great, what do I do about that? They don't keep
records older than 3 years! She didn't know what to tell me.

I'll call MY bank tomorrow to see if they can get me a copy of the check
I wrote in 2004 paying off the car. That might give me a clue to work
with. (Hopefully my bank keeps records longer than 3 years! LOL At
least it's still the same bank, wasn't bought out or subject to the
bail-out.)

Meanwhile, come April I'll just register the car in TN again. Legally I
can do that; I'm still a resident of TN. But what a huge bureaucratic
nightmare this one seemingly simple thing turned into!

/end rant

Jill



--
^..^ This is Kitty. Copy and paste Kitty into your signature to help
her
wipe out Bunny's world domination.
--
The ONE and ONLY
lefthanded-pathetic-paranoid-psychotic-sarcastic-wiseass-ditzy
former-blonde
in Bloomington! (And proud of it, too)©
email me at nalee1964 (at) comcast (dot) net
http://community.webshots.com/user/mgcmdjeep

I don't think liens getting messed up is that unusual, although the
problems encountered fixing the problem are. When I had a car, I had
been warned to check the title before I tried to sell it, and sure
enough, the bank hadn't told Motor Vehicles that it was paid off. But
for me it was a simple matter of explaining the matter to the bank to
get it straightened out.

I always figure that the banks simply don't bother keeping up with the
paperwork once the loan is paid off, although they remember fast enough
if you still owe them money!

Good luck with your problems.

Cheryl

Magic Mood Jeep wrote:
Almost makes you wish you had just driven to TN to get the original,
eh?

I went through something similar last year, but not quite as bad. When we
paid off our Land Rover, we got the title in the mail, where
the loan company (Land Rover Capital) had signed off and released it
to us.
It went missing. I went to get a replacement, but they couldn't give
it to me as the loan company's name is still on it.

I went home, called them and they faxed a lien release to the BMV
(here in IN, it is called what it is BEAREAU of Motor Vehicles LOL).

Went back to BMV and they STILL couldn't release it to me - seems
they had Jaguar listed as the lei holder, not Land Rover (same
company, different names) and to top it of, some inexperienced typist
somewhere had misspelled it as Jaquar (who's ever heard of them). 1.5
hours, and 5 faxes explaining that Jaquar is a typo, and it
should be Jaguar, and that Jaguar and Land Rover are one & the same
(at least here in USA, the majority shareholder is Ford Motor
Company), and that neither company still held a lien on the vehicle,
I walked out with a duplicate title and it is now locked in our
'fireproof' safe.

It gets more complicated when companies keep getting sold to others, Ford no
longer own Jaguar/Land Rover, they sold their holding to Tata of India. I
think they may have sold Volvo also, I'm not sure.
--
Adrian (Owned by Snoopy, Bagheera & Shadow)
Cats leave pawprints on your heart
http://community.webshots.com/user/clowderuk

"Adrian" wrote in message
om...
Magic Mood Jeep wrote:
Almost makes you wish you had just driven to TN to get the original,
eh?

I went through something similar last year, but not quite as bad. When
we paid off our Land Rover, we got the title in the mail, where
the loan company (Land Rover Capital) had signed off and released it
to us.
It went missing. I went to get a replacement, but they couldn't give
it to me as the loan company's name is still on it.

I went home, called them and they faxed a lien release to the BMV
(here in IN, it is called what it is BEAREAU of Motor Vehicles LOL).

Went back to BMV and they STILL couldn't release it to me - seems
they had Jaguar listed as the lei holder, not Land Rover (same
company, different names) and to top it of, some inexperienced typist
somewhere had misspelled it as Jaquar (who's ever heard of them). 1.5
hours, and 5 faxes explaining that Jaquar is a typo, and it
should be Jaguar, and that Jaguar and Land Rover are one & the same
(at least here in USA, the majority shareholder is Ford Motor
Company), and that neither company still held a lien on the vehicle,
I walked out with a duplicate title and it is now locked in our
'fireproof' safe.

It gets more complicated when companies keep getting sold to others,
Ford no longer own Jaguar/Land Rover, they sold their holding to Tata of
India. I think they may have sold Volvo also, I'm not sure.
--
Adrian (Owned by Snoopy, Bagheera & Shadow)
Cats leave pawprints on your heart
http://community.webshots.com/user/clowderuk


Fortunately, this happened before Ford sold the majority of their holdings
in them

Otherwise, I would probably still be there

--
^..^ This is Kitty. Copy and paste Kitty into your signature to help
her
wipe out Bunny's world domination.
--
The ONE and ONLY
lefthanded-pathetic-paranoid-psychotic-sarcastic-wiseass-ditzy
former-blonde
in Bloomington! (And proud of it, too)©
email me at nalee1964 (at) comcast (dot) net
http://community.webshots.com/user/mgcmdjeep