More DVLA blunders
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Two weeks ago Julia went on a road trip with two women who'd lost their licences because of mistakes that the DVLA made. We weren't sure what the result would be but fortunately it was a success story with happy ending - both women were told they could have their licences back.
The DVLA chief executive told us that the DVLA isn't perfect and it does make mistakes but when it does they're rare.
Since then, Watchdog has received hundreds more complaints suggesting that the DVLA has bungled more people's licences.
Nine-year mistake
For instance, Dr Mohammed Edris has been putting up with an error on his licence for the past nine years. He passed his UK driving test years ago but when his license arrived it had one glaring error.
"Basically it says Reverend Mohammed Edris. That was really the hilarious part of it! I'm a Muslim doctor and I cannot be a reverend," says Dr Edris.
Dr Edris has twice returned his licence and asked the DVLA to put right its mistake. However, both times Dr Edris' licence came back with the title 'Reverend' still on it.
"At this point I have given up and have not bothered to send it a third time," says Dr Edris.
The DVLA continue to make mistakes, and in some cases they seem to be very basic errors.
Jennifer Brown requested a new licence at the start of May after misplacing hers. When it arrived she quickly noticed some fundamental problems. The name, signature and photo on her new licence all belonged to a complete stranger.
When we first investigated the DVLA we had no idea that we were just scratching the surface of what's now clearly a much bigger problem than it is prepared to admit. We all make mistakes, but why does the DVLA keep making so many?
DVLA statement
"We do everything we can to ensure that our records are accurate, and on the whole they are. Where mistakes are made, we are of course extremely sorry for any distress caused and in the cases of Dr Edris and Ms Brown, replacement driving licences have been issued and letters of apology sent."
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i passed my test in the army in 1995 and when i renewed my licence to the picture card they sent me a provisional licence i have wrote to them several times asking to change it i have also filled in there form asking me when ,where and who with but still nothing , the army at manning house glasgow just tell me that they don't keep those sort of records any more , so now i'm thinking that i should just resit the new test and lose my 6 years no claims from my insurance and ask the police force to reissue my producers !!
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im also having a lot of problems with DVLA! they have sent my 2nd licence back with MS instead of MISS when i filled out another form, after i lost my first licence.
They didnt even tell me that i'd lost it. I sent my 1st licence back with a new address and they sent it back with the new one but about 5months later i found out from my old neighbour that i had a letter from the DVLA stating that i dont have a licence anymore. If it wasnt for my old neighbours being so nice i would still be driving around nnow not knowing. When i spoke to them about it they said that they went by the address the police had given them knowing full well that according to my record with the DVLA that i had since moved. They have issues and they really need to sort them out.
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For all those people who have sent off their licenses to the DVLA for a change in catagories, change of address etc, I have set up an online petition asking for the DVLA to return Original driving licenses to the owners. I feel that by doing this licence holders can comapre their old licence with their new one and there are less chances of mistakes being made by the DVLA, In the event of a mistake being made you have the proof (your original licence)as evidence.
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I wanted to change my driving licence to my married name. You would think that this would be easy. They wanted me to send ALL of my ID - driving licence, birth certificate and marriage certificate to them as DVLA offices are no longer allowed to check names changes (note: my passport wasn't in my married name). As a security person I was concerned about the risk of identity theft if my documentation was lost. The answer from the DVLA was to send it recorded delivery (not an option having recently had another bad experience with this) and that they have insurance to cover this. Hmmm!
I managed to persuade them to let me go to Swansea to provde my details. I had heard of issues with the DVLA particularly with motorbike licences, so I photocopied it. The irony of the whole story is that I received my driving licence in the post with the wrong signature on it!
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That lady who came out of DVLA triumphant and said they were giving her a licence should only have been given a provisional one by my calculation. She had one of those old red books which are donkey's years old and if you read them they only ran for 3 years and should have been renewed on the expiry. If she did not do it within a certain number of years by law, I think it is ten or fifteen, DVLA would never have set up any record for her so it was right to advise her to take a test again. I am speaking from personal experience here. In effect, if she got a full licence from DVLA someone there broke the law and Watchdog are condoning it.
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DVLA clamped my car for having no tax during one of their well publicised 'sting campaigns' last fall. My car was SORNED at the time, and parked on private land (confirmed by local authority Edinburgh council to be non-adopted private land). They forcefully extricated 240pounds from me to remove the clamp, even though my car was parked legally and it is in fact illegal to clamp a car on private land in Scotland. Four letters written to DVLA since they committed the offence last November, and no reply or acknowledgment to any letters. My MP has now taken up my case and I am still awaiting a response from DVLA. It is apparent from this that the DVLA are not only fragrantly violating Scottish law, they are also racketeering. I would be interested to know whose pockets are being lined in the DVLA by this scam.
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I received someone else's V5, I emailed DVLA, got a reply telling me to send the V5 back to them with a covering letter, which I did. I got a very nice reply and apology along with instructions to keep this letter in case I got any parking fines etc.
Perhaps the problem lies with the driving licence department of the DVLA?
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