Hundreds await their turn at Miami DMV as Miami-Dade cracks down on appointment scalping

Making your next appointment at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Miami-Dade may have just gotten a little bit easier.

Miami-Dade commissioners passed legislation on Tuesday to try to stop scalpers from obtaining Department of Motor Vehicle appointments, and NBC6 took to the DMV early Wednesday to see the long line for ourselves.

At the office on Northwest 37th Avenue and Northwest 7th Street by Magic City Casino, one woman said she’d been in line since Tuesday evening. When NBC6 news crews try to book an appointment ourselves, the first appointment available isn’t until the end of May.

The cause? County leaders say it’s scalpers, who book all the appointments for free and then sell them for anywhere between $25 and $250.

The county’s tax collector, Dariel Fernandez, who is in charge of the DMV, said last month that the county had uncovered a network of scalpers that have been hoarding appointments by using fake accounts and bots.

Majd Yahya is a resident physician who lined up to get her driver’s license Wednesday–hoping the third time would be the charm.

“Honestly this is ridiculous, I’m here in line before 4:30,” she said. “For 4 and a half hours. [The other times] I couldn’t get in, because when it turns like 9 or 9:30, they stop taking walk-ins and I have to go to work.”

Story from nbcmiami.com