Scalpers have been known to buy and resell hot tickets for big-name music acts or sporting events, like Taylor Swift concerts and the Super Bowl. In Florida, some were using the same tactics for a less glamorous pass: a driver’s license appointment in Miami-Dade County.
The county tax collector’s office announced on Monday that it had “uncovered a network of appointment scalpers” profiting from access to motor vehicles offices by “hoarding free appointments and reselling them for a profit.”
“We know who they are and how they operate,” Dariel Fernandez, the Miami-Dade tax collector, said in a statement. “We will not accept any appointment obtained through system abuse.”
The scalpers found so far have not been punished, because the practice was not illegal, but there is already an effort to change that and make it a civil offense.
As for the questionable appointments, a statement from the tax collector’s office on Thursday said that it was “trying to cancel all appointments that have been flagged from a potential scalper but it is a complicated process.”
The practice has not been limited to Miami-Dade County. In 2023, the Hillsborough County tax collector’s office in Tampa, Fla., announced changes to its operations after discovering that scammers had booked appointments for driver’s licenses and then tried to resell the time slots to the public.
The suspicious activity in Miami-Dade was discovered this year after the tax collector’s office began to take the processing of driver’s licenses from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, as had been approved under a constitutional amendment. During the transition, new software and security protocols were adopted in at least two locations in Miami.
The software uncovered data revealing that at least 200 appointments had been booked through scalpers, which led the office to further investigate. The scalpers booked the appointments by using bots and fake accounts, and then resold the appointments for $25 to $250, the office said.
The investigation is continuing, but the tax collector’s office said that local driving schools had been involved in taking some appointment slots.
There are nine driver’s license offices in Miami-Dade County that serve nearly three million residents seeking new driver’s licenses, renewals or identification cards.
Residents have been forced to book their appointments online weeks or months away, only to stand in lines that often wind out the office doors when they arrive.
That was the scene on Thursday afternoon at one driver’s license office in a bustling shopping plaza in northwest Miami, where people stood outside waiting for their names to be called.
One of them was Esmeralda Miranda, 19, who had booked an online appointment for her driver’s license exam in January.
“I don’t think it’s right for them” to hoard the appointments, she said, adding “because everyone can, like book the appointment for themselves. I feel like it’s wrong for them to do that.”
Standing a few spots away from her, Alain Garcia and his wife, Katherine Moran, agreed.
“It’s not right,” said Mr. Garcia, who was accompanying his wife as she waited to take her exam. They had also booked her appointment online, in January.
“Tired, too much waiting,” he said restlessly after waiting more than an hour. Others waiting in line spilled out to another sidewalk in the parking lot, where they stood under the sweltering sun. Yet some others sat in their air-conditioned cars, parked just outside the office.
Ms. Moran blamed the area’s large population for the rise of the scalpers.
“It’s too much volume, too many people,” she said.
The practice of buying and reselling the appointments is not in itself illegal, according to the tax collector’s office, which added that it would work with county officials and law enforcement “to put an end” to it.
Commissioner Kevin Cabrera of Miami-Dade County has introduced legislation that would make the sale of public service appointments, such as those for driver’s licenses, a civil offense punishable by a fine of $500 per violation. The ordinance will be presented to the Board of County Commissioners on April 1.
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