Driving Licence Renewal Rip Off - Beware!!!

GAZ237

Joe_Malone wrote: »

Firstly if you are conned by these people, under no circumstances should you contact their premium rate line for satisfaction, the only people left satisfied by this approach will be Caveat Viator Ltd and their business model recognises that disgruntled customers will want to call and complain. This adds insult to injury and throws good money after bad. Written contact only, it's formal and it costs nothing.
I was duped by these people for a driving license renewal (Hey, we all have our off days). Went on their site which is designed to look like the DVLA site and completed my application and paid the £60 fee which I thought was to the DVLA. Six days later got their envelope through the post and realised I had been duped. I immediately returned all documents to them with a letter (sent via registered post) giving them 7 days to provide a full refund or I would raise a small claim in the county court. I then received a lengthy email explaining that it was all my fault for not reading their terms and conditions blah blah blah. I immediately raised a claim with the county court which cost £25 and took ten minutes to do online. Guess what... As soon as they received the court notification they sent an email asking who the should make the cheque for refund payable to. Of course I haven't received this yet and I have also asked for additional court costs of £25 which if they refuse to pay I will reclaim with a second small claims application. It seems they have tried to exploit a loophole in the distance selling regulations that exempts them from the 7 day cooling off period normally standard for the provision of services. However I'll share my last email with Caveat Viator Ltd and you will see on what grounds I would be making my claim through county court...
Good Afternoon,

As you know by now, the matter has been put through to County Court after you initially refused to refund my fee's. You had every opportunity to avoid additional fee's and and now must be fully aware of the value claimed. Make a cheque payable to Mr J P Malone to the value of £85 which includes my initial £60 fee and an additional £25 in court costs. If you refuse to refund that amount I will simply raise a second county court claim to cover the short fall and you will incur additional fee's. You were adequately warned about additional costs and given the opportunity to provide recompense. If I'm honest, I'd have preferred to deal with this issue through the courts. Your business model is fraudulent, the OFT make it very clear that 'administrative or preparatory work cannot be equated to the carrying out of a service.' This is stated in their 2006 guide for business in distance selling. Moreover your business model needs testing from a contract law perspective. There has to be discernible benefit or consideration to the customer to make a contract valid. The DVLA provide a checking and validation service as part of their application process so what you offer does nothing but delay license renewal. In fact it could be strongly argued that what you provide is actually a detriment because it simply delays the application process. In short I think you're a shameless bunch of crooks and I'd happily see you in court.

If you have been duped by this company for driving licence, vehicle registration or European Health Insurance Cards please please raise a county court claim. I suspect that they are well aware that their business model will not stand up to legal scrutiny. Their 'service' is downright ridiculous and fraudulent, they claim to offer a form checking service but simply print off a form that you filled in and ask you to check that the details you completed are correct before returning it to the DVLA. It would be amusing if they weren't ripping off so many people.

You have no chance of getting your money back.

You went on to their site and paid them money for using their services.

The fault is entirely yours for not reading the information correctly.

Advising people to open a small claims for an additional £25, when you have had no success (yet?). Is not really good advice.

vaio

GAZ237 wrote: »

You have no chance of getting your money back.

You went on to their site and paid them money for using their services.

The fault is entirely yours for not reading the information correctly.

Advising people to open a small claims for an additional £25, when you have had no success (yet?). Is not really good advice.

I don't know, them asking who to send the cheque to looks promising to me

Joe_Malone wrote: »

.......Guess what... As soon as they received the court notification they sent an email asking who the should make the cheque for refund payable to. ..

GAZ237

vaio wrote: »

I don't know, them asking who to send the cheque to looks promising to me

But he has not received it?

patchman

The only reason they are the top search on google is that they are paying for a google ad to become the top search ( see the words ads relating to ...next to their site), as well as the pale box coloured box around the paid for advert sites at the top of the google search. The top 'generic' search is actually the 'right' site to go to i.e. https://www.gov.uk. The generic listing for these cowboys is actually on page 2 of google search which would be useless to them ,hence them paying for a google ad for this very highly sought after search term.
Its a vicious circle, you pay them £60, they pay for more google ads, scam more people, pay for more ads.....etc etc...
Every time someone clicks on their ad link it costs them xx pence, I suggest everyone does this as many times as possible to cost these crooks as much as possible.

Joe_Malone

GAZ237 wrote: »

You have no chance of getting your money back.

You went on to their site and paid them money for using their services.

The fault is entirely yours for not reading the information correctly.

Advising people to open a small claims for an additional £25, when you have had no success (yet?). Is not really good advice.

You have a very simplistic uninformed view and I would question your motives for posting this nonsense.
Their offer to refund my cash is as good as an admission of liability and I have a county court case pending that on this basis alone will not go in their favour.
The fault isn't entirely mine as proven by the fact that they have just removed advertising from their website that duped customers into thinking this was the official DVLA website. The details are logged for September on the advertising standards authorities website and the ASA have confirmed to me by email the details of the case. Another fact that supports the view that prior to amending their website a week or two ago the ASA held the view that their website material did not comply with legal guidelines.
If not refunded my county court claim will focus on three key legal points...

