DVLA - how prehistoric?
Discussion
So, the DVLA in their wisdom are shutting down all the local offices and everything will be done via post.
In today's electronic world where everything is instantaneous how can a pivotal department in the motor industry appear to go back the way?
I sent off my V5 3.5 weeks ago to change my address and remove my private plate as I want to sell the car.
The rules state I must send a cheque - who the f
k still uses cheques nowadays?
I borrowed one from my wife as she has an account with some still available and sent it off.
Today I have received everything back informing me that I forgot to send payment so nothing has been done!!
I absolutely, categorically definitely did include the cheque, but here I am back to square one and no closer to being able to sell the car.
Am I alone in finding it hard to believe that there is no way to send payment electronically rather than just sending a cheque?
So now I have to cancel the old one and start all over again.
Piss-boiling DVLA.
In today's electronic world where everything is instantaneous how can a pivotal department in the motor industry appear to go back the way?
I sent off my V5 3.5 weeks ago to change my address and remove my private plate as I want to sell the car.
The rules state I must send a cheque - who the f
k still uses cheques nowadays?I borrowed one from my wife as she has an account with some still available and sent it off.
Today I have received everything back informing me that I forgot to send payment so nothing has been done!!
I absolutely, categorically definitely did include the cheque, but here I am back to square one and no closer to being able to sell the car.
Am I alone in finding it hard to believe that there is no way to send payment electronically rather than just sending a cheque?
So now I have to cancel the old one and start all over again.
Piss-boiling DVLA.
They are completely and utterly useless.
A money making sham of a time wasting disorganised lazy scum operated government institution.
They wouldn't know their arse from their elbow if they were introduced with name badges on both.
I make a living that relies heavily on them and in the last four years have been blown away time and time again by how badly the DVLA is run.
A few examples, from the last month alone, for you.
They managed to assign a wrong number plate to one of my customers cars. A number plate that doesn't even exist. They then insisted that to give the customer back his original number plate we had to wait 4 weeks whilst they put the wrong number plate that they had put on, remember it was an entirely wrong registration, onto a retention certificate.
This is despite us talking to someone high up in the Swansea office and a full paper trail being available. No apologies made and no effort to do it quickly.
They told another customer of mine today that their number plate doesn't even exist when it does and they had the retention certificate for it in their hands.
They routinely deny any knowledge of just about anything which cause me no end of time wasted pacifying customers that I am actually doing something with the money they've paid me.
They are the Bain of my life and I wish I didn't have to deal with them. If it wasn't a government organisation and they were a private company they would have gone out of business years ago.
Useless useless useless.
A money making sham of a time wasting disorganised lazy scum operated government institution.
They wouldn't know their arse from their elbow if they were introduced with name badges on both.
I make a living that relies heavily on them and in the last four years have been blown away time and time again by how badly the DVLA is run.
A few examples, from the last month alone, for you.
They managed to assign a wrong number plate to one of my customers cars. A number plate that doesn't even exist. They then insisted that to give the customer back his original number plate we had to wait 4 weeks whilst they put the wrong number plate that they had put on, remember it was an entirely wrong registration, onto a retention certificate.
This is despite us talking to someone high up in the Swansea office and a full paper trail being available. No apologies made and no effort to do it quickly.
They told another customer of mine today that their number plate doesn't even exist when it does and they had the retention certificate for it in their hands.
They routinely deny any knowledge of just about anything which cause me no end of time wasted pacifying customers that I am actually doing something with the money they've paid me.
They are the Bain of my life and I wish I didn't have to deal with them. If it wasn't a government organisation and they were a private company they would have gone out of business years ago.
Useless useless useless.
They are a waste of space. Despite having written to them on three occasions they haven't changed the ownership of a car I sold to NI. All sorts of threats are coming in and am pretty sick of it. When you call you get a pleb who recites a standard line, there is no recourse they don't give a toss because they make the rules and it seems are above any kind of governing body.
I despise dealing with them.
I despise dealing with them.
Absolutely unsurprisingly, I have had issues with V5s when both selling my car (the V5 never arrived at their offices, yeah right!) and the guy selling his car to me had other issues, mainly with advice from the phone wallahs and the process of transferring a private plate over.
Net result; two cars bought and sold in June and neither have V5s still.
Net result; two cars bought and sold in June and neither have V5s still.
Luckily I don't have much dealings with them, but when I purchased a car, completed the log book with my new ownership details, it returned with a typo in my name, apparently the ONLY way to correct the typo involved increasing the number of previous owners by 1, which they very kindly did after a month or so of waiting.
Coldfuse said:
It still astounds me in this day and age that we have to display tax....
It also baffles me that you cannot email them about anything important!
Its a nonsense, all it would take is a reshuffle in the system. Trouble is there is a big industry behind printing the discs, jobs for the boys. If the insurance business can work with a database then why not?It also baffles me that you cannot email them about anything important!
