it's all fine now!

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 14 March 2003 15:18:00

right, it was complicated. here is what happened.

i sold car to friend in septemberish. We never did the paperwork to notify the dvla of change of owner. he was supposed to pay tax from december. he didn't. he moved abroad in early feb. a week later i got a 'this vehicle has not been taxed - that is VERY naughty! pay us £25 now if you were the keeper of the vehicle at the time and we will take that as an out of court settlement and let you off'.

so... i filled in the form honestly, saying 'well, i wasn't the keeper, we hadn't done the paperwork' - but the person who left the country, his father agreed that he would pay the £25 on his son's behalf and take ownership of the vehicle. So i sent form, his cheque, covering letter and vehicle registration document in one envelope by registered post on the 5th March.

The father rang me on monday saying 'i just rang dvla and they say they've got no record of receiving the change of owner form, did you send it actually'? Easy, I think to myself. Lucky I sent it registered post, they will be able to tell me whether or not it got there! So I enter the letter registration on the website like you are sposed to do, and as that is inconclusive i call the nice people at 'track and trace'.

The post office lost it. On the 11th March the 'track and trace' people said 'ok, we don't know where it is, we'll buzz it over to customer services and they'll contact you within three days'. I called them again today, and they gave me customer services number. I called them. They said 'yes, they might have faxed it but it isn't in our system yet. Shall i put it in the system now?' 'Oh, please', I said. They said if they hadn't found it by the middle of next week then we should consider it properly lost.

anyway then i think, i'd better call the DVLA and let them know why the form I had to return on pain of prosecution by the 9th March was in fact lost in the annals of royal mail. So I call the main dvla number and explain the whole thing. He puts me through. The phone rings. And rings. I have the cordless, so i get the wet washing out of the machine and hang it all out (with the phone on my shoulder). I put some more washing on. Still ringing. I wait. I make a cup of coffee. I give up.

I call again. I explain the situation again. The person I am speaking to is so thoroughly confused she puts me on to her supervisor. She puts me through to somewhere else. I explain again. He gives me the number I need to call. I put the phone down and call it. All I am trying to do is tell the people who might prosecute me why they have not received that form back. The lady i speak to informs me they received it on the 7th March. I whoop.

In fact she is so helpful that she goes and checks the actual paperwork for me to see if they have sent the vehicle reg form off to the vehicle reg people. 'It's not there' she says, 'so it's quite likely it's been sent over'.

Every single person I spoke to was pleasant and polite. I was extra specially nice to them, partly because they are all in jobs where people just ring up to shout.

Fabulous. Now I can get on with my day!