Driving licence application scam

[catmadcaz]

My daughter has decided to learn to drive so needs a Provisional licence. So yesterday she put dvla provisional licence in her computer and up came the sites. DVLA Provisional - drivinglicence.uk.com‎
www.drivinglicence.uk.com/ was the first 4 entries

So she used the first one applied paid with my card the £50.00 application fee... was emailed a ref number.. so far so good.

Today she realised she had been had it was a scam it is a driving licence checking site like the passport check only they charge £50.00 the same fee as a licence.

I wenr on the site and read it through throughly and she will have to another £50.00 for her yes you guessed her provisional, from the real DVLA.

All she has paid for is a FREE application form available from the post office.

I like a fool gave her my card to pay for it and didn't think to check the site as she is 19 and very computer savvy.

Anyone else been had?

[payback73]

Where is the phone number for these jokers?

[fairisleknitter]

I had the same experience with Passport Application. (Yes I was daft but these sites are set up to mislead.)

I emailed to cancel that evening.

Called the credit card people who could not cancel the payment although it hadn't yet gone through BUT they have tons of incidents and were very encouraging about the chances of getting money back further down the line! They told me there would be a "note " set against the payment which the company would be told of when they sought payment.

Anyhow unethical company then email me for my bank details to effect a refund. Well obviously NO WAY was I going to do that so I just reiterated I did not want their service and was cancelling. Heard no more.

Upshot was my credit card was NOT debited by them.

[payback73]

How are people contacting these guys as I cannot see any details on the site?

[fairisleknitter]

payback I had had an email from them so I pinged back. No way was I using their scamming phone line!

[payback73]

yeh I didn't get the e-mail, the text didn't work and I cannot see a phone line.

I do have the guys home address, phone numbers and e-mail. However, will give them a chance to reply through official channels.

[gordy1912]

my wife got scammed with this mob,...we were getting my son a provisional for xmas and my wifes mum paid this with her credit card,..was at the start of December only realised now,...I take it we are snookered,nothing we can do and 50 quid down?...these scammers are utter scum!!!!!!

[chrissie28]

my 17 year old has just been scammed - she swears she was on a government website but she has just been billed £90 on her debit card by a company calling themselves www.dvla-driving-license.co.uk and I can't trace them on the internet. She has her license but has paid £40 of her hard earned coaching money extra for it (a month's work). I wish I could trace the company.

[chrissie28]

BEWARE www.dvla-driving-licence.co.uk
Another scummy agency, charged my daughter £90, didn't realise until bank statement came through.
These places should be stopped but our children need to be aware

[Jlc443]

They have a postal address in the terms and conditions section of their website and are using the email address:[email protected]

[Proudmummytodc2]

hiya never read through all posts so sorry if this has been said when i booked all mine a couple of months ago i very nearly done the same im 22! lol but i do tend to read everything on a site first but for future reference tell her to always go through the direct gov sites hope this helps sorry this has happened to you i hope there is a way you could maybe claim it back i dont know much about they sites xx

[NoComet]

I'm generally against censorship and regulation of the Web, but it should be illegal to impersonate an official website purely to scam people.

[AngieDE]

I have a solution!! Our twin daughters also got stung this week when they tried to register a provisional driving licence and we paid in total £100 for nothing!
There is a way, though, to make the fraudsters sit up: Everytime you click on their advertisement in Google (at the top and side of the search results when you search for terms like 'driving licence' etc) it costs them approximately £2 which they have to pay to Google. I have encouraged our girls to bring the matter up in school and with their friends and to visit the advertisement links and discuss the fraud issues. When you throw a facebook discussion in it as well, this amounts to a few hundred kids all researching the issue by clicking on the advertisements, costing the scammers hundreds :-)

[charleymc1209]

I have exactly the same thing happen to me. And we haven't even received the application form. I complained to them, and guess what!! They have refused a refund. Even though they have not provided any service at all, as the application was never received. We only found out what had happened when I phoned DVLA for an update on the application. They are taking advantage of teenagers who don't know any better, and are set up to look like a DVLA website. It is so misleading. Who in their right mind would want to pay £50.00 for an application form to be sent to you, when you can apply for free, and the DVLA would soon let you know if you had made any mistakes on the form. Not at all happy. I will be taking this further. As far as I am concerned, I did not authorise this payment, as I was under the impression we were paying DVLA directly.

