MARYLAND (WBFF) — Nearly 200 Maryland drivers were recently hit with duplicate credit card charges for their vehicle emissions inspections, following the rollout of new testing equipment earlier this year.
The discovery was made after one Maryland driver, who asked not to be identified, contacted FOX45 News saying he had been charged twice at the Columbia VEIP station, located at 6340 Woodside Court, and was given the runaround when requesting a refund.
“I just was very suspicious that based on what I was hearing that there was an awareness,” the driver said. “It made me wonder just how many people this could be happening to.”
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The driver said after the first payment didn’t go through, they were directed to a second testing machine and assured the original charge would eventually disappear.
“Sure enough, it did not. So, the first thing I did is I went back there,” the driver said.
Instead of receiving an immediate refund, the driver said they were told the duplicate charge was a recurring issue and would need to be resolved through the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA). The driver said they then spent weeks trying to get answers and wasted hours on the phone with customer service.
“I went back to the VEIP station and said, you know, they’re telling me to go back. That was what the MVA said, is go back to the VEIP. So, I started getting bounced back and forth from there,” they said.
After FOX45 News began asking questions, the MVA confirmed the problem extended beyond a single customer.
In a statement, the agency said new testing equipment was deployed statewide between late April and June 2026. During that rollout, the MVA said 188 of approximately 455,000 transactions resulted in duplicate credit card charges. The agency also said it is working to fully resolve the technical issue within the next few weeks.
However, it remains unclear whether some testing locations experienced more duplicate charges than others and why this customer said they struggled to receive a refund until FOX45 News got involved.
FOX45 News has sent follow-up questions to the MVA seeking additional information, but as of publication we have not heard back.
This should not be the status quo for a state government run facility. Okay, it needs to be much more efficient than that,” the driver said.
While the MVA said only a small fraction of drivers were affected by the duplicate charges, the issue comes as the program is already facing renewed scrutiny. During this year’s legislative session, Republican lawmakers introduced a bill to eliminate VEIP altogether, arguing the program is outdated and costly.
“When it was conceived and implemented it had purpose and meaning, but since that time, the vehicle manufacturers have addressed all the issues with the emissions and brought down all the obnoxious emissions that were damaging to the environment,” Delegate Christopher Eric Bouchat said.
However, that legislation failed to make it out of committee.
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