Can what you write in the memo field deface a check?

So, I go to register my car at a Massachusetts DMV, and the charge is $200 or more.

Is this a public debt? Or did I have to use a bank check as the guy there demanded?

No. You don’t owe them that money. You are purchasing a one-year registration of your vehicle. True, you have to renew the registration in order to drive, but no service has been performed until payment is accepted. It’s only upon acceptance of payment that the DMV grants you the renewal. You are paying for a service; it’s not a debt.

FASCIST POLICE STATE (all in caps like that.)

I realize that the police do a valuable service in society and respect them for that. Heck my father was a police officer and my response to tickets of any sort is usually to angry at myself for being a dummy and not following the laws as I know them. For those interested the ticket was for being parked too close to a driveway. FYI you need to be more than 4’ from one. I was there a total of 5 minutes.

My issue is with the zeal this community shows in enforcing parking rules and other money making offenses.

Sure, a private business can but can a government agency refuse to accept it because it pissed them off?

Sadly I did mean epithets, I was even trying to make sure I spelled it correctly. Unfortunately spell check doesn’t tell you the correctly spelled word is not the one you want. :smack:

I’m pretty sure that a ticket has to be considered a debt. I can’t get out of paying it by just choosing not to park any more. If I don’t pay it my license would be suspended and I think if I get enough a warrant could be put out for my arrest.

Has a DMV ever been held up? Anywhere? Ever?

Yes. Any more silly questions?

You certainly did not “deface” the check, and his language was incorrect. Semantics aside, however, they do have the right to refuse the check. The only way to “deface” the check, and that is stretching the definition of deface to its very limit, is to have the word “void” written on it somewhere. Your check was valid, he just wanted to “out-jerk” you, which he had every right to do. His signature comment was just following up on that.

I used to do item processing for a bank that was the city I live in (Huntington, WV) general fund bank, and we received all the items from their department that processed things like parking tickets. I saw lots of interesting memo line comments, many of which described what the city should do with the money, sometimes rather colorfully. It wouldn’t have hurt them to take your check, but in turn it wouldn’t hurt to just pay your fine and go on with life. As it will always be in a situation like that, they have the upper hand.

I usually write something like “tax donation” or “revenue enhancement” in the memo for tickets. haven’t been rejected yet. And my signature is deliberately hard to read/duplicate.

Perhaps they did not accept the check because you were supposed to write “FASCIST POLICE STATE” in the “pay to the order of” section? :stuck_out_tongue:

The word ‘race’ is used in both contexts, although using ‘race’ to mean ‘species’ seems limited to fictional contexts. (And Burns called the haggis the ‘chieftan of the pudding race’. I don’t know what to make of that.)

This discussion regarding whether something is a “debt” or not is not going to help you. It’s not a legal standard.

As long as we’re being legally pedantic and all, the video shows the aftermath of a break-in, not a hold-up.

You are 100% right. I was being a jerk. That doesn’t make my assesment of that particular community any less valid.

Thanks for the info everyone.

I think the reason the person at the window even noticed the Memo field is because I asked her if that was who I was supposed to make the check out to.

Huh - I paid $1300+ in cash in MA to register a car a few months back - the clerk didn’t blink at the cash. I can’t believe they wouldn’t take $200 in cash.

And clearly you made this up anyway, since in Massachusetts, you go to the Registry, not the DMV :smiley:

Too late to edit - that $1300 in the post above was mostly sales tax on a car I bought, with only $100 or so being registration & new plates.

:eek:

[del]Seriously? Wow. It’s $36 here. Does it cost that much even if it’s a $500 beater?

(Sorry for the hijack.)[/del]

ETA: Well, that’ll teach me to post in a thread I opened two hours ago and never refreshed. :smack:

“This note is legal tender for all depts, public and private.”

Back in the 19th Century, most paper money was issued by private banks. People could accept or reject them as they chose, based on how confident they were that the bank actually existed, and would redeem the notes for gold or silver. A New York business would accept notes issued by a famous New York bank, but would probably not accept a note issued by a Los Angeles bank that they had never heard of before.

When the federal government started issuing paper currency, they put that language on the note to try to persuade people that the new notes were just as good as bank notes, and almost as good as coins (back in the days when coins actually contained bullion). But nobody is required to accept them. That is an individual negotiation between the buyer and the seller, or the debtor and the creditor.

Did he have to take a number and wait for over three hours too?

Source: Front page | U.S. Department of the Treasury