Paying for tags before drawings - what's up with that?
 

I know that a few states pull this crap and I just received my $$ after 2 months wait and not drawing for my Iowa archery tag. Personally , I think this is an injustice that needs correcting ASAP. Why should they be able to bank all this money and hold it for 2 months all the while collecting interest on it and not passing that interest to the rightful owners. They also take fees out before they send it back!. Something has to be done about this because it is wrong. I have no issues paying for my hunts but I see no reason for a prepay and pray plan here. Would like others thoughts on this and perhaps we can make something happen.

hey pal i feel your pain,,,crooked vermont dept of fish and game has started to do the same with moose lottery and black powder doe lottery,,they claim the officail number of tags arent out for us to see meanwhile the require a no refund fee for putting in for the tag in the wmu of your choice...then after the drawing they put out the number of tags..if you chose one with low tag amounts too bad for you,,get this the send out a form with last years wmu.s and tag amouts for you to look at...its stealing from us hunters pure and simple.

Well, I don't have a problem with it for a couple of reasons. First off, as far as them keeping a "fee" that is non-refundable, makes since to me since they gotta pay the people doing all the processing of all the tags.
And secondly, it reduces a lot of paper work, or computer work, by having us pay for the tag to start with instead of having us apply then having them contact us that we were successful in the drawing and then having us send money. If you don't pay first, that creats more work for them because they would have to contact everyone to get them to pay.
Besides, don't you think that the interest that they make on the money goes to good use?

paying for tags up front is a good/bad thing,
holding the money for months on end is absurd.

non-residents being forced to pay up front tag fees which are 10x or more than resident fees is also ridiculous, when I have to put $2500 up front when a resident I think costs $125, don't get me started...,

once in a lifetime tags should be the same price for res and non-res.

also non-res should be capped at a max multiplier of something resonable, whether that's 8x, 10x, or 5x, or less, at least when it comes to trophy animal tags, bucks, bulls,

Isn't it amazing how quickly they can zap the money from your account. But even IL webpage says it could take 30 days to refund your money back.

I think more it just shows the disfunction of the government but thats a whole different discussion.

Paying up front for tags also stops folks in states that doesn't do left over tags sales from applying for the draw, getting drawn then not buying their permit after they're drawn costing someone else a chance at being drawn that would buy their tag.

If they let you apply first then pay ,my odds of drawing that sheep tag i want would go from 1.5 down to .oo5 .But not getting my money back for 90 days is a little much .
I would apply for every tag if it was free to try,then pay .

I don't see a problem with putting a hold amount on a credit card so that if you get drawn , it goes through immidiately and if not , the hold is removed. Having thousands of dollars being held for months is rediculous (unless Im the one holding all the money ) and unnecessary IMO. As I say this I am also waiting to get 5K back in the mail from a deposit on a house that was declined over as month ago. If we tried that , we would be in jail.

Not that I enjoy it, but the fact is the cost of running the tag system would increase if they didn't because a lot of people who drew would not pay. It saves us all money in the end.

it's called INTERE$T son, you get your money back and they keep the interest for their use, they all do it. sort of like a lay away plan but you rarely get your item.