In 1999, I had a Massachusetts drivers license, and officially a Massachusetts residential and mailing address, and I bought and registered a car... a Saturn SC2, the only brand new vehicle I've ever purchased for myself in fact... in the commonwealth of Massachusetts.
In 2000, I lived in California, with a California car registration for that same car (and another one that I purchased as a present for my first wife... A special edition Jeep Cherokee, in Kentucky wildcat Blue, as she was a UK Wildcat) and California driver's license. In 2001, 2002, and 2003, I lived in Ireland. In 2004 I moved back to the U.S, living in Arizona.
Subsequent to moving back to the U.S. in 2004, I've lived and had drivers licenses and car registrations in Idaho, Florida, and both Arizona and New Hampshire multiple times... moving back and forth a couple times for work, family, and health reasons.
In 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004, Massachusetts attempted to charge me vehicle excise tax for a vehicle that was not registered in the state, nor was it present in the state... Nor was I resident in the state, nor did I have a driver's license in the state. In two of those years they also, somehow, issued me traffic citations, and cited me for allowing my registration to expire, and not having insurance on said car with said expired registration.
... Said registration was in fact CANCELLED in 2000 with the license plates turned back into the Massachusetts registry of Motor Vehicles. Not only that, but the vehicle itself was sold back to Saturn in April 2001, just before I moved to Ireland...
This didn't stop Massachusetts from tacking on fines and fees and interest and penalties... Then issuing a bench warrant for me, when I didn't pay those taxes and fines and fees and penalties I didn't actually owe, and suspending my drivers license which I didn't actually have... and of course not notifying me, as I hadn't actually lived in the state since 1999.
That process began almost 23 years ago, and every few years since then, it has caused me massive issues. Because other states have honored these fraudulently issued warrants, suspensions etc... And have then suspended my driver's licenses canceled my insurance and car registrations etc... Then I would get pulled over after years of no issues, and suddenly I'm driving on a suspended license and have a warrant... again...
Over the years I have paid Massachusetts more than $14,000 in taxes, and the associated fees, and penalties, and court costs, and fines,, and every other thing they could think of to extort money from me,, that I didn't actually owe them, to attempt to resolve this problem.
I have also spent thousands of dollars in fines and fees and reinstatement charges and appeals fees etc...in those other states in which I actually lived.
And then there's the multiple attorneys I've retained to try to deal with these issues, and THEIR fees.
Eventually I would end up having to go to an appeals process in each of the states I lived in that actually honored the suspension notices and warrants from Massachusetts, to get their motor vehicle and licensing department to ignore Massachusetts invalid and ultimately fraudulent attempts to suspend my drivers license over and over again etc... etc... Or I just happened to live in states like Idaho, Florida, and New Hampshire, that had had enough experience with Massachusetts that they did not honor their requests anymore.
...Massachusetts is well known among the other states for misbehavior like this... They do it over taxes, tickets, child support... anything they can do to try to extort more money from anyone they can. Many states now either simply ignore these notices from MA, or they automatically grant appeals to them, once you start the appeals process and can show they are not valid.
Unfortunately Arizona does still (or rather again, as for some years they stopped accepting and honoring MA suspensions,, revocations, and bench warrants, but a few years ago started honoring them again for some reason) accept and honor such requests from Massachusetts. So, when I moved back to Arizona three years ago, and I went to convert my New Hampshire drivers license over, I ended up having to start the whole long, painful, and expensive process all over again.
...Except once COVID hit, they stopped processing all appeals, and required appointments scheduled months in advance to do... anything basically... as did the MA Registry of Motor Vehicles, and the excise tax authority in Massachusetts, etc...
Except this time, after paying Massachusetts over $2500 more in fines and fees I didn't actually owe, using their newly instituted electronic expedited payments system, I was able to short circuit the fact that I couldn't go into an office to talk to a live human; and I managed to get them to find in their own records, why they kept charging me over and over again, suspending and warranting me over and over again, etc...
ONE of the court records, from ONE incident, 20 years ago... actually it was from 1996 but the mis-filing of the disposition was from 1999... had been misfiled with the wrong disposition and status. This had then been entered into a state computer incorrectly in 2004, and had never been fixed, and in 2006 the original paper record had been put into a box in a court basement....and thankfully said box had not yet been disposed of, as it had been scheduled to be destroyed in 2016.
I managed to explain all of the extended saga of pain and cost and inconvenience and trouble, to a sympathetic court clerk in one of the states court districts. That clerk was able to find the original record, and the proper disposition and status for the case, corrected it in the country courts computer system, and sent a fax of the correction to the states clerk who fixed in I the states computer system, and to the MA state police, and the registry of motor vehicles... and then she called each of those offices for me, and got them to get the correction off their faxes and fix it in their computers... At which point I was able to get the other two courts that had open dispositions which could not be closed until the first courts disposition was corrected, and the Massachusetts registry of motor vehicles suspension, revocation, and reinstatement office, to correct their records... and to credit me for the payments I had just made... though not the thousands in prior payments I had paid but was never credit for and which kept being marked as "not discharged" because of this ONE COMPUTER ERROR.
