I'll go ahead and quote my post from back on 2/20/2016 for background.
"History" in the above context meaning a federal case dispositioned as a class A misdemeanor and a previous pickup for an unpaid traffic ticket.. I submitted full color scans of all associated notarized paperwork along with my application. I did not send the copies via certified mail. When I contacted RSD on 12/26, I asked if the scans were sufficient and was told yes; the clerk on the phone even commented that she could see the raised seal used by the federal court house notarized document that was part of this set of attachments.h0ss wrote:For what it's worth, I'll add my timeline here, since I called Thursday after reading lots of concern over the confirmation email that may or may not ever be sent.
Application electronically submitted (and giant barcode email reply received) on 12/22.
According to my phone call with RSD, they acknowledged receipt of my CHL-100 and other documents (I have history) on 12/26.
I never received a confirmation email for the CHL-100/other docs from RSD separately from the original application acknowledgement on txapps.texas.gov
Called them on 2/18 to make sure they received the 3 or so attachments I included with my CHL-100 submission, and the confirmed that they were all received (12/26). She said at the time they were processing license applications from 12/21, so my "all materials received" date of 12/26 wasn't far from getting started.
On Friday 3/18/2016 I received a certified letter from DPS/RSD, in which was a denial letter on the grounds that I had been charged with a felony related to the case involving the above dispositioned class A misdemeanor. Reading the content of the letter (at 5pm on Friday), I immediately set to following the instructions included in the denial on how to go about requesting a hearing, which must be received on less than 30 days after receipt of the denial letter. I sent this the next morning, Saturday 3/19, and spent the rest of the weekend fuming about the made up reasons I was denied.
The following Monday, I called RSD and explained my situation and was told that someone would call me back within 48 hours. True to their word, 48 hours later I was contacted by a representative that agreed to look over the documents that I had submitted. I also let her know that I had requested an official hearing. After a couple of minutes she managed to find the final disposition of the federal case on in one of the pdf documents I had attached with the original application, and she agreed that there was no reason to deny the license. She would call me back within 24 hours.
Our next conversation unfortunately resulted in her telling me that the hearing request had been received and until that process was resolved, there was nothing she could immediately do to remove the denial status until the hearing process had completed. There laws detailing how long the government has to set this hearing up are worded such that there is a 30 day recommendation that the process be set up in, but there are no consequences associated with them exceeding that time.
on 4/28/2016 I called RSD to see what if any status existed on the hearing process. I was told that another rep would have to call me back (this clerk saw that I had dealt with the specific person above before) to get more information. Later that day, this same person called me back and told me that the hearing was not going to be necessary, and that I should wait 5 to 7 days for word from DPS.
... and today I received my license in the mail. 131 days after submission.
or 4 months and 9 days.
or 18 weeks and 5 days.
or 36% of a year.
Best part of this to take away maybe is that if you're unfortunate enough to get a denial, give them a call first and make sure that someone didn't miss something in our materials. It's unfortunate that someone either completely glossed over the documents I sent or misunderstood what they were reading, but a phone call might've resolved it and saved some time.
