TAMPA, Fla. — Florida offers more than 100 specialty license plate designs representing nonprofit organizations. Some of the operations are small nonprofits that rely on the sales of specialty license plates for the majority of their funding.
The International Society of Arboriculture’s Florida chapter is among them. ISA’s mission is to provide education and research for the management of urban trees. Its president, Norm Easy, told ABC Action News the “Trees Are Cool” plates generate about $130,000 a year.
For several years, “Trees Are Cool” supporters used the link posted on the ISA website to purchase their specialty plate. That link connected buyers to a third-party vendor, which Janice March used in February to order her “Trees Are Cool” tag.
Five months later, she told ABC Action News she was still waiting.
The I-Team found a pattern of complaints with the Better Business Bureau. The BBB issued a consumer alert on the business after more than 220 people filed complaints over the last three years.
BBB spokesperson Bryan Oglesby told ABC Action News, “Consumers over and over were not receiving the license plate that they paid for.”
State records showed the name, “MyfloridaSpecialtyPlate,” was registered by Michael Towner. The I-Team found Towner has a criminal history involving the sale of specialty tags.
In 2017, the Department of Justice charged Towner with 16 counts in a scheme to defraud case. According to the DOJ indictment, he illegally received more than $250,000 that should have gone to charities.
Four years later, Towner pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud, and the government dismissed the rest of the counts. He will be sentenced on October 6 in Federal Court in Tallahassee.
Towner would not give ABC Action News an interview but explained what happened to the more recent issues in an email.
"I had hospitalizations for heart attacks. During this time, no processing was done..." he wrote. Customers with complaints “.... will be made whole....."
Days after we asked about Janice March's refund, she received an email from the company offering to refund her $178 for the two tags she ordered. Days later, a check for the full amount arrived in the mail.
Towner wrote ABC Action News two follow-up emails. He explained the difficulty of identifying chargebacks and refunds because people used different emails and didn’t know their order numbers. He also blamed the state and his customers for delays in processing and providing refunds.
The nonprofit ISA dropped the My Florida Specialty Plate link and added one that goes straight to the DMV site.
The I-Team asked the DMV about the vendor. Here’s their response:
ABC Action News asked Towner about the criminal case. He called it “old news.” And he laid out a number of issues with Florida’s license plate system to explain the delays in processing.