Do the DVLA make mistakes?

Foggster

I am having a bit of a nightmare with the DVLA at the moment.

I will be the first to admit it wasnt the simplest of tasks but all I wanted was to transfer a cherished plate off my car onto my husbands new car. At the same time, I sold my car and returned the tax disc to the DVLA. They then sent a new tax disc for the car with a re-assigned number plate. I then sent this to the DVLA for a refund because the car had now been sold.

It has now been 4 weeks of being told one thing then another. I was even told the other day by a member of staff that I had confused the issue by sending both discs back, but surely it is better that these discs with 10 months tax on are better in their hands then out there with the possibility of being used illegally?

The upshot of course is I am losing another months road tax refund.

When we transferred the cherished plate we went into the Cardiff office in person to ensure we got it right only to be told that they would only check the paperwork and take the fee but that they would just send it all into Swansea and they would do the transfer. Now I have received a letter saying I should have taken the old disc back into the office who dealt with the transfer! :(:(

I have called Swansea and a rather smug lady told me I had confused the issue and that they do have both discs in their possession but I now needed to send a letter in telling them I wished to have a refund even though they have all the documents!

Arghhhhhhhhhhhh.

I always had the impression they were pretty good at the DVLA and that they handled all this stuff efficiently but I cant see what more I should have done.

Is it me?

victor2

DVLA and competence are not two words that spring to mind at the same time!
I had to notify them after I ended up with medical condition you are obliged to inform them about.
They duly sent me a questionnaire, which I filled out and returned. After SIX months of chasing them (during which time I fortunately wasn't up to driving anyway) they sent me another slightly different questionnaire. I did eventually get it sorted out, but it required a lot of chasing and was a case of one empty promise after another from DVLA.

Don't give up, just document everything you do and prepare yourself for a long wait.

hartcjhart

Do the DVLA make mistakes?

is the pope catholic??:D

s_b

i have had more concerns with dvla this last 18 months than the previous 18 years and most of the problems start at the local dvla office and their inability to forward post in their own internal postal system to dvla swansea see

garethgas

The DVLA never make mistakes. They told me so themselves :rotfl:

laineybird2000

i know they get it wrong occasionally, they handle 2 million bits of post a week....
not sure if you were given duff info at the time of the CT,, but in the paperwork, you have to sign a doc stating that you wont sell the old car until after its got it new plate on it. maybe the screw up happened as your post reads like you did a job lot?

flutterbyuk25

You did make the mistake of returning the original tax disc rather than the replacement one following the transfer, as that would should have been returned to the local office for cancellation once the transfer paperwork was issued.

However you won't lose out on a month's refund as it will be backdated to the time that you submitted the correct (replacement) disc regardless of how long the process takes. Send the letter as requested to keep the process going.

I'm ex-DVLA and when I worked there refunds took up to 6weeks to process, although this may have changed.

HTH

atrixblue.-MFR-.

do the DVLA make mistakes THEY ARE A MISTAKE FULLSTOP.

Strider590

Forget the bankers, it's DVLA *ankers we need to watch.

sarahg1969

Very few of the DVLA staff make mistakes. Most of them are off sick.

victor2

flutterbyuk25 wrote: »

I'm ex-DVLA and when I worked there refunds took up to 6weeks to process, although this may have changed.

So that would be 5 minutes work and 60,475 minutes of doing nothing. I could be wrong on the 5 minutes, it's just a guess and may be up to 90% inaccurate.