Congrats! You have lived through another moment of Thailand's bureaucracy.

Why should we spend days paying registration 'fee' (doing what governments say 'public duties')?..

Shouldn't it made a easy (and pain-less) as possible to do 'public duties'?

Anyway, there is another disturbing scenario in the case like yours:

"Fake car number plates" may be used to avoid paying registration fees (and to avoid doing public duties)

--just like "fake land title deeds" that you may have heard--. ;-)