Section 75 claim muddle. Help please

KatrinaWaves

Please clarify. Your £100+ you keep referencing as a deposit to the unnamed company. Was that for the practical and theory tests, or was it in ANY way payment for driving lessons?

If they are paid on commission and you have only paid them for tests which your son did take, they owe you nothing.

You used up all your paid for lessons, therefore other than some goodwill from ‘someone’ you cannot claim that money back with section 75. IF your son had said ‘this guy is awful, Im switching’ and then paid for more lessons for someone else then yes you could claim money back, but he didn’t, he carried on til his money was spent.

Section 75 isn’t to get money back for a bad service which you continued to use even after deciding it was bad!

xxdeebeexx

KatrinaWaves wrote: »

Please clarify. Your £100+ you keep referencing as a deposit to the unnamed company. Was that for the practical and theory tests, or was it in ANY way payment for driving lessons?

If they are paid on commission and you have only paid them for tests which your son did take, they owe you nothing.

You used up all your paid for lessons, therefore other than some goodwill from ‘someone’ you cannot claim that money back with section 75. IF your son had said ‘this guy is awful, Im switching’ and then paid for more lessons for someone else then yes you could claim money back, but he didn’t, he carried on til his money was spent.

Section 75 isn’t to get money back for a bad service which you continued to use even after deciding it was bad!

The £100+ was in fact £302.99 (I'm really embarrassed to say hence the vague £100+ reference)
It seems it was an administration fee to find the driving instructor and to book and pay for a short dated practical driving test which costs £62.

The driving instructor had to be paid in full and in cash on the first lesson.

A complaint was made to the company after 5 hours of lessons and a request made for another driving instructor to be found.
The reply was, that most or even all of the money that the driving instructor still had would be lost/forfeited... that amounted to £600 - far too much money to walk away from.

At this point there was no thought of making a claim...it's only now that I'm exploring the possibility.


Part of the fee paid was to book a short dated practical driving test. A Practical Driving Test booked for 4 months after the course started is not short dated...

dx

KatrinaWaves

But the terms state they are paid by the drivers on a commission basis, and no fee is taken from you.

I don’t understand how they can know when to book a test if they leave the booking of lessons and timescale up to the driver/customer. What do their terms state about who decides when the practical test is booked for? They could book it for a weeks time but that’s useless if the driver/learner havent don’t enough work. I don’t understand how they could independently know when to book it

xxdeebeexx

KatrinaWaves wrote: »

But the terms state they are paid by the drivers on a commission basis, and no fee is taken from you.

I don’t understand how they can know when to book a test if they leave the booking of lessons and timescale up to the driver/customer. What do their terms state about who decides when the practical test is booked for? They could book it for a weeks time but that’s useless if the driver/learner havent don’t enough work. I don’t understand how they could independently know when to book it

I can't see this bit in the t&c's

Ideally the driving instructor tells the admin office when the pupil is ready for their test. It seems that the test is booked quite a time ahead and brought forwards by looking for cancellations, or moved back if things don't go as planned.
I'm guessing that my son ended up having the original test that was booked and it wasn't brought forward even though they were asked on 4 different occasions.


dx

Bermonia

Seems to me the biggest issue is the fact that s75 is unlikely to cover you given that this was booked for the benefit of another party (your son), your argument that it is ultimately for your benefit just would not hold up I’m afraid.

Have you perhaps contacted the DVSA to see what resolution services/remedies they may offer.

Gavin83

xxdeebeexx wrote: »

Yes but he had to buy extra driving lessons from another instructor which highlighted how shocking the first driving instructor was.


dx

How many? I'm assuming these were before he took the first (and I assume only) test?

For the record I don't think you've got a chance of being successful with a S75 claim. There are just too many hurdles.

The case overall is fairly complicated. I gather from your posts you're only trying to claim the £302.99 fee back from the company rather than the money paid to the driving instructor. Therefore the question is what was the exact service they were offering for that fee and did they successfully complete this? What does the contract say about you not liking the instructor?