[Chat] MVA Administrative Flag Fee

[Emil Volcheck]

Hello, neighbors,

I need to renew the registration on my car, and I got a notice from
the MVA telling me there was an "administrative flag fee" of $30 on my
account.  I called the MVA and asked what this was about.  They said
their records showed that I was late paying a ticket (back in 2004)
and that the City of Baltimore asked for my account to be flagged.
The ticket had been paid, their records showed, but I still owed the
MVA the $30 administrative fee.

I thought this was suspicious, because I didn't remember being late
paying a ticket.  I did remember going to court to contest a ticket,
which I won.  At first the MVA made it sound like there was nothing
I could do, but when I explained this, they said I would have to get a
letter from the City saying that the flag was in error, and then the
MVA would waive the fee.

This didn't sound very hopeful to me, but I decided to try.  I called
the Parking Fines number, waited on hold for half an hour this
morning, and finally talked to a person.  I asked why did I get the
flag, gave my vehicle information, and waited while they checked.  The
clerk came back and said that there was a mistake and that they would
issue a letter.  I was so surprised -- I was expecting to have to
argue, so I asked for clarification, and she confirmed it.  I had to
go down to 200 North Holliday to pick up the letter, because she said
it would take three (yes, 3) weeks to mail it to me.  I did go down
there, and the service was pretty efficient.  In and out in seven
minutes.  At first the clerk I talked said "We don't waive
administrative flag fees" but I gave him the name of the woman I
spoke to, and he came back with two letters: one saying I had paid
("parking fine release") and the other saying the fee was in error.

Here's what I think happened.  I got the ticket, asked for a Court
date, and didn't pay.  Because the Parking Division didn't get paid,
they automatically flagged my registration with the MVA.  When the
ticket was dismissed, nobody bothered to lift the flag, despite the
fact that I never owed the fine to begin with.

I heard another clerk tell another citizen that the MVA was now
flagging every ticket that wasn't paid within 30 days.  She said,
"They [MVA] just started doing that."  Makes me wonder what's actually
going on.  What if the City of Baltimore is not the party initiating
all the admin flag fees and this is just a handy way for the MVA to
raise some additional funds?

In any case, the moral of the story is that if you do get assessed
an admin flag fee unfairly, it's probably easier to get it lifted
than you might suspect at first.  The Parking Division clearly
does this a lot because they had a fill-in-the-blank form ready
for this action.

Another lesson is that if you get a ticket dismissed by a judge,
make a note to check your MVA registration record to see if you
got flagged for that ticket.  In my case, it was nearly two years
ago that my registration was flagged.  I was tempted to not
bother because there was a good chance I had just forgotten about
some $20 ticket, but I'm glad I did.

I would give the City a grade of "B" on this.  This mistake shouldn't
have happened, but the staff were courteous and efficient in
correcting the error.  I wish I hadn't had to spend 20 minutes on the
phone with the MVA, another 30 on the phone with the City, and make a
trip downtown (plus a trip to the MVA to make sure nothing gets
screwed up), but it was easier than I expected.


--Emil



-- 
Emil Volcheck
volcheck at acm.org
http://acm.org/~volcheck