1. The Recent ASA case confirms that website material was duping customers.
2. The OFT produced a 2006 guide for business relating to rules of distance selling. They are very clear in this guide that administrative work of the type provided by caveat viator ltd cannot equate to the provision of a service.
3. Contract Law... There has to be a benefit or consideration to the customer to form a valid legal contract. The OFT guidelines confirm that there is no benefit and in fact the DVLA provide precisely the same checking service as part of their fee's so in fact it can easily be claimed that caveat viators service is actually a detriment rather than a benefit since all it achieves is delaying your application.
I think all the information needed to pursue a county court claim is here.

You are trying to dissuade people from reclaiming through small claims because you don't understand the information and that's not good advice.

goonarmy

Dabla27 wrote: »

Ok so to update, I called their premium number to speak with them about my application, to say the man was hostile was an understatement. I assume they receive calls of complaint a lot. Anyways, explained everything to him, reeled off where they failed in there T's&C's and I have managed to get 50% of my money back, as they have apparently provided their service in the sense they checked my details, but I don't agree that sending a blank form can merit providing a service. Knowing that these guys have a track record of hanging up on you and never giving any money back I feel a 50% refund was a small but slightly rewarding victory in this whole situation. I emailed them to confirm what was discussed and have since received a reply saying my cheque will be with me in 7 working days (fingers crossed).

On top of that though, I receive a text from Tesco, my network provider, saying I have went over my bill. Look it up and the cost of the phone call came to just over £20!!!!! I phoned up Tesco explaining the situation and to see if they could do anything and thankfully they credited my account for the cost of the call. I wasn't expecting that in the slightest but I guess if you don't ask.....

Couldn't praise them highly enough.

So all in looks like this whole debacle is coming to an end to the tune of £25. Not something I will be doing again in a hurry. I am absolutely kicking my self for being so careless and have no one to blame but my self. Also got to give a shout out to Tesco mobile for their part in making this less of an expense, absolute credit to the mobile world.

Just to clarify Jamie Carter, I payed by debit card.

You rang the premium number too? This company must love you.

Joe_Malone

GAZ237 wrote: »

You have no chance of getting your money back.

You went on to their site and paid them money for using their services.

The fault is entirely yours for not reading the information correctly.

Advising people to open a small claims for an additional £25, when you have had no success (yet?). Is not really good advice.

Gaz 237 was wrong, I received a cheque today for £85... £60 + £25 in court costs which obviously means they prefer to settle out of court. They also enclosed an amusing letter that I thought I'd share with you...

Thank you for taking the time to contact us and for your posts on the moneysavingexpert.com forums, which we did find most amusing. Whilst we have taken the decision settle your claim in lieu of offering a defence, we might respectfully suggest that if you intend to pursue legal action in the future that you consider consulting a qualified legal opinion, (I did) rather than relying on your own legal interpretation, to avoid any embarrassment to yourself.

We understand that you may wish to share the elation of your victory with other online forum users. We should like to take this opportunity to stress that we do monitor these forums and should we consider any postings to be libellous, unfounded, unsupported by solid evidence or otherwise harmful to our valued reputation, we will not hesitate to bring an action against you for defamation.

I'm not sure whether these veiled threats are for your benefit or mine but consider that they had an opportunity to defend their 'valued reputation' relatively cheaply in small claims court and chose not to. Moreover, have you ever heard of a company with a 'valued reputation' that monitors website chat forums? You have nothing to lose by claiming your money back through small claims and I believe that I've given you enough information to be successful. I'm sure that I found their letter of response more amusing than they found my posts on here, and finally, for the record, I'm not elated by my victory, I'm disappointed that I never got to see this company in court.

littledos

You are absolute hero and well done for getting the better of these conning heartless pigs. I too was scammed and lost £50 and am trying to proceed with a complaint. I think you will find that the people on this site who are siding with the enemy are probably the enemy in disguise. I have read many blogs - this is just one - and these type pop up on all. I am fairly convinced that most of them 'work' for the organisation, especially in light of their letter to you about how they monitor these sites.
It is so sad to hear all the stories of people who have been conned - single parents, people on the dole, students. the elderly. The nasty lot who go on about how you should 'read the information on the site' and how all of us who have fallen for the scam are 'stupid' make me sick. Not everybody is internet savvy and many of the people duped are young (getting their first licence) or old (unfamiliar with the internet ways) and an easy target. I really do not know how these people sleep at night when they know their 'service' is worthless and deceptive. What a way to earn a living. Knowing you succeeded in thwarting them has really cheered me up!:T

Joe_Malone

Thanks very much for the kind words.

Latest update is that I received a large basket of flowers and a bunch of helium filled balloons with the words 'thanks a bunch' etc on them. Also a card with the words, 'Thanks for keeping us amused with your forum posts and your valued custom.' Best wishes drivinglicense.uk.com

I'm not sure what custom they're referring to since they provided a full refund or perhaps this was just their way of issuing a veiled threat to show that they are monitoring me. Either way its great for me, I got some nice flowers and I get to know that I've really got them rattled.

The latest episode follows my posting comments on Facebook with regard to their ethical web hosting business. Search for 'serveraid.org'. Yes, they're now into 'ethical' web hosting and of course running their own web hosting business is the perfect front for semi-legitimate businesses providing administrative 'services' that the OFT say cannot equate to the provision of a service.

Keep taking them to small claims court guys, they'll settle or lose in court and once they lose in court their whole business model collapses.

RichardD1970

Joe_Malone wrote: »

Moreover, have you ever heard of a company with a 'valued reputation' that monitors website chat forums?

Yes, lots do, there are even some official company representatives on this forum who monitor and reply to posts.