So, at the end of June, my mum was away on a long holiday.
She received a call from her bank's anti-fraud dept, saying there had been suspicious transactions attempted on her card. Turns out they think it had been skimmed. So as a security precaution, they were going to transfer her money etc into another of her accounts, with a different number and monitor the old one. As she had a card for the other account with her, this didn't cause her any problems. She enquired about the only two direct debits she had on the account, and was told she'd need to contact the originator and change the mandate - now onto the fun bit..
The two direct debits in question, were for the tax on their cars, so you'd think it was a simple matter of either going online or ringing the DVLA to change the details right? After all, you can tax the car online...
So she has a look on the website, no info at all about changing bank details, so a phonecall to the DVLA and it transpires that the ONLY way to do this, is to queue at the post office, and get a form (they no longer have them out for you to get) then fill in a form for each vehicle and pass it back to the post office! You cannot simply download the form and return it to the DVLA.
So, as she was away for a further few weeks, and the cars were at home in the garage, she thought she'd SORN them - Wrong, can't do that without the V5C references, and the V5C's were back at home in the safe, to which they had both keys...
So, she got back last week, by which time, there were letters from the DVLA saying the DD had been cancelled, and the cars were no longer taxed, so she pops online and taxes them both. Job done you'd think? Nope, this morning she gets a letter for each car from DVLA, saying she needs to pay a penalty of £80 PER VEHICLE plus back tax for the time they were in the garage... The letters end, in capitals "YOU CANNOT DISPUTE THIS BY PHONE OR ONLINE" and helpfully DOESN'T tell you how you can dispute it.
So I now have the task of wording the appeal letters, because they don't have the "usual" systems in place for changing bank details FFS...
Mike
She received a call from her bank's anti-fraud dept, saying there had been suspicious transactions attempted on her card. Turns out they think it had been skimmed. So as a security precaution, they were going to transfer her money etc into another of her accounts, with a different number and monitor the old one. As she had a card for the other account with her, this didn't cause her any problems. She enquired about the only two direct debits she had on the account, and was told she'd need to contact the originator and change the mandate - now onto the fun bit..
The two direct debits in question, were for the tax on their cars, so you'd think it was a simple matter of either going online or ringing the DVLA to change the details right? After all, you can tax the car online...
So she has a look on the website, no info at all about changing bank details, so a phonecall to the DVLA and it transpires that the ONLY way to do this, is to queue at the post office, and get a form (they no longer have them out for you to get) then fill in a form for each vehicle and pass it back to the post office! You cannot simply download the form and return it to the DVLA.
So, as she was away for a further few weeks, and the cars were at home in the garage, she thought she'd SORN them - Wrong, can't do that without the V5C references, and the V5C's were back at home in the safe, to which they had both keys...
So, she got back last week, by which time, there were letters from the DVLA saying the DD had been cancelled, and the cars were no longer taxed, so she pops online and taxes them both. Job done you'd think? Nope, this morning she gets a letter for each car from DVLA, saying she needs to pay a penalty of £80 PER VEHICLE plus back tax for the time they were in the garage... The letters end, in capitals "YOU CANNOT DISPUTE THIS BY PHONE OR ONLINE" and helpfully DOESN'T tell you how you can dispute it.
So I now have the task of wording the appeal letters, because they don't have the "usual" systems in place for changing bank details FFS...
Mike
