Renewing paper licence at 70 - DVLA incapable of dealing with long standing addresses

However

Tried to renew online but DVLA said address not recognised. Been at current address for 40 years but Post Office (incorrectly) inserted an apostrophe in our village name 30 years ago. Local authority and HMRC still recognises proper village name (e.g. as per Electoral Roll and tax returns), so don't tell me the Post Office is right. Phone call to DVLA resulted in having to do postal renewal - they also then claimed Licence was incorrect in only having first four digits of postcode: rubbish - that was always the way.

And then when new licence came a few days later IT HAD THE WRONG POSTCODE (misreading what was written on the form) as well as the apostrophe in the village name (ignoring what I had written on the form, so they must have used the correct postcode to obtain the wrong village name).

I do not take kindly to being told the licence has been wrong for 40 years, when it has been right for 40 years (and God help those in that part of the village whose whole county changed underneath them 25 or so years ago).

So much for technology and the children who use it - 'computer says no' is alive and well.

Warwick_Hunt

Isn't there a rant board somewhere?

BeenThroughItAll

Blimey, you need to get out more. You sound like Victor Meldrew on benzodiazepines.

NBLondon

However wrote: »

Tried to renew online but DVLA said address not recognised.

Almost certainly they have used a lookup supplied by the Post Office or Royal Mail

However wrote: »

Post Office (incorrectly) inserted an apostrophe in our village name 30 years ago.

Did they write it on the signs as well? Nope - they may have added it to their lookup file that was sold to the DVLA et al but unless it's a Post Town as well as a village - you don't (in theory) need the village name at all if you have the correct postcode with all 5,6 or 7 characters.

However wrote: »

claimed Licence was incorrect in only having first four digits of postcode: rubbish - that was always the way.

Well it might have been the accepted way 40 years ago to write e.g. "Liverpool 8" at the end of an address but in the current century just "L8" is considered incorrect and it must be "L8 4AA" - minimum of 5 characters.

Car_54

However wrote: »

Tried to renew online but DVLA said address not recognised. Been at current address for 40 years but Post Office (incorrectly) inserted an apostrophe in our village name 30 years ago. Local authority and HMRC still recognises proper village name (e.g. as per Electoral Roll and tax returns), so don't tell me the Post Office is right. Phone call to DVLA resulted in having to do postal renewal - they also then claimed Licence was incorrect in only having first four digits of postcode: rubbish - that was always the way.

And then when new licence came a few days later IT HAD THE WRONG POSTCODE (misreading what was written on the form) as well as the apostrophe in the village name (ignoring what I had written on the form, so they must have used the correct postcode to obtain the wrong village name).

I do not take kindly to being told the licence has been wrong for 40 years, when it has been right for 40 years (and God help those in that part of the village whose whole county changed underneath them 25 or so years ago).

So much for technology and the children who use it - 'computer says no' is alive and well.

Whether your licence has been right or wrong for the past 40 years is of no importance to anyone - it's history.

What matters is that it now has the correct postal address, and (whether you like it or not) your postal address is whatever the Royal Mail decides it to be. Its only purpose is to enable the RM to deliver your mail efficiently.

Comms69

However wrote: »

Tried to renew online but DVLA said address not recognised. Been at current address for 40 years but Post Office (incorrectly) inserted an apostrophe in our village name 30 years ago. Local authority and HMRC still recognises proper village name (e.g. as per Electoral Roll and tax returns), so don't tell me the Post Office is right. Phone call to DVLA resulted in having to do postal renewal - they also then claimed Licence was incorrect in only having first four digits of postcode: rubbish - that was always the way.

And then when new licence came a few days later IT HAD THE WRONG POSTCODE (misreading what was written on the form) as well as the apostrophe in the village name (ignoring what I had written on the form, so they must have used the correct postcode to obtain the wrong village name).

I do not take kindly to being told the licence has been wrong for 40 years, when it has been right for 40 years (and God help those in that part of the village whose whole county changed underneath them 25 or so years ago).

So much for technology and the children who use it - 'computer says no' is alive and well.

totally understand immediately send it back and tell them you no longer want a licence!

AdrianC

However wrote: »

Tried to renew online but DVLA said address not recognised. Been at current address for 40 years but Post Office (incorrectly) inserted an apostrophe in our village name 30 years ago. Local authority and HMRC still recognises proper village name (e.g. as per Electoral Roll and tax returns), so don't tell me the Post Office is right.

Who else but Royal Mail determine your correct postal address, then?

It's easy to check what your correct postal address is - http://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode

For mine, it's house name, village name, next village, nearest city, postcode.

Near here, friends are house name, village name, nearest city, postcode.
They happen to live just over the border into Wales, and the city named in the address is in England.

For other friends nearby, it's house name, village name, nearby town, nearest city, postcode. Their village is in England, the town is in Wales, the city is in England.

The postal address tells the postal delivery system how the post is routed. It does no more, no less than that. It is not intended to pander to local feelings of superiority.

Phone call to DVLA resulted in having to do postal renewal - they also then claimed Licence was incorrect in only having first four digits of postcode: rubbish - that was always the way.

The absolute bare minimum for a postcode is five characters with a space.
Two-four character outward code, consisting of...
- one/two letter postcode area
- one/two digit region
Space
Three character inward code area, consisting of...
- one digit postcode sector
- two letter postcode unit

(X/XX)(9/99) 9XX

This has not changed since postcodes started to be rolled out in 1959, completed nationally by 1974.

(and God help those in that part of the village whose whole county changed underneath them 25 or so years ago).

Apart from the minor detail that correct postal addresses do not contain a county name, you do realise that counties are mostly an anachronistic irrelevance now, right? Where they still carry any meaning, it's only where there's a "county council" as a tier of local government. Well, here's news for you - boundaries change.

So much for technology and the children who use it - 'computer says no' is alive and well.

In this case, it would seem that the technology is actually perfectly correct, and the fault lies with somebody who refuses to accept that what they've been doing for decades has failed to reflect change and/or has always been simply wrong.

[Deleted User]

My address gets spelt differently from loads of different sources and never had a problem with anything.

hollie.weimeraner

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

Blimey, you need to get out more. You sound like Victor Meldrew on benzodiazepines.

Well I've just hit 60 and this rant made me laugh, whilst I totally agree with all the answers I also understand where the poster is coming from and I must admit I get more like Victor with every passing day :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: