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Call For Action Clears Up New Excise Tax Bill Years After Boat Was Sold

MIDDLEBORO (CBS) -- Sheldon and Irene Barron of Middleboro spent a lot of great weekends on their SeaRay motorboat with their two sons and their grandchildren.

"We would go to Martha's Vineyard, we would go fishing," Sheldon recalled thumbing through an album of photos.

In 2003, they decided to sell the boat, but earlier this year, out of nowhere, Sheldon received an excise tax bill in the mail.

"So I called them and tried to tell them that I sold the boat," Sheldon said.

By "them," he means the Massachusetts Environmental Police, the agency that handles boating registrations in the state. He received a notice from the agency that explained he needed to send proof from his bank that he paid off the loan when he sold the boat. But there was a problem.

"The Plymouth Savings Bank is no longer in existence," he explained.

Plymouth Savings Bank merged with Eastern Bank back in 2005. Sheldon called Eastern and they sent him a letter explaining that he had no outstanding loan with Eastern or Plymouth.

"That wasn't good enough for them. I needed to have something from Plymouth Savings letterhead," Sheldon told WBZ-TV.

For months, he called and called, trying to get the problem solved. "I had nowhere to go, that's when I called Channel 4 Call for Action."

The I-Team reached out to the state agency that oversees the Environmental Police. They told us an employee working on Sheldon's case made an error by not accepting the letter from Eastern Bank. A manager corrected the problem.

"It didn't take more than one day for the registry to contact me. Call for Action, my God, when you have nowhere else to go," Sheldon said.

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