Complaint Review: Colorado Dept. of Revenue-Motor Vehicle Division

My husband got pulled over in my car the other day. He was surprised to find that my car registration and sticker was expired, which was why he was pulled over. It was 6 months overdue! He got a $100 ticket for this violation. When he came home and told me this, I was shocked and immediately thought, this is impossible. I am an extremely organized individual that would not have missed paying the renewal. I searched everywhere upstairs for the 2nd copy of the registration that they give you to keep in the house, in addition to giving you one to put in your vehicle, along with the stickers on the plates. I had no 2nd copy in the house. I went out to the car frantically looking for the registration, found nothing.

After searching through bank records 6 months back, I slowly started to realize what happened - that I never received my registration renewal notice. I couldn't have possibly received it, because if I had, I would have paid it, and would have a record of such, check register, duplicate check copy, bank statement, etc.

I have a theory on this now, after going crazy about this for 2 days straight and googling the subject, and calling motor vehicle dept. who confirmed that no, my registration had not been renewed. I now owe them $224.00 (registration plus late fees) and we have to pay $100 fine. With all the budget cuts, county governments and the entire country broke and in debt, I am almost certain that this is a concerted effort by the government agencies to collect revenue from unsuspecting citizens, who are overwhelmed with this b.s. on a daily basis in our lives now. I don't know about anyone else, but my entire life, almost weekly now, is spent running sh*t like this down. Trying to make phone calls during working hours, trying to correct mistakes that have been made on a bill, a utility charge, an outrageous fee that I missed that showed up on an account somewhere, mistakes everywhere, questions, problems, constant constant constant running down of these incessant nightmares in what has become our daily modern lives. I am so busy trying to stay on top of everything all the time that I simply FORGOT that my registration expired...with no PROMPTING from the department of motor vehicle, this is the perfect trap for overwhelmed citizens such as myself. Lesson learned of course, since the onus is on me, naturally, the "guilty" citizen, who forgot to remember to know when her vehicle registration expires, because I don't make it a habit of looking at the tiny sticker on my license plate when I go in and out of my car. Because I am EXPECTING to be REMINDED of this when I get the renewal in the mail.

When I questioned the MV Department, of course I was told that yes, "some" registration renewals get lost in the mail and never make it to their law-abiding citizens. But that this does not absolve the citizen from knowing that the registration is expired. I'm googling this subject and finding out that this is happening all over the country. I would not at all be surprised to find that this an internal state government decision that is probably supposed to be kept confidential among goverment workers, that this is something that goes on, on purpose, in order to make additional revenue. They get the revenue for the late fees and they get the revenue from the tickets. So it is planned and legalized extortion of citizens. And I think it could even go as far as them deciding the exact percentage of citizens that will purposely NOT get their renewal notices mailed - say 3,000 citizens, randomly chosen, so they can estimate how much revenue they will get on tickets and late fees given to these drivers, plus the money they will save on the postage for NOT mailing the renewals.

I have tried to find somewhere on the motor vehicle deparment website or Colorado department of revenue site to issue a complaint about this, but I know this is totally pointless and I am powerless to do anything. I simply have to bend over the barrel and send in my check. I found this website so, for what it's worth, this is my story. I've already talked to two other friends/relatives that have had this similar incident happen to them.  My mom, who lives in Florida and a friend who lives in New Jersey - both states that are flat broke also, so this theory would definitely pan out in these states as well.