Submitted by exhilaration t3_1110hcl in Pennsylvania

I got a renewal notice for my driver's license back in December and it lists the fee as $30.50. But when I go to renew online, the price is $36.50 - as confirmed by the schedule of fees ("Four-Year License Renewal"). What gives? Is it just more expensive to renew online? Did the price go up? I can't find any article talking about this.

EDIT: Updated with screenshots -- https://imgur.com/a/n8R4hJv

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Comments

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Southboundthylacine t1_j8cu6en wrote

Your time is money and if you go to a penndot location you’ll wish you just paid the 6$

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Paid-Not-Payed-Bot t1_j8cu6uu wrote

> you just paid the 6$

FTFY.

Although payed exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:

  • Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. The deck is yet to be payed.

  • Payed out when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. The rope is payed out! You can pull now.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.

Beep, boop, I'm a bot

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athornfam2 t1_j8d033j wrote

All these fees but can’t maintain a single road in this state

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Hib3rnian t1_j8d4wup wrote

Covers their AOL dial-up fee.

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asforus t1_j8dgw74 wrote

If you go to the DMV go about 10 min before they close. I didn’t realize that they have a legit armed security guard come and lock the door. People were being crazy. Trying to sneak in as customers opened the door to leave. People were pounding on the doors. The security guard was yelling at people.

Think of your $6 as a ticket to a show. Maybe bring a snack.

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thesbaine t1_j8djc7k wrote

Generally the extra fee is to cover electronic payment processing fees levied by 3rd party payment processors. States are also generally not allowed to eat the cost because you'd be taking money out of the "pockets" (paid taxes) of people that chose to show up and pay in person. Tax collectors in other municipalities and states all charge similar fees.

That said, $6.00 is insane and way over priced. Someone should get around to auditing that department and figure out who they're using as a payment processor.

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heili t1_j8dn1iw wrote

People who learn English as an additional language tend not to make mistakes like this with homophones because they learn the language in written and oral form at the same time.

This is the kind of mistake made by someone who learned English by hearing it spoken around them.

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TheBrianiac t1_j8dtarx wrote

Make sure you are on the PennDOT official website, penndot.pa.gov or dmv.pa.gov. There are many impersonation sites online that will gladly take your money and not renew your license/registration.

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jpop237 t1_j8e7psh wrote

9,119,280 licensed drivers in PA

@ $6 per renewal

= $54,715,680.

Who runs the 3rd party payment processing companies and how are they connected to our politicians?

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thesbaine t1_j8e89s8 wrote

Breakdown time:

In 2019 there were just over 9,000,000 licensed drivers in PA. Assuming about 50% renewed online, and assuming an even spread over 4 years, you're talking 1,250,000 renewing per year online. That's $6,750,000 per year.

There's no way that the SLA, maintenance, hardware costs, and plugins cost that per year alone. If it does, going back to an initial statement, something is very, very wrong.

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Weary_Ad7119 t1_j8e8ukz wrote

A 6 million dollar a year CMS with integrations is pretty common at the federal level. I don't think the economics would change that much at the state level for a critical site 🤷‍♂️.

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25Bam_vixx t1_j8e8web wrote

No, you went to a third party site. It should be gov not com. Third party site comes up first and you have to go down to search to see the gov site. Basically it’s dmv gov something pa

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Weary_Ad7119 t1_j8efim5 wrote

But the complexity doesn't scale with users. Sure you might have more AWS or Azure costs, but you are still left with the complexity of a CMS with multiple integrations. You still going to need an SLA/support comparible with any federal run CMS. It might be even harder depending on budgets around supporting services.

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Lawmonger t1_j8gf4zq wrote

The time I save doing this online is worth far more than $6.

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ronreadingpa t1_j8grdgh wrote

Rates went up January-9th and appears to be retroactive. If you had paid before then, it would be $30.50 as expected. One would think the rate quoted would be what's due, but PA is desperate for revenue. Very shady!

Chalk it up as a learning experience to pay government related bills promptly. Not something I'd given much thought too either. My DL expires in December of next year and is something I will be keeping an eye on. May be worth upgrading to Real ID this year, which may extend another 2-4 years or just renewing early (think one can do so up to around 6 months ahead).

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exhilaration OP t1_j8gy9g5 wrote

Thank you so much, this is exactly the explanation I was looking for. Just to satisfy my own curiosity, is there a link or article that mentions rates going up? I googled before posting this and found nothing.

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Weary_Ad7119 t1_j8hhl5w wrote

Christ you folks are argumentive. SE, Ops, and technical PMs are all paid easily double if not triple the cost than a warm body standing at a desk. Per my other comment, a site like this can easily be a few million a year to build and maintain.

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