Oh, and MQ being MA and the RMV being the RMV... they still charged me another $1100 in a "reinstatement fee" from the registry of motor vehicles, to lift the "revocation of my driving privilege" and "reinstate my driving privilege".
I paid that $1100 last year.
I also had to talk to the Massachusetts state police office that dealt with warrants and "fugitive" records because they had officially been periodically reporting me to the FBI, NCIC and NICS as a fugitive. Which, of course, caused my NICS checks to be denied several times and forced me to go through multiple appeals on that level, as well as resulting in my being arrested several times as a fugitive with an active fugitive warrant (each time being let go once they actually got the details from Massachusetts that it was only ever a bench warrant for failure to appear for a traffic citstion and for unpaid civil traffic fines, not even minor misdemeanor criminal warrants, and that I wasn't actually a fugitive). They were able to immediately fix the problem once the court disposition record was fixed.
I then had to talk to the FBI to get them to fix the NICS records based on the correction from Massachusetts... that required some paperwork and some faxing... But the FBI is also long used to Massachusetts screwing everything up, and they actually had a standard process in place to fix the NICS records once I got the MA state police to fax them the right paperwork. The NICS official Inspoke to actually ranted about MA and their crap and how they've been screwing up NICS for years, and everyone was tired of it etc...
Then I had to pay Arizona another $500 to reinstate my driving privilege here in AZ after the out of state suspension and revocation.
All of that was over a year ago now... But I still wasn't able to get a new driver's license because of covid, making it take months to get an appointment to clear it all up on the Arizona end etc... etc...
Finally, six weeks ago, after YEARS AND YEARS AND THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS... I thought I was finally done... I had checked every couple months to make sure that MA hadn't reentered me as a fugitive or entered another suspension etc... And I went to go get my now expired NH driver's license converted over to an AZ driver's license...
Except no... They still couldn't issue me a new drivers license, because even though I'd had a driver's license in state for years before this, and they knew I was who I said I was and had enty of documentation with multiple forms of acceptable ID off the list etc... etc...
...My current documents proving my identity, all listed my name slightly differently...
Some said Chris, and some Christopher. Some had my middle initial, some my full middle name, some had neither. Some listed my generational suffix the fourth, some did not... and because of RealID they couldn't issue me any new ID or DL without two documents from the acceptable list that both matched perfectly.... which, of course, I did not have.
Amazingly, absurdly, ridiculously, and of course arbitrarily and capriciously, there was no way for them to show some actual human judgment and discretion, or the most basic degree of sense... It all had to exactly match no matter what.
So, I had to go and apply to the social security administration for a new card, and pay the state registry of vital records in Massachusetts, yet another $100 for expedited processing and shipping, to get certified copies of my birth certificate; and to receive several pieces of mail at my current address from either a governmental agency, a utility, or certain acceptable financial institutions, all of which exactly matched how they listed everything, and had my name all the same way, with current address all the same way etc...
Last week, the final piece I needed arrived.
Yesterday, after over 20 years, and by now I believe well over $20,000 in accumulated fines and fees and penalties and assessments I never actually should have had to pay... and after having been arrested multiple times for warrants that never should have been issued, for offenses I didn't actually commit... and having had firearms purchases denied and had to appeal those.. and had my FFL denied and canceled and having had to appeal THAT... and after paying yet another $97 in licensing fees to the state of Arizona, for the actual license and ID etc...
...FINALLY...
I was issued a new drivers license, without having to go through an appeal, because Massachusetts is no longer trying to screw me for no good reason, after having extorted all the money they could out of me, even though I haven't officially lived there in almost 23 years.
I now have a new Arizona drivers license, with motorcycle endorsement... and hell, I even passed the eye test... and separately an Arizona state ID that is RealID compliant for federal purposes... and two Arizona disabled placards... Or at least I have the temporary copies thereof and the RealID digital mobile version (which is legal for use as ID in AZ and federally) on my phone; and in anywhere from 4 days to 4 weeks, I should have the actual permanent physical copies thereof.
... Oh and my car registration should be fixed and associated properly with my Arizona Motor Vehicle Department account, and driving record... Somehow either the dealership or the MVD screwed that paperwork up, and it ended up creating a duplicate record with all the same data but NOT associated with my actual identity or account... So I couldn't actually renew that registration without getting it fixed first... since my car was registered a year ago now, and needs renewal this month.
Kafkqesque doesn't BEGIN to describe this entire process... But at least for now, it finally seems to be fixed.
...Until the next time Massachusetts screws something up anyway...