I was stunned when they said 'you will have to write to us'. So you want me to write to you and explain this whole conversation again after sitting through various tragic songs and three different people, you can't just log this somewhere to be actioned, has to be a little piece of paper...hmmm I see.
SeanyD said:
Luckily I don't have much dealings with them, but when I purchased a car, completed the log book with my new ownership details, it returned with a typo in my name, apparently the ONLY way to correct the typo involved increasing the number of previous owners by 1, which they very kindly did after a month or so of waiting.
That is ridiculous, but not beyond their 'capabilities' to financially scupper you due to their mistake.(Whether or not an extra owner on a V5 devalues the car is not a definite, but it doesn't do the value any good)
Crimefighter said:
Lol! I haven't even seen a cheque since the mid 1990's.
I've never had a chequebook so when I renewed my photocard licence I had to get a postal order. In case anyone hasn't seen one of those since the 1950s, they look like cheques now with the amount printed on by the computer. There's no counterfoil to rip off any more, or stamps to make up the amount. 
I was amused that they've updated postal orders for the 21st century by turning them into cheques.
In the interests of fairness.. I don't depend on the DVLA for my job.. I simply tax my car, and seem to end up changing or selling cars about once a year. Never had stuff lost in the post on the way to them (though I *always* send it Recorded Delivery so there's no argument) and stuff always seems to get done / returned reasonably quickly.
But I don't doubt they are crap - I think I've just been lucky!
But I don't doubt they are crap - I think I've just been lucky!
MrMoonyMan said:
They managed to assign a wrong number plate to one of my customers cars. A number plate that doesn't even exist.
I had this problem several years ago.Basically I had four vehicles that all needed plates moving around between them, original plates put back on etc etc. I documented very, very carefully in bullet point form the steps and what plate should go where and what should end up on what.
I had great fears that it would cock up, and indeed it all went as wrong as it possibly could - in fact it was worse! Every sungke vehicle was allocated the wrong plate. The most expensive dateless plate (a ABC 123 type) had simply vanished and been replaced with something from god knows where
Luckily - and I realise just how lucky I was - I managed to speak to a chap (Dan, I think he was called) - at the Manchester DVLA office and he was brilliant, he even gave me his desk phone number if there were problems, which is surely unheard of.
He made it his personal mission to sort all the plates out and he was as good as his word, in fact he told me to just put the correct plates on the correct cars and did a lot of it there and then and sent the paperwork on. I couldn't have asked for better service from anywhere.
I think there are a lot of good people working in those offices whos talents are being suffocated under crazy procedures.
Utterly useless.
A mate from school took his car test. Forms get sent to DVLA to change his provisional car licence to a full car licence.
DVLA send him back a full (no restrictions) motorcycle licence. Mate sends licence back, with photocopies of his pass certificate and theory, and tells them to send him the right licence. DVLA respond that there was no record of him taking his car test and they did nothing.
3 months later he gave up arguing with them and retook his car test. What makes it worse is he still has the bike licence...
Another thing is they fked up a friend of my dad's life for a few years when they decided to take away his licences for car, motorcycle and PSV's, leaving him with just a moped and tractor licence for no reason. (I know there are retests, medical checks and things for PSV's licences, but this wasn't anything to do with those)
Lost his job and several thousand pounds in retest fees. DVLA denied any clerical errors and never gave any justification for it.
Wouldn't trust them with any responsibility, let alone what they have.
A mate from school took his car test. Forms get sent to DVLA to change his provisional car licence to a full car licence.
DVLA send him back a full (no restrictions) motorcycle licence. Mate sends licence back, with photocopies of his pass certificate and theory, and tells them to send him the right licence. DVLA respond that there was no record of him taking his car test and they did nothing.
3 months later he gave up arguing with them and retook his car test. What makes it worse is he still has the bike licence...
Another thing is they f
ked up a friend of my dad's life for a few years when they decided to take away his licences for car, motorcycle and PSV's, leaving him with just a moped and tractor licence for no reason. (I know there are retests, medical checks and things for PSV's licences, but this wasn't anything to do with those)Lost his job and several thousand pounds in retest fees. DVLA denied any clerical errors and never gave any justification for it.
Wouldn't trust them with any responsibility, let alone what they have.
SeanyD said:
Luckily I don't have much dealings with them, but when I purchased a car, completed the log book with my new ownership details, it returned with a typo in my name, apparently the ONLY way to correct the typo involved increasing the number of previous owners by 1, which they very kindly did after a month or so of waiting.
That's wrong.. I had a typo on my name too. Just sent it back as a change of details (like you would with a new address) with the correct spelling and without ticking the new keeper box. Came through all fine.I agree they're generally a shower of s
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