Some people believe finding a penny means it’s your lucky day, but employees at a DMV in Lebanon, Virginia, didn’t consider themselves too fortunate.
Virginia native Nick Stafford, with the assistance he hired, brought in five wheelbarrows full of pennies to pay for the taxes on his car at the DMV on Jan. 11. He knew the employees would not only be forced to count all 298,745 pennies to make sure the payment was complete, but he also knew due to the U.S. Coinage Act of 1965, the pennies count as “legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.”
This entire scheme cost him an extra $1,005, to cover the cost of the wheelbarrows and the 11 people he hired for $10-an-hour to help. A lot of man-hours were spent getting the pennies, opening the rolled coins and taking them to the DMV, only to waste other people’s time in the process.
Employees of the DMV spent most of Wednesday afternoon counting and finished Thursday morning. Oddly enough, they were both “respectful and accommodating,” according to what Stafford wrote on his company website, “Craftvinyl.”
What led Stafford to perform this scheme was a long, personal battle between himself and the DMV that resulted in annoyance and frustration. He requested a number to contact the DMV about his debt, but was denied; as a result, he demanded nine private numbers of other DMV offices in the state. None of those offices seemed to cooperate, so Stafford decided to take them to court. In the end, he dropped the cases and decided to waste the DMV’s time as he felt they wasted his.
I think the penny revenge scheme is the funniest thing that could ever happen at a DMV, but I feel this whole ordeal could have been handled a bit differently. I understand that Stafford wanted to prove a point, but I don’t recommend spending a thousand dollars trying to one-up a government agency.
