Friend fined, then asked what the penalty code should be..

[MagicMike]

WTF?

So a friend of mine was caught speeding, paid the fine and sent his licence off.

Has now received a letter asking for details such as date of incident and penalty code.

Has declined to reply so far, any ideas as to course of action he should take?

[Snowboy]

Who is the letter from?

[MagicMike]

The Fixed Penalty Office

[Snowboy]

That sounds very odd.

It sounds like some sort of snail mail phishing scam.
Or maybe just an admin messup with a letter meant for the DVLA being sent to the mate.

Odd.

[MagicMike]

We're a bit stumped as well, prob is my friend sent off his licence, so doesn't know how to approach getting it returned.

[aw51 121565]

Take a copy of the letter, keep original safe at home and send copy back to fixed penalty office (it will be something like the Central Ticketing Office) with covering letter asking what's going on (and please pause the process until this is resolved)?

[Snowboy]

I might be wrong here.

But I thought licences were sent to the DVLA to get endorsed

Not to the ticketing office.

[MagicMike]

Please find below more info from the horses mouth to assist. My mate has signed up, but cannot post just yet. He's a good mate, who isn't a loon behind the wheel, so any help and advice is much appreciated....

So I got pulled over for speeding, 57 in a 40mph zone. Given my first 3 points (In 10 years of driving) and £100 fine.

Paid the fine the following day, and 2 days later look driving license into police station along with the penalty charge notice. The guy there took my license, copied some of the details from the PCN onto another sheet of paper and then gave me back the second page copy of both the PCN and the latest paperwork.

Approx. 3 weeks later I receive a letter from what I believed was the Penalty Notice Office, definitely not from the DVLA but something to do with the police.
It asked me to complete as many fields as possible so that my license could be sent back without further delay.

Questions were roughly…
Date of the offence
Penalty Charge Code
Penalty charge reason
Make of Car
Car registration
I think police offer name or badge number was also on the letter

All of these details would have been on the PCN of which I have one copy and the police have the other along with my license.

I returned the paperwork; only answering the car registration and car make questions, as these details would be accessible to the police on searching my name. I appear to have misplaced the paperwork to complete any other fields. Ooooops.

This was around 2/3 weeks ago, so approx. 5 -6 weeks since originally handing over my license.

I’m not sure if they police sent me the letter because my paperwork has been lost, or if I should have completed more fields, or if I am in any position to request my license be returned. I am also wondering if they have lost the paperwork, could I escape without any penalty points on my license?

[anonymous-user]

Tell him to call the CTO. There isn't going to be some 'loophole' here to get it cancelled.

[NH1]

I would be inclined to ignore it, I don't think you are under any obligation to reply to it. I would then apply for my licence from the DVLA stating 'lost' after a couple of months and see what happens.

I'm not saying thats the right thing to do, just what I would do, you may end up with a revoked licence but fk it, thats what I would do.

[ben5732]

If you do as previously stated you will eventually get a letter from the dvla saying to send your license back for the endorsements to be added to it or they will revoke it all together. I've had to do this previously when I was ment to be going abroad and needed a license. Month or so latter got said letter sent it off and it was returned to me a week or two later. Make sure it's the correct offence code when returned as another friend has had a license code for using his mobile phone when Infact it was speeding (sp30)

[MagicMike]

So after emailing the Fixed Penalty Notice office he receives a reply stating:

"We have checked the system and your details are not showing at the moment, so we are unable to give you a date of when your licence will be returned"

Starting to get a little frustrating for the fella, any advice PH'ers?

[s3fella]

Can't offer any advice on the issue as it's sounds proper odd. But I'm surprised he got a fixed penalty for 57 in a 40 ? It's near 50 percent over the limt!

[SS2.]

s3fella said:

But I'm surprised he got a fixed penalty for 57 in a 40 ? It's near 50 percent over the limt!

It's well within the approved range to be dealt with by FPN.

[vincenz]

Why don't you just apply for a new licence in the interim from the DVLA?

Let the CTO do their thing, if the 'current' counterpart does come back with 3 points on it this is held on their database anyway.