- Florida’s DMV appointment scalpers use bots to grab slots, reselling them for up to $250.
- The scalpers cause delays and inflated prices, making it harder for locals to get appointments.
- Miami-Dade Tax Collector Dariel Fernandez vows to stop them, ensuring equal access to services.
Imagine needing a DMV appointment to handle any business, and then realizing there are no slots available. Sound familiar? Well, that’s exactly what many Florida residents have been facing recently. And, for some reason, it’s also why many have decided that paying hundreds of dollars to secure an appointment is a reasonable choice. Enter the scalpers, who are profiting from this mess—and now, they’re starting to feel the pressure.
That heat isn’t just the Florida sun either. It’s the Miami-Dade Tax Collector, Dariel Fernandez, who says they’ve figured out the whole scheme. “We know who they are and how they operate. We will not accept any appointment obtained through system abuse,” said Fernandez. “Our office is committed to ensuring that all residents have fair and equal access to services without interference from those seeking to exploit the system.”
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According to the Miami Herald, “Lines outside the state-run DMV offices can form the night before for walk-in slots, and people report having to wait months to get appointments.” That sure makes me feel way better about my two-hour walk-in-only DMV situation in Arkansas. Even more so when we consider how the scalpers did their thing. Evidently, they’d use bots to snatch up the appointments when the state made them available.
Then, they’d sell the appointments to citizens for anywhere between $25 and $250 apiece. That’s right, folks were dropping cash just to go deal with one of the least enjoyable places on earth. That said, this whole situation is supposedly about to come to an end.
“We are taking proactive steps to enhance our technology and processes to combat this issue,” added Fernandez. “However, it is imperative that we have the legal framework in place to penalize bad actors and deter this practice altogether.”
To that end, the state introduced new legislation that would allow it to penalize scalpers with $500 fines per violation. In fact, the definition of violation is pretty wide open to include those who promote the sale of public service appointments, those who list them, or those who post them.