Nancy Millan - Scammers Selling Driver License Appointments

Scammers have been booking up driver license appointments online at the Hillsborough Tax Collector's office and selling them to unsuspecting residents, especially targeting Spanish-speaking residents. We speak with Hillsborough Tax Collector Nancy Millan.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Gordon Bird here with Beyond the News. With all of the scams that crooks
are running these days, this one'shard to believe. People are selling driver's
license appointments online. Imagine having topay for that. In Florida, those
are of course handled by the countytax collector's office. Nancy Milan is the
tax collector in Hillsborough County and shejoins us on Beyond the News. A

(00:21):
good day to you, Nancy.Hello, Gordon, thank you for having
me. So you found out aboutthis scam going on when people tried to
book an appointment at your office andthey couldn't get a time. That is
correct. We had a number ofpeople call into our office complaining about the

(00:44):
lack of appointments and how hard itwas to get in to make for a
road test or just to simply gettheir driver's license. We started investigating,
and at the same time we allso had a couple tips of rumors that
they were being sold outside. Sowe started investigating to see if there was

(01:10):
any trends or patterns that we couldtell from our appointment system. In doing
so, we did identify a fewnames that were very similar or same last
names with same bone numbers. Sometimesit was the same email that gave us
an indication of something that something washappening. We actually used one of the
numbers, and I actually, gordon'ttried it myself, and was able to

(01:34):
purchase a driver's license appointment by simplymaking a phone call. And I will
tell you that it appears that thisis predominantly happening in the Hispanic community.
I spoke in Spanish, told themwhat I needed. They texted me a
whole slew of appointments that were available, and even in different locations. When

(01:59):
I told them I, okay this, I picked one. I sent it
back to them and they replied,okay, we'll give it to you.
Send me, you know, sendme forty dollars and then I will send
you the confirmation number. And that'sexactly how it went. Sent forty dollars.
They have many payment options. Youcould use zell Venmo cashop to send

(02:21):
the money and immediately I was provideda confirmation number for the appointment. Now
are the people who do this arethey breaking the law when they do this,
when they resell blocks of appointments thisway. That is a great question,
Gordon, and that is something thatwe've turned this information over to the

(02:44):
Sheriff's office and it's currently under investigationand we're looking to see if they are
breaking a law, and you know, what is the recourse. What can
we do to prevent this? Iknew internally, We've made a number of
changes to our appointment system and howwe make those appointments to try to deter
this type of behavior because quite frankly, these are individuals who are exploiting our

(03:09):
residents and you know, charging moneyjust to make a quick book and that's
really sad um to see when youknow this is a service that is in
high demand and out of desperation peoplepay to get that that appointment. I

(03:30):
understand that as a result of this, you're making some changes to the process
for booking an appointment, if youcould please go through that for us,
absolutely, So what we've done iswe put a number of things in place.
Right now, you are only allowedto book one appointment per person or

(03:50):
per email. In the past,we were allowing folks to make multiple appointments
because it could be you and afamily member moving in amount of state,
So we were trying to allow someflexibility, but unfortunately, because of this
occurrence, we have put a stopto that, so you can only book

(04:11):
for yourself. And when you bookyour appointment, you're also going to ask
be asked to put in a driver'slicense number. If you're booking for a
child, the parent will put intheir driver's license number, and if it's
someone from out of country, they'rerequired to put their alien registration number in.
What this is going to do isthat it's going to also give us

(04:32):
something to compare to. When youpresent yourself at our office for your appointment,
we're going to ask for verification andwe're going to ask for ID and
those names have to match or thatnumber driver's license number has to match.
If it does not match more thanthen we are going to not honor that

(04:53):
appointment, then suggest that they goto a walk in status or come back
another day. If someone you knowgot taken in by this operation and ended
up paying cash for an appointment,what should they do? We would love
to get more information as to howthey obtain it. Again, this is

(05:15):
currently under investigation. I'm not certainwhat those charges would look like and you
know, if there's any recourse ingetting those funds back, but we certainly
the more information obviously that we getthat's going to help us to try to
put a stop to this type ofbehavior. Our goal here is to allow
accessibility to all of our residents ofHillsborough County, and it's frustrating when we're

(05:41):
trying to do all of the rightthings and then their scammers out there that
are taking advantage of the situation andforcing folks to pay for something that really
they should not be paying for.Nancy belong to the text collector in Hillsboro
County. Thank you very much forjoining us on Beyond the News. Thank
you or then