Penetrating the Bureaucracy

Those of you who have been keeping track of us know about our dealings with the MVA.  Everything progressed uncharacteristically smoothly when we bought the new car, so we dared to hope it would all be smooth sailing from now on.  But apparently there had to be at least one last glitch.

As soon as we secured a loan for the new car, we were sent the blue title listing PNC Bank as the lien holder.  When we paid them off eight months later, PNC sent us something which looked like a pink version of the same title (though it clearly insisted that it was NOT in fact a title) stating that PNC no longer held any claim to the car.  The cover letter told us the real title would be sent to us directly from the MVA, allowing ten days for delivery.

After waiting sixty days without hearing a word, I finally trudged out to the local MVA Express in hopes of finding a real person who could tell me what the heck was going on.  I took the kiosk ticket for "Miscellaneous" problems, because none of the other categories seemed appropriate.

After standing in the proverbial DMV line, I told the nice man what the problem was.  The way he rolled his eyes made it immediately clear that PNC had told us a lie.  Apparently this happens a lot.  The upshot of it was that I could take the blue title and the pink un-title all the way back to Annapolis to have a "clear title" printed free of charge (how nice), or I could just staple the two together and call it good.

At present I'm opting for the stapler.