Illinois Secretary of State's Office

[can't putt]

OK, just bitchin' here.

Several months ago I sold my big white van.  Two months later I received notification that I failed to pay the proper sales tax on my recent purchase of said van.  Last month I recieved registration renewal documents for my new vehicle.  I appropriately returned the documents and awaited my new sticker.  When the sticker came, it was for the van I sold several months ago!

One year ago I sold a car to my oldest son.  A few months later he traded in the car on a new vehicle at a reputable dealership.  This past Saturday, I received notice from the City of Chicago that as owner of record of said car I am informed that it has been impounded for illegal drugs.

Phone calls start this afternoon.  I expect to be thorougly pissed by dinner.

[mirth]

Yeah, I had a similar experience with the SoS' office in June/July regarding my wife's Mazda that we traded in last November.

We kept getting emissions notices and we'd return them with the 'car sold/traded' box checked and they kept returning them to us - unopened!

Long story short she had to go to the DMV and get new plates for the van, even though we paid the fee to transfer them!

[Jon Brakel]

I owned a Geo for 6 years or so and for 3 of those years the DMV kept issuing my plate number to someone else. If my plate was PQQ865, they kept issuing the plate to the car that was really registered with PQQ855.

The first time I found out it was because the DMV sent the renewal to the other guy and the other guy didn't renew my plates for me! So I got a ticket. However, since I had a pile of previous year's registrations the cop figured out that it was a typo and gave me a ticket for an illegal registration rather than an expired registration. My registration was "illegal" because it was in the wrong name and for the wrong car. The cop said "Go to the DMV and get the registration fixed and then the judge will throw out the ticket." Which is what happened.

However, every time the "other guy" registered his car it would invalidate my registration in the DMV records. Becky had her friends at the Mundelein Police Department run my plates every few months and when it came back wrong, I'd go back down to the DMV to fix it. Then I'd send all my paper work and a letter to the Secretary of State. After the fourth time I got a call from the assistant to the Secretary of State telling me that his top DMV guy was working on fixing the problem. They wound up having to delete both cars records from the system, put them back in the system correctly with all their CORRECT history and then they sent a DMV guy to the "other guy's" house to get the plates and registration forms with my number on them and personally give him new plates and registrations.

That finally fixed it. I did get a letter of apology. It seems like you should get a "Get Out of Jail Free" card or something for those kinds of things. Or a coupon for a half-off speeding ticket...something!

[Chainmeister]

All I know is that when I have gone to renew my license or when I have gone with teenagers to get their first license, or the time I went with a daughter who had lost her license, I was amazed at how helpful the staff was at the SOS offices.  I always expect the worst beaurocrats and have found understanding ones.  It seems that somebody somewhere has drilled the staff on customer service.  Of course, I recently received an Air-Team notice  on a vehicle that was totalled.  I filled out the form and returned it explaining that I no longer owned the car.  We will see if that leads to a chapter written by Kafka.

As far as the City of Chicago, that may be a whole different matter.  Good luck.

[can't putt]

The good news:
The DMV office in DeKalb was not very helpful, BUT,  Springfield was exceptional.  Very friendly, very helpful, went out of the way to verify the paper trail was in place to show I no longer owned the drug busted car.  All issues with the Secretary of State's office seem like they will be easy to resolve.

When I called the City of Chicago to tell them I no longer owned the car they simply said "well then you simply do nothing".  I'm skeptical on that one.

The bad news:
Received notice of another certified letter from the City of Chicago.  I'll pick it up tomorrow.

[duain]

i always skip the dmv for my renewals and have it done at my bank(most banks renew stickers and registrations). this way i know if the SOS screws something up or loses the info the bank will have a copy on record for proof. for licenses, thats a dmv matter and usally a long wait in line with a number.