I got an alarmed phone call from my mom last week. She received a dunning letter from what appeared to be a collection agency (and I suppose it technically is, but it’s an official arm of the Maryland state government). The letter tells her that she has an outstanding fine of close to $4000, and that her state tax returns may be intercepted and further collection action taken if she doesn’t pay up within fifteen (15) days.
The fine is for a lapse in car insurance, which is a fine-able offense in Maryland just the same as it is anywhere else. No problem there; that’s a sensible law. The problems are these:
The lapse period is July 1999 to October 2000. Really? Fifteen fucking years ago? :mad:
Oh, and Mom left Maryland in September 1998, and has not owned, registered, or operated a vehicle on Maryland roads since. In fact, the collection letter arrived at the Houston address she has maintained for all of that time.
The letter doesn’t even say what the car or license plate number is, or how they determined the vehicle was being operated without insurance during that time period, thus making it really difficult to research the validity of this decade-and-a-half-old fine.
While it grudgingly admits you can dispute the fine, the letter tries its absolute hardest to hide from you exactly how or with whom you may do so. Since the letter is from a “collection agency,” you can’t take it up with them directly - they make it abundantly clear that their phone number, address, and website are strictly for making payments or payment arrangements.
Mom’s a smart and level-headed woman, but legalese can be daunting even to those of us who aren’t Vietnamese and in our sixties, as she is. So she called me all panicky, and I’m preparing for what will likely be a long and unpleasant set of phone calls to the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration. I’m expecting one phone call to figure out what car it was, some research on my end, then another call to inform them of the month and year the car was registered and insured in Texas. With hold times and unhelpful bureaucrats to account for, I’m expecting it to take my whole morning.
So fuck you, Maryland MVA. Fuck you for this misguided pledge drive. Fuck you for sending my Mom a threatening letter over a fifteen year old ILLEGITIMATE fine and telling her she has fifteen days to pay it or else. Fuck you for making ME do the legwork to tell YOU that you have the wrong information. Urg.
There’s the issue right there. I’m willing to bet my last donut this letter has nothing at all to do with the MVA at all. In my experience it’s more likely a predatory collection agency scammer, possibly having purchased a legitimate (but long-expired) debt for less than pennies on the dollar, hoping to score money they aren’t actually entitled to.
I may be wrong about that, but I was under the impression that operating a motor vehicle on public roads without liability insurance was against the law anywhere in the U.S.
For the most part yes. I think there are a couple of exceptions. I think the issue is that $4000 is not a reasonable fine and probably not the correct amount anywhere.
ETA: NJ is one of the tougher states on insurance for several reasons and the fine for a 1st offense is no less than $300 and no more than $1000. But that is for driving a vehicle without insurance. No one is going to cite you for not having insurance on a car not being driven.
That’s my first thought. I suspect the time period covers the period between the end of her Maryland insurance policy and the end of her Maryland registration. I’ll assume that during that period she was covered by her Texas insurance under her Texas registration.
That doesn’t explain why it took 15 years for them to catch up with her. As with other posters, I’m dubious that this collection agency is actually a state office.
That’s the crazy bit: it isn’t some shifty third-party collection agency that bought up state debts. It’s actually a department of the state government. So all they really bring to the table here is an intervening level of bureaucracy that makes it more difficult for me to research and dispute the fine.
If it were my own 16-year old bullshit fine, I’d tell them to pound sand and feel free to chase me for it. But it’s my mom, and she’s worried, so I get to try and fix it.
I’m not in Maryland but I just looked it up. It is not a fine. It is a fee. Big difference. There is a fee from MVA that says they will charge $150 for the first 30 days and $7 a day after that for uninsured cars. That is a fee and not a fine so the worst they could do is suspend her license until it is paid. She may have been driving with a suspended MD license this whole time after she left.
I’m sure she didn’t. I imagine she registered her car when she got to Texas, and the old Maryland plates sat in her garage for a decade before being tossed out in a spring cleaning.
What do you mean “not being driven”? I’ve had cars registered in MD. There’s a proof of insurance form you may have to file documenting coverage while the plates and registration are valid. The car could be up on blocks, but it needs to be covered until the plates are returned and the registration is canceled/transferred.
That might be part of the problem, if she didn’t return the tags. I’ve lived in Maryland all my life and have dealt with the MVA enough to have problems with them. Maryland WANTS their tags back, doesn’t matter what happens to them, you lose them and they give you problems, or at least to me they did.
Yep, in Maryland if you have valid tags on the car, no matter what you have to have insurance. They will contact you right away if they find out you’ve canceled the insurance and demand you have proof of returned tags or the fines start.
This is what’s happened to me. I bought a motorcycle with my ex-wife. Because she didn’t take my last name when it came time to take her name off the title the MVA refused to do it, even with a divorce decree, because I couldn’t prove we were married so I would have to pay a few hundred bucks. I just left her name on the title since when it would come time to sell it she had already signed the title.
When I did go to sell the bike to a shop, they didn’t turn the plates in that day, as it was a Saturday, and my insurance switched between the old bike and the new one. A couple of days later I got a letter stating I needed to pay the fine for not having insurance. I called my insurance agent and they said that I was fine since I hadn’t canceled the insurance they would send in the proper paperwork. I got another letter about six months later and the agent took care of it then too.
I’d say screw it, especially if she’s not going back to Maryland to live. Otherwise her agent in Maryland might still have records.
She needs to contact the MVA, not the Central Collection Unit (CCU). The CCU is a legit department of the Maryland State government to collect on debts owed the State of Maryland from all departments, one of which is the MVA. They have no power to do anything but collect money (and send threatening letters).
The MVA will tell her what they need but I’m guessing she will need to provide the MVA a copy of her Texas registration and proof that the vehicle was insured during that time. She may need to get this from her insurance company.
In fact, have her call the insurance company first, and they may be able to handle this in entirety on her behalf.
Yeah that’s what I found out when I looked deeper (see my post two above yours). It does appear that these are MVA levied fees rather than court ordered fines.