Plate Expectations

I do admin work for a car dealership, and that includes registering vehicles. If you have personalized number plates you want to put on a new vehicle, I have to get in touch with [Road Authority] to confirm the status of the plates to make sure everything’s above board. Where I am, [Road Authority] is nothing like the horror stories I’ve heard about the USA DMV, but it’s still a government agency, so it has its moments.

On this particular day, I’m given a set of custom plates to register a vehicle with and dutifully make the call to [Road Authority], sitting in the queue for ten minutes until an agent picks up. I confirm my identity and why I’m calling, and then this change happens.

Me: “Is the plate AAA111 currently on retention for John Smith?”

Agent #1: “I can’t answer that question.”

Okay, that’s fine. For security reasons, they can only answer specific yes-or-no questions about plates.

Me: “Does John Smith currently have registration rights for that plate?”

Agent #1: “Yes.

Me: “Excellent, I think that’s all I need to register the car.”

Agent #1: “Isn’t there another question you’d like to ask?”

Me: “…I don’t think so. It sounds like there should be?”

Agent #1: “I’m sorry, I can’t prompt you. But there is another question most dealerships ask. Maybe try to register them and see where the website stops you?”

Well crud. The agent’s only doing her job properly, and I’m at a loss, so I hang up. The website’s a barely-functional pile of spaghetti code that won’t stop being anything (see also: government agency), so I go back through several months of emails to find what I missed in the latest [Road Authority] newsletter. Oh, right, I’m supposed to ask if the plates have ever been on a vehicle before, since that changes the paperwork. I call back, wait on hold for ten minutes, and confirm my identity again.

Me: “I’m calling in regard to John Smith and numberplate AAA111.”

I’m not expecting any answers, just establishing the call, and yet, completely unprompted, I get the most frustrating answer I’ve ever heard.

Agent #2: “Yep, that’s his plate, and it’s been on a car before. Need anything else?”