[Santafe2000]

I've written full guidance for obtaining a refund here.

forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4872361&highlight=

Hopefully you will all find this useful. I personally obtained a full refund plus court costs.

[Santafe2000]

Actually it made sense just to cut and paste it here...

Despite my leaving a step by step guide on MSE consumers are continually getting ripped off by Driving license UK Ltd (AKA Caveat Viator Ltd) at a phenomenal rate as posts on here continue to prove. Clearly some are not finding my advice and I am receiving a large number of emails asking for personal guidance, as I can not personally attend to every individual I thought I would start a thread with definitive guidance.

Caveat Viator dupe the public into paying exorbitant fee's for a license checking service. Their website is deliberately designed to look like the DVLA website so that less than vigilant consumers think they are paying for and ordering a license directly from the DVLA. Once you realise your mistake and claim a refund Caveat Viator Ltd refuse to refund on the basis that they are exempt from the 7 day cooling off period that normally applies under the distance selling regulations. There is a loophole in the distance selling regulations regarding completion of contractual performance. If you instruct a company to act on your behalf and it is reasonable to assume that the terms of the contract would be fulfilled before the normal 7 day cooling off period expires then clearly that Cooling off period cannot be applied.

The question then is whether there can be a valid contract between you the customer and Driving License UK ltd and the answer is that there is no valid contract and therefore they are not exempt from the 7 day cooling off period. That being said I am confident that you are entitled to a full refund irrespective of whether you claim it within the 7 day cooling off period or not and here is why...

Driving License UK Ltd do not actually provide a service and under contract law since there is no consideration to you the customer then there can be no valid contract.

Caveat Viator recently removed advertising from their website that duped customers into thinking this was the official DVLA website. The details are logged for September 2013 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 the ASA held the view that their website material did not comply with legal guidelines.

So how do you reclaim your money?

1. First write to caveat Viator Ltd requesting a full refund within 7 days and warn them that if a refund is not forthcoming within that timeframe that you will lodge a county court claim for which they will also be liable for court costs. Courts expect you to behave reasonably and to try and settle this outside of the court room, this letter is your evidence that you have done so. Make sure you send this letter via recorded delivery so they can not claim to have not received it.

If you receive a refund fine, if not...

1. Lodge a small claim online at www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome

The online form takes no longer than 10 minutes to fill in and costs £25. Sit back and wait for a response, Caveat Viator Ltd will either contest it or provide a full refund. To date I have not heard of them fighting a single claim in county court.

Should Caveat Viator Ltd decide to contest your claim in County Court then the basis for your case is below. Once they lose in court then their whole business model collapses and I do not believe this is a risk they will take.

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.

All the information needed to pursue a county court claim is here.

Good Luck but to be frank if you follow this guidance to the letter you will not need it.

[MUM2BLESS]

I got caught with this too. . filled form in on line for my son.

[SusieDid]

www.dvla-driving-licence.co.uk

We have just had experience of this Company. We thought we were on the official DVLA website (own stupidity, rushing, distracted) As soon as we discovered that £90 had been taken from the account (24 hours later), we contacted the website via their terms and conditions page and completed their refund form. We received a confirmation email that we would receive refund within 48 - 72 hours. After a few sleepless nights having read some of the horror stories, we really weren't sure we would see this money again. We emailed them a few times and received no reply at all. We even completed the refund form a second time. However, we have today successfully received a refund from them (minus £8 admin fee, but small price to pay for our stupidity). This did take 9 days in total from the date I first submitted the refund form.

I just wanted to post this message for others out there that have realised they have gone on to an unofficial site and to say that hopefully if you follow the steps on their terms and conditions page, you should receive your refund.

Sites like this should be shut down. I know now having investigated the site thoroughly, that they do state they are a checking service. However, their link takes you direct to the application form and it is identical to DVLA site, so when you are rushing like we were it is a very easy mistake to make. I really wish there was a way to get a warning out there to people BEFORE they apply and have the stress and hassle that we have gone through over the past week or so.

[jsandford]

used Money Claim on-line, received £80 plus costs refund today, here's my email to them, good luck!:

