Temporary plates about to expire

I have a question and was hoping to count on other people's knowledge to help. I purchased my Prius prime out of state. When I did so the dealer said it was a requirement of the loan that I had to let them handle the license title and registration of the vehicle. Therefore I paid them to handle that for me. I didn't want to do things that way but they insisted that it had to be done. I could've easily handled the situation in about 20 minutes at my local DMV. They warned me at the time that Missouri which is my home state is very slow about processing new plates. I found that hard to believe. They basically told me that after I left the matter was out of their hands and not to bug him about it. Here I am almost a full months later and I still have no plates. They expire in 3 Days at Which I won't be able to legally drive my car. Somehow this doesn't seem right.

Does anyone have any idea on what recourse I can take? Would it be possible for me to go into my local DMV and get a new set of temporary plates issued for the state? My current temp plates are out-of-state. Should I start calling the dealer and the company that they used to facilitate this transaction to threaten them? should I let Bank of America know that my car isnt legal to be driven because of their policy?

 

Yeah from my perspective that sounds really weird... maybe better, but weird

 

OK. Problem solved. A spent the whole day going round and round with this issue just trying to keep my car legal. Here is what I learned in the process.

MO and NY DMV's both refused to reissue new temp tags even though I had done nothing wrong. They were set to expire the next day and honestly nobody cared enough to do anything about it. They would rather let my car sit than have one ounce of human emotion.

I had been told by the dealer that MO was notoriously slow in processing application. Therefore the dealer started ignoring my phone calls. I had emailed on Sunday night informing them of an issue and then on Monday when I started calling they just wouldn't answer for me. I tried about 20 times, calling, leaving messages, texting. Absolutely nothing. Terrible customer service after the sale if you ask me. The only reason why I won't call them out by name is because the sale went smoothly and I have to give them credit for that. Then, one time, someone aside from the receptionist actually picked up. It was a woman whom I met at the dealership and I enlisted her help. She apparently didn't get them memo about it being 'Lets not help Josh day'.

While I had this woman helping me on the dealer side I decided to contact PlateCo, the company in NJ that facilitates out of state licensing. She was decent at first. She told me that all the paperwork had been send to MO DMV on May 4th and that they were waiting for them to process everything. That means that they had it for 3 weeks. Thats too long and I wasn't going to stand for it. I hopped in my car and drove to the state capitol. I googled the main office for the DMV and walked in. I explained the situation to the very very nice lady working there and she pulled up my records without hesitation. I was told my application had been rejected....because the stupid PlateCo people had sent a blank check. Thats right, no money. They were notified of that on the same day that they received the application. I wouldn't exactly call that slow service on the part of the DMV.

While in line at the DMV I called up PlateCo to confront her with the fact that she lied/withheld information from me. I very calmly explained that the DMV had processed everything but that it was her mistake that led to the delay. It was at this point that she went from being marginally decent to incredibly rude. If I had to make this purchase all over again and I found out the dealer was using this company for their licensing I would probably tell them to find someone else or I would walk, it was just that bad. She was yelling at me while on speaker at the DMV. She said how she didn't have time to deal with people like me. That her only job was to deal with the dealers, not the customers. I told her that since I was the one who paid her the $200 for her service then I was the one who would be asking the questions. I told her that she lost that right when she mailed out a blank check and screwed me over. She said that she was busy and she would look into it another day. I didn't let it go. I told her she would put down what she was doing, contact the dealership to get more information about the status of the check, and then call me back right away.

Much to my surprise, she actually did. She left just as hateful of a voicemail on my phone. It contained tracking information about the check that was reissued. It even included the name of the woman at the DMV that signed for it the second time. Bingo. I went back to the DMV and played the voicemail for the lady there. Within 5 minutes she had searched the desk of the person who signed for it a few days earlier and had my check in hand. She processed the plates and everything right there on the spot and gave them to me. I had been in search of someone with some compassion and competency and I had finally found her. I told her I would always come back to her for my vehicles in the future!

Then the story went from good to incredible. I noticed that the check was for too much money. I asked about that. Apparently the dealer made me overpay on registration fees. I knew that at the time but basically there was nothing the dealer was willing to do about it. I thought I overpaid by about $300. The lady at the DMV explained how it was actually by over $800. She asked if I would like that money to go back to the dealer or if they should just issue me a check for the difference. Ill let you be the judge of which one i picked.

After all was said and done I wrote several people at the dealership to inform them of what had happened. I explained how PlateCo had sent out a blank check from the dealership and how the lady was rude and lied. I explained how irritated I was that I had to take care of this myself instead of letting the company that I paid $200 to care for the matter. I got no response. Go figure.

The moral of the story. Don't trust anything that you are told until you see the proof with your own eyes. Had I believed what anyone had told me then I wouldn't have known better. But I kept asking, kept pushing, and kept demanding information until the truth came out.