Tag: Drivers Are ‘It’ : DMV Snafu Results in Registration Renewal Bills Up to $2,500

When Dixon Gayer’s wife bought him his $40,000 Lexus sedan last year, she toldhim he should feel like royalty. But when he got his first registration renewal bill from the Department of Motor Vehicles for $1,710 this week, he said he felt more like a pauper.

“I looked at the bill and knew there had to be some sort of mistake. I was definitely not counting on paying that much,” said the retired Cal State Long Beach journalism professor from his Huntington Beach home on Tuesday.

Gayer, who thought he was supposed to pay $658 for the first year, was not alone.

Because a Sacramento computer operator incorrectly programmed a new fee schedule for a rare antique car, the DMV has made its most widespread billing snafu in recent history.

DMV officials said that about 330,000 Californians were mailed erroneous bills during the past week, some of which reflected renewal charges of up to $2,500 for Volkswagen bugs, Ford Pintos and other modest means of transportation.

“We’ve had (computer and billing) problems before,” DMV spokesman Bill Gengler said, “but nothing of this magnitude.”

But if you have received a registration renewal bill that literally takes your breath away, DMV officials said, don’t worry. The computer system is fixed and car owners with bollixed bills will get corrected ones soon.

The problem began last Monday, when a computer operator was attempting to revise the fee schedule for the five 1920 Rolls-Royces registered in California.

In the process, he accidentally changed the programming for all cars with renewal dates of Nov. 16, 18 and 20. As a result, bills to 421,000 people throughout the state were printed out wrong, Gengler said.

In an effort to put the skids on what seemed a disastrous episode in the making, DMV officials on Friday caught as many as 91,000 bills before they were mailed. But about 330,000 were mailed before the error was caught, Gengler said.

Of those mailed, about 41,000 were too high, Gengler said. The remainder of the bills undercharged for registration renewals.

Those who have already paid will either get a refund or will be billed for the balance. Gengler said he doubts that many people have actually written a check for the bill, however, making the problem less complicated than if DMV had caught the problem later.

“Who goes out and pays their registration on the day they get the bill?” Gengler said.

Gengler said that those with erroneous bills should not contact their local DMV branch office but instead should wait for a corrected bill to arrive in the mail within the next few days. The bills will contain letters directing owners to discard the previous bill.

DMV officials also said that when the corrected bills come, they should not be taken to a local branch but should be mailed directly to Sacramento.

Until everyone receives new bills, however, DMV officials expect to continue hearing from confused car owners wondering why they were billed $2,000 for an economical Hyundai or $15 for a Porsche 911 Targa.

“There appears to be no rhyme or reason for the way people were charged,” said Dorothy Dale, office manager for the DMV’s Westminster branch.

Dale said that on Friday she went to lunch with no clue to the impending barrage of phone calls that she was to begin receiving later that day.

When she came back from lunch, she noticed a $1,096 bill from a car owner who was expecting to pay about $200 sitting on her desk. “I wondered, ‘What is this for?’ ” she said. “I found out soon enough.”

By 1 p.m., office workers began fielding the first of what would be more than 150 calls to the Westminster branch. A short time later, she said, a couple came in to complain about a $2,089 bill for a 10-year-old car. The bill should have been $54.

Despite the confusion, people seemed cooperative, Dale said.

“People have been very, very nice about it,” she said. “The majority of us all know what it is like working on a computer, with all the snafus that occur.”

Antique car dealer Dennis Mitosinka said the 1920 Rolls-Royces that set off the bureaucratic snafu are extremely rare and worth up to $1.5 million. Three of the vintage automobiles are in Southern California and two are owned by Bay Area residents.

Mitosinka, who said he deals with the DMV on an almost daily basis and was amused to hear about the billing problem, was not surprised about the error.

“They screw up more stuff,” he said. “It’s a government agency. What can you expect?”