DVLA has banned me from driving for 4 years..and it wasnt me

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Was casually opening up some letters about 11pm last night as i've been quite busy over Christmas and not been opening much mail up. One was from the DLVA. first line reads "Driving while disqualified is an offence for which you can be fined or sent to prison" I thought thats odd, next line says " Our records show that on the above date you were convicted of a driving offence and disqualified from driving. You must now return your licence to the DVLA".

My first reaction was that this must be some sort of scam so I put the letter down. I went back to it 5 minutes later because I thought it looked to real to be a scam and there was nowhere asking for any money. So I logged into the gov.uk site and put in my licence number in the check, to my horror it came up that I had been banned from the 23rd of november for an alcohol related offence.



Ive havent been pulled over for about 7years and have never had any points on my licence.

I gave the DVLA a call this morning and they took all my details and said they have sent the case back to the court that the disqualification came from and that I should expect to hear from them via the post. The guy I spoke too couldnt give me a timescale on how long it could take to be resolved and I said so can I drive again now..."no" not until they have sent me a letter saying so.

Fantastic start to 2017! I am now house bound by these idiots for an offence that I had nothing to do with. I have also been driving illegally since the 23rd of november until today.

The court in question is in Scotland...I live in Somerset, you think somebody might have spotted the error somewhere along the line before applying the ban hammer.

Has anybody ever heard of this happening before/ have any advice on how to speed this up other than calling the DVLA like I already have. Obviously this is an inconvenience as I cannot travel to work or socials.

Thanks tom

Edited by ToMBoMB on Tuesday 3rd January 09:17

Edited by ToMBoMB on Tuesday 3rd January 09:17

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simion_levi said:

Sounds horrendous. Presumably you are on the phone to Hamilton Sheriff Court yourself right now?

No, I didnt think of that. Will call them now. thanks

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TooMany2cvs said:

But the duration of the ban suggests it's a second offence (minimum 3yr) rather than a first (minimum 1yr).

Unless the OP has a previous drink ban within the last decade, then that would suggest that the miscreant in question has previous - so how come they've picked that up, but not the right licence?

The other alternative is that it was the OP, but he was so pissed that he doesn't even remember being in the area, let alone stopped...

It was not me I can assure you of that and I have no previous offences. Court is closed today as previous poster mentioned. brilliant!

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Decky_Q said:

The license number is probably one digit different from the person who committed the offence, so when updating their records, they put the wrong digit in and the rest of the details were autofilled from details already held.

This was my initial thought as well

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Slushbox said:

I wonder if this will be notified to OP's insurance co?

I was under the impression that I was supposed to notify them of any convictions so it should be ok. Maybe I should call them to make sure

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looks like im going to have to wait until tomorrow as the court in question is closed today so i'm running into a brick wall.

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Im worried that if I drive and have an accident of any form that I may get done for driving without a license. "Technically" banned or not.

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speedking31 said:

Too late to reseal the envelope OP?

unfortunately yes.

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ashleyman said:

A friend of mine had this but it wasn't a ban, it was 6 points.

Turns out the people who apply the ban to the DVLA system got the licenses mixed up. It was supposed to go on Dave Smith born on 31/1/1990 with license ending 34 instead of Dave Smith born on 31/1/1990 license ending 39. (details changed but you get the idea)

Took him a few weeks to get it sorted but did eventually get fixed.

I suspect this to be the case.

I don't need to drive today so will see what the scottish court says tomorrow before I go down any other routes. I do appreciate everyones advice, its interesting how so many people would do things differently in the same situation.

I have not notified my insurance company as im hoping the whole incident will get wiped from my record and they will have no knowledge that it ever happened. As other have said I would expect them to start charging me admin fees should I ring up and explain to them what has happened.

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HD Adam said:

Look OP, forget all this helpful or non helpful advice.

You should be onto the Daily Mail right now to they can send a journalist round, make up some st and do a sad face picture for us.

deal

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DJMC said:

To the OP - this is causing you stress, inconvenience, and time dealing with it.

When you are exonerated you should write to whoever has made the error asking for damages and threaten them with court proceedings if they don't pay. £250? £1000? Up to you to put a value on it.

judging by previous posters that have had similar issues it doesn't sound very likely that ill be getting anything out of this other than my license back and a crap start to 2017 .

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Just to top things off, my insurance has just rang me and said my renewal is due on my insurance on the 18th. Finding quotes from other companies is going to be fun im guessing!!

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V6Pushfit said:

Why? You don't have to say anything to them at all about this as its a mistake.

ok great, wasnt sure if they would check my license status when quoting.

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V6Pushfit said:

The alter persona probably doesn't though.
OP have you ever lost ID documents? Could your Scottish counterpart (pun intended) have been actually using your licence?

No, not that I am aware of.

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TooMany2cvs said:

OP - the court has now been open for nearly 3/4 of an hour. What have they said?

Gave me an email address to send my issue in too. I think it was her manager

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robinessex said:

Er, they may have meant to ban the correct person, but got the data matching his id wrong re his driving license ?

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Law/Question830253....

Interesting, thanks for this

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Yipper said:

Assuming it is real and accurate, and not a scam, you need to take this to the Daily Mail. They will love it.

what so people remember my name as a drink driver :/ .

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RichB said:

Oh come on... This is one of the most annoying things that's happened to you and you allow yourself to be fobbed off with an email address? Seriously? Get back on the phone now, tell them you'll be talking to your MP if you don't get a person of authority on the phone now. Tell them you'll call the Daily Mail, even if you have no intention of doing so. Tell them you're going to call the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport or whatever but for heaven's sake don't just accept an email!

Managed to get him on the phone. He has read all my details and seen there is obviously been a mistake. Said he is going to call me back in 20 minutes once he has figured out what the next step is from here. Interestingly he stated that he was suprised the DVLA told me that I could not drive but at the same time he didnt want to say that I could drive. Hopefully will know more in 20 mins

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Okay, this is getting interesting....

- A Thomas Smith was sentenced in court, he did not have a drivers licence to hand over. So the court sent the details to the DVLA. Same name as me, same DOB as me and some sort of crime number related to his name. This is their standard procedure when somebody doesn't hand over their physical licence. The court claims that they do not know what has gone wrong and that they would do the exact thing the next time someone doesnt hand over their licence.

- The man I spoke to at the court said he has been in contact with the DVLA and they are amendment that they have also done nothing wrong.

- The next step is that the court are sending my details over to the DVLA stating that I am not the one that should be banned as can be seen by my licence number ( court confirmed this is different by many digits not just 1). This effectively is leaving it in the hands of the DVLA to sort out. The court are attaching me into this email so that I can see all communication between the two parties so far.


Seems like nobody thinks they have done anything wrong... meanwhile im still sat here with no licence and no timescale as to when it will be sorted. Luckily one of my friends has a contact at the DVLA and she called me earlier to say she was looking into it for me, i am expecting her to call back over the next few hours.

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eybic said:

Surely if the court has confirmed you shouldn't have been banned then you can now drive? If you've got a copy of the email then carry it round with you until it's fully sorted by the DVLA.

As was said earlier, the DVLA don't ban you, the court does and the court has confirmed it's not you.

Not received the email yet but yes, this does sound possible.