North Carolina taxpayer wonders what happened to her vehicle registration after paying the fee

HOPE MILLS, NC (WTVD) -- In North Carolina, you have to register your vehicle every year. Without your registration, you've got a problem as you could be given a ticket for expired tags.

Cathy Capone, a county taxpayer, was left wondering, "Where's my registration?" after it didn't arrive in the mail.

Capone sent all of the paperwork to the DMV, including a check, to cover the registration. She even had proof that the DMV cashed her check, but weeks after sending in that information she still didn't have her registration.

"I said 'listen this is ridiculous. Obviously somebody is not doing their job over there,'" Capone said.

After her NC vehicle registration didn't arrive for weeks, she called the DMV.

"They said, 'no we never received the check. If you want you can go down to the DMV and pay in person to avoid the late charges.' I said, 'I'll do that.'"

Before paying the DMV again, Capone stopped at her bank. The bank confirmed that she paid for the registration and that the DMV cashed the check. After calling the DMV again, she still did not get the answers she was looking for.

"I was getting the runaround. 'Oh it'll be done by Monday. Oh it'll be done by Friday. It'll be done the beginning of next week,' meanwhile nothing is being done.'" Capone said.

Without her registration, Capone was fed up. After telling the DMV she was calling me, she got a phone call.

"Before I called you nothing happened," Capone said. "All of a sudden, 'yes, it's in the mail.'"

A few days later, Capone got her registration and she's happy. "Thank you very much is all I can say," Capone said.

A rep with the DMV took total blame for the delay, and provided us with this statement:

Thank you for forwarding Mr. and Mrs. Capone's information to DMV. Their registration renewal was caught up in a combination of a mechanical breakdown and, I regret to say, less-than-adequate communications within the Division's units. For that, I send the apologies of the many who worked to solve this problem, including Motor Vehicles Commissioner Kelly Thomas.

In early July, the Division experienced the breakdown of its remittance processor, a machine that opens and matches up to 7,500 checks and registration forms daily for the vehicle registration unit. New equipment was ordered to replace the vintage machine. Three smaller mail processors arrived and were placed into service one daily on July 28, 29, and 30. Opening and matching DMV registration renewals had experienced a backlog during the month's breakdown; this was cleared within a week following the installation of the new equipment. Along with the backlog, other computer systems had to be tied to the new system, including the routing of information regarding checks paid that had not gone through the processor properly. The Capone's check was one that was cashed, but not properly processed and was therefore put on hold by fiscal staff until it could be updated in the new system.

All of this is to say that getting the check through a broken system took too long, and we apologize to your viewers for this. The other part of this situation is that incomplete information seems to have been related by DMV staff. This is something we totally apologize for, and provides us with a future lesson in ensuring that we better communicate across staff lines. Even though the breakdown caused daily operational changes, we should always make sure our staff members are up-to-date and knowledgeable about a situation like this. In this case, DMV staff were working nights and weekends to solve a problem and replace a broken machine. During the stoppage, we encouraged people to use our online registration renewal option or to visit a License Plate Agency to personally renew. Both of these methods offer credit card service and neither was affected by the malfunctioning processor. We fully realize, however, that this does not change the inconvenience experienced by the Capones.

We have tracked the Capone's renewal through the registration system and found that it has been updated and their new registration sticker has been mailed out to them. We hope that they will receive it in the mail within the next few days. While we do not often experience such a total equipment breakdown, it is painful when they do occur. We are very sorry.