RMV online services frustrate Massachusetts customers

From 3 a.m. to 6 a.m., Jenny Falcon stared at her computer screen, refreshing the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles website for the second day in a row, hoping to spot an elusive open appointment.

“It was exhausting,” she said.

The early-morning stakeout was a desperate effort to get into the RMV as it slowly reopens from its COVID-19 closure. At this point, 10 of the 30 customer service centers are open, but people need an appointment and only certain transactions are eligible.

The restrictions are part of “efforts to protect the Registry employees and the public,” a department spokeswoman said, but the limitations have also created desperation for those who have been waiting for months to secure documentation such as their driver’s license.

“I had a road test booked on May 5 and I booked it all the way back in March,” said Nolan Warman, of Worcester. “My test got canceled due to COVID … and I haven’t got anything from them and I just really need my license. It’s not allowing me to get a job.”

RMV spokeswoman Jacquelyn Goddard didn’t answer questions on how long the wait time is to get an appointment right now or offer any suggestions for people trying to get an appointment. Instead, she said more guidance would be coming soon from the RMV and pointed to the 40 transactions that can currently be accomplished online.

But in the absence of official guidance, an online network has emerged where people are offering each other tips and sharing their frustrations. There are daily posts in a Facebook Group with 398 members called Massachusetts Registry Motor Vehicles Complaints, where people are crowdsourcing answers to questions and sharing what has worked for them. A tip in the group is what had Falcon sitting in front of her computer at 3 a.m.

“Someone on the complaint page (said) that they had told someone else midnight was when they updated it,” she said. “The morning time was from someone else mentioning it on that page.”

Appointment reservation times are available on a rolling basis up to seven business days in advance, according to the RMV, and additional appointments are added each day for the next available business day. People have reported being able to make an appointment at all different times of day, but the spots go fast.

Driving tests resumed last week, and priority is being given to customers with appointments that were postponed during the state’s stay-at-home advisory.

“Specifically, preference to get a road test appointment is going to customers who had previously scheduled road tests postponed due to the pandemic and to customers seeking a learner’s permit who turned 16 years of age first, giving preference to March birthdays, then April, and then May and June,” Goddard said.

Warman, who recently turned 18, said he hasn’t heard anything.

“I hope I don’t need to wait another month or two,” he said,

Falcon, a single-mother from Springfield trying to get her license reinstated after paying off fees, did finally get her appointment, much to her relief as “trying to make a 6-year-old understand that what I am trying to do is important is not that easy.”

But she said the bad news is, she found out she’ll need to take her road test again.

“It's just an endless cycle of stress added onto a time where the world is stressed enough,” she said. “They need a whole new system. A lot of what I guess makes sense to them does not make sense in the real world.”