Here was my first thought upon reading that 28,000 of my fellow Bay State residents had paid $10 apiece for Registry of Motor Vehicle forms that are available free online: Maybe Massachusetts isn’t as smart as we all like to believe.
Second thought: Maybe those duped really had no chance. I mean what exactly about the government charging $10 for anything – even a form – would strike the average person as suspicious?
Third thought: Don’t be smug, those of you who live in the other 49 states. Tell you why in a minute.
From this morning’s Boston Globe:
The state has filed a lawsuit accusing an upstate New York man of charging about 28,000 consumers $10 each to obtain Massachusetts motor vehicle forms online that were free on the Registry of Motor Vehicles website, in what state officials call an Internet scam.
Prosecutors say consumers searching the Internet for the Registry website stumbled onto Chris Wiesner’s Web page, which said they could obtain forms to renew their driver’s licenses, car registrations, and other services if they paid a $10 subscription fee. Many consumers evidently mistook Wiesner’s Web page for the actual Registry page.
Wiesner denies doing anything wrong.
Wiesner, who allegedly operated similar sites in 18 other states, also told the newspaper something else, and it was that something else that prompted thought No. 3 above: He claims – and of course there is no way of knowing whether this is true or not – that no one in any of those 18 states complained.
In Massachusetts, at least people complained.
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