While we try to avoid leaning on personal anecdotes too much at Dirt Legal, sometimes life throws curveballs at you that are destined for the blog. In my case, it was registering my classic Ford Excursion for the first time at the Kansas DMV a few weeks ago. 

Long story short, I had all my mandatory paperwork filled out and ready to drop, along with a 10% sales tax, and they ran my card. Well, the card was declined, and I had to leave to figure it out. 

My bank (USAA) told me that the Kansas DMV had been flagged for fraud when they ran the charge. Is this because the DMV is actually fraudulent? That is up to you to decide. All I know is that my bank seems to think so.

Is the DMV A Fraud? You Decide

Well, here’s what happened.

I was due (ok, way overdue) to title and register my truck that I purchased back in March. So, I headed into the DMV with all the usual paperwork. There were no issues, and the clerk checked out all of my paperwork. 

While it is no joy to pay ten percent in sales tax, it was approved without issue. However, when the clerk ran my card, it declined. I knew there was more than enough money in the account, so it didn’t make sense. 

There wasn’t anything to do besides walk out of the DMV (and lose my spot in line) and see about using an ATM (apparently, once a card has been declined, the DMV can’t run it again. Figures.) 

The trouble was that the ATM wouldn’t work either. Finally, my banking app flagged a problem with the account. 

I called the 1-800 number to check in and see what the deal was. It turned out that the Kansas DMV was flagged as a fraudulent vendor. 

The bank pulled the fraud flag off, and I found an ATM to pay with cash. The rest was a non-event besides losing my place in line…

Why Would the DMV Trigger a Fraud Charge?

It’s tough to say why exactly the DMV would trigger a fraud charge through a major bank. But, as you can see in the attached image, the charge was from a .gov entity. 

More than likely, it was some sort of oversight, but it does beg the question of what would cause it in the first place.

According to Investopedia, debit card fraud happens when a criminal accesses your debit card number. Hmm. We’ll leave that one right there. 

Of course, that doesn’t fit the bill since I approved the purchase (even though paying ten percent of the sale price in tax was not something I approve of).

More than likely, the DMV flagging my card was a glitch or an oversight. Maybe USAA has beef with the Kansas state government? It was probably a glitch and a hilarious one at that. But it did get me thinking about the entire process of registering a car. 

It’s the Information Age: why are we still driving into the DMV in some states to hand over a paper title? Why can they not tell me exactly what I owe online?

Surely the ability exists to fill out the paperwork online, add signatures as necessary, and send everything to the DMV in the mail? As I said, it’s the modern era. We should be beyond this timesuck by this point in human history. 

Fortunately for you, I learned hard, so you don’t have to. You can register your car online, ditch the hassle of waiting in line, have your title and registration sent straight to your door, and pay substantially less than ten percent in sales taxes. In fact, you can pay as little as NO sales tax. 

What’s more, we handle all of the payment processing, so if anyone has to deal with fraud issues flagging, it’s us, not you. 

Does it Matter Where I Register My Car?

It depends on how well you stomach sales tax, inspections, smog checks, and long DMV lines. If you are cool with those things, go right ahead and register your vehicle in your hometown. 

But if you would like a shot at paying a lot less money in taxes, we will hook you up. And in the same breath, if you want to ditch smog checks forever, we have a service that can do both. 

Would Out-of-State Registration Clear This Up?

An out-of-state vehicle registration would have definitely cleared this up. 

Instead of wasting my entire morning, I could have clicked a few buttons, waited on paperwork to arrive in my mailbox, and moved on with my life. 

If I’d opted for the out-of-state title with registration, the tax burden would have only been six percent instead of my local ten percent. Now granted, I’m cheap, and my cars are old. But it still would have saved me almost $275 in sales tax. 

Now, I bought this old Excursion for $6,800. But let’s bump those numbers up by, say, ten times. A new or almost new truck will easily sell for $68,000. 

In the Sunflower State, the sales tax ticket on that $68,000 truck will run an unbelievable $6,800. IN TAX. That’s why I drive old trucks. 

But with our out-of-state registration program, that number drops to $4,080, saving you nearly three grand. 

Better yet, how about NO sales tax on that $68,000 truck? That math is easy: you’d save $6,800 in tax. 

What Other Services Should I Outsource Out-of-State?

If you’re a fan of convenience and not a fan of taxes, then you should consider outsourcing all of your registrations out of state. That horse trailer you’ve been eyeing? No problem. And the travel trailer? Easy. Boats? Yes. How about a street-legal UTV? We won’t even break a sweat. 

What you decide to register and title out-of-state is your business. We can’t always guarantee that the state will approve the super weird stuff, but we can work with just about anything with wheels and some things without them. 

Okay, Great. I Registered Out-of-State. How Do I Renew It?

Renewals are always a topic of consideration, which we expect. DMVs are usually so rigid that it’s hard to believe they wouldn’t be. We have developed a reliable system that lets you put your registration renewals on autopilot. You can set it up to auto-renew. You click the button; we do the rest. It is that easy. 

Anything Else?

One more thing to ease your mind. We know that people are strapped for cash right now. The economy sucks. To make things a little easier for everyone, we have adopted Afterpay as an interest-free payment plan option. It will help you get your vehicle on the road faster with a little less damage to your wallet all at once. 

Wrapping Up

There is no way of knowing what triggered the DMV's fraud charge on my card. It was probably a coincidence, but it does make for a good story. But what is not a coincidence is that our out-of-state title and registration programs would not have left me hanging. On the contrary, they would have saved me a lot of frustration, time, and money by handling everything out-of-state. 

You don’t have to make the same mistake I did; jump over to our registration page and get started on one of our out-of-state plans today.