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Posts: 1168
| Finally after 3 years my boat registration stickers arrived. Really no one's fault, just a string of miscommunications, lost pieces of mail, and so on. Purchased a used boat in 2003, had the transfer papers all filled out, paid the fee and so on. Reg is set to expire in 2004....waiting, waiting...nothing shows up. I go back in and resend the form, re-register the boat and am still waiting. Making periodic trips back to the marina just to check on things...yep, it's all been sent in. In the meantime I am carrying my NCR copy of the registration form and needed to present this to a conservation warden on just a few occasions. On a side note...this was pretty hilarious being asked for this with DNR employees tagging along in my boat.
In the meantime I begin calling and checking with various DNR service centers. Not because I don't trust the fine folks working at these different offices, but just because I am a paranoid fool that needs to check and recheck and hear from 4 different places the same thing...that my boat is not on record and as far as they know it doesn't even exist. This makes me even more paranoid. If the numbers are run will someone think I have a "hot" boat? Stolen property? Doh!! So I dig up everything I can that could help me verify that I am on the up and up. Bill of sale, cashed checks for every payment I ever made on the thing, every insurance agreement I've had for it, and so on.
I also keep checking back in with the marina. As luck would have it a few things happened to prolong this. The marina was changing over record keeping methods and their office assistant who worked with me on the sale left and a new person stepped in. Not a gripe about the place, just one of those things that could happen. The DNR was also in the process of changing over to become more tech saavy with registrations. To top it all off, the prior owner of my boat never turned over the title for it or lost it somewhere along the way.
Being checked by conservation wardens was getting quite comical, as some of them knew my boat and just shook their head while asking or commenting that I must not have gotten my stickers yet. The sucky part was being in a holding pattern not being able to even consider selling my rig when I've had people offering to buy it from me due to a lack of title and registration oddities.
What I learned from all of this:
1. Being a packrat and keeping all of those cashed checks has it's rewards.
2. When buying a used boat, double and triple check that you have a title or will be getting one.
3. Even with up to date stickers, keep your copy of the registration form or make a copy of it and keep it in the boat.
4. Make copies of any monetary transactions (bill of sale, insurance papers...even those going way back to the first moments you owned the rig) and keep them with you.
5. While situations like this can be frustrating, it also showed that the marina and the DNR was very willing to work with me to resolve a quirky issue so kudos to them.
6. Being paranoid sucks.
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Location: Northern Wisconsin | oh darn, i thought maybe you ordered some muskie first stickers for our boats. but congrats on the
boat registration stickers! | |
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Posts: 62
Location: chicago | I bought my boat new on May 22. It is now July 26 and I still do not have stickers. Called at the end of June, they said they were working on boats bought in April. Our Gov. sure knew where to make budget cuts. | |
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Posts: 221
Location: ohio | hey Muskysarge,
Sounds like you live in Ohio ,,,,,,we have those " SAVE THE BUCKEYE STATE" cuts also....
i wonder where all the revenue that ohio fisherman/hunters spend each year are going...
wait ,,,i know now,,, they just re-blacktopped all the roads leading to ohio's state capitol house for the third time this year...Hmmm :-(, | |
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Posts: 59
Location: Chicago western burbs | Registered my new boat in Il in mid may, they cashed my check, and I have yet to receive anything from them. | |
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Posts: 1168
| Didn't mean to open up the "where the heck are my stickers" can of worms. Just carry your paperwork with you, and those cashed checks and you should be good to go. I did have a long wait but patience and positive persistence paid off. | |
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Finally....stickers arrived!!