Virginia Emissions Decal

[bob90212]

Glad I found this thread, just had a similar moment of confusion at the DMV. Was trying to explain it to the service station when getting my safety inspection, he had no idea what I was talking about.

Good to go though. I guess most of the 2nd stickers you see on people's windshields are just stickers from the city they reside in....

[car54]

Originally Posted by michgc

I have an interesting story to relay. Over Thanksgiving we were up in Pennsylvania driving on a residential street. We pass a police car and my dh as a joke says to me, "Okay play it cool." Next thing you know the cop's lights are on and he's pulling us over. We could not imagine what for. Turns out he was running license plate numbers through the computer and when he ran ours through, it came up that our car's registration had expired. He tells dh, "I see the '11' stickers on the plate but when I run the plate it says that your registration hasn't been renewed since 09." Huh? DH pulls out the registration and shows him that it most certainly was renewed. My husband who is a big license plate collector suggests that perhaps a specialty plate with our number hasn't been renewed. Cop goes back to his car and is gone for quite awhile. Finally comes back and says, that it is our car's tag that shows it hasn't been renewed, but when he plugs in the VIN it shows that it has. He's like "Man, Virginia's computer system is all messed up." And he lets us go. The next day, my husband calls the VA registration office. The woman on the other end makes a note of it and says this is not the first time that this has happened that the computer wasn't updated properly.

Moral of the story? Carry your registration on you! And you may be stopped even if you are not in Virginia.

Another possible explanation is employee fraud. I've heard that a popular scam is deliberately not processing a renewal. Say a person is renewing their plates in-person AND paying cash, a crooked DMV clerk will issue a decal that has been turned in for a refund (that they were supposed to shred), pocket the cash, and dispose of the application. You may think you renewed your plates...but there will be no record of it.

DMV is a horrible job with very high stress and very low pay/bennies (and getting worse all the time), so they just really don't have much to lose.

NEVER pay cash at DMV...

[oneasterisk]

Originally Posted by car54

Another possible explanation is employee fraud. I've heard that a popular scam is deliberately not processing a renewal. Say a person is renewing their plates in-person AND paying cash, a crooked DMV clerk will issue a decal that has been turned in for a refund (that they were supposed to shred), pocket the cash, and dispose of the application. You may think you renewed your plates...but there will be no record of it.

DMV is a horrible job with very high stress and very low pay/bennies (and getting worse all the time), so they just really don't have much to lose.

NEVER pay cash at DMV...

Red flag would be if you do not receive a receipt for said payment.