The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles has caught dealers selling these illegal for profit.
As someone who recently bought a car out of Texas, I appreciate the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles putting some pretty strict regulations on dealers in the state. During a recent battle to get my tags/title/registration from a Texas-based dealer, the department caught wind of the dealer runaround, and put the screws on them to get the paperwork processed after months of fighting. So with that personal anecdote being shared, it’s not surprising to me that the state is cracking down on the abuse of temporary tags after some dealers were found to be misusing them.
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The TxDMV board has kicked 20 dealers out of the state’s temporary tag system since the beginning of the year. These dealers were found to be selling tags right out of the DMV’s system. This is part of the puzzle, but the agency knows there’s other ways the system is being exploited.
“The efforts are working and we are constantly removing access to the system as I mentioned and this is a daily operation,” said Daniel Avitia, TxDMV acting executive director.
One measure the department plans to rollout will be a fingerprinting system to stop criminals from getting dealer licenses to sell tags. More thorough background checks are also being implemented. Another board member is calling for in-person inspections before dealers can receive access to gaining dealer tags.
This comes following an investigation from a local news station that has continued to document the frustration from law enforcement agencies. You can see their list of reports of individual instances here.
