If you are a driver in Illinois, chances are you are familiar with the annual fee we have to pay to the state to renew our license plates. You know the one where you have send them $100 and in return they give you a little sticker to put on your license plate? I have never understood why this fee is so high. According to my recent statement, this year's renewal fee's have increased by $20, so the total is $99. What I want to know is why we are paying so much for this? I remember emailing them last year around this time asking what the fee is for. Basically they gave me a generic answer just saying that is goes towards the cost of processing the information and what not. Really? It costs $100 to put my information in a computer and send me a sticker? I have a feeling someone at the top is making a lot of money off of all of this.
And what can we do? Not pay it? Then your license will expire and you will get fined for having an outdated license plate. There must be some way to stop these outrageous fees. I would like specific examples of exactly how this money is being used if they are taking it from us each year. Someone has to be accountable.
Not to mention they charge a convenience fee of $2.25 if you want to pay it by credit card instead of mailing it in. Funny how it is more convenient for them, yet they act as if they are accommodating us by allowing us to pay by credit card. Ok, so they say it is because they have to pay a fee if they accept credit card payments. Still it seems a bit high just to pay by credit card.
Anyway, I'm just tired of paying fees that are unreasonable and/or unexplained. Hopefully some people out there will read this. Maybe we can make a change.
2014 Update:
The cost keeps going up. It is now $101. On the back of the card they send you, it says that the increased cost is going towards state parks. Ok, but what does that have to do with license plates and motor vehicles?
Update: 4-6-14
A few months ago my dad sold a car and discarded the old license plates. Apparently someone got their hands on the plates and put them on another car illegally. Then a few weeks ago he gets sent a ticket because these plates were on someone's car and they were expired. Now if we are paying over $100 a year to keep this information current and accurate in the system, why was there no record that the car had been sold months prior and that the plates were no longer valid. They should have been able to see in the system that the plates were old and did not even match the car they were on.
So my dad has had to go to all these different departments and fill out a bunch of paperwork in order not to have to pay this fine that should never have even been put into place. If the license plate system was keeping up to date as it should with this huge amount of money we are all paying every year into the system, this kind of thing should not happen. Something just does not add up here.
Update 3-7-15 A few months back I sold a car and made sure to follow all the instructions for selling a vehicle and transferring the title. I made sure the new owner got new plates for the car. Then just recently I have been getting emails to renew my license plates even though I sold the car months ago. There is not even an option to reply explaining that the car has been sold. I sent them an email asking about this and they said it is automatic so I should just ignore it. Ok that is fine, but still it seems like if we are paying the fees each year for these plates, this system should be a lot more up to date with keeping track of the records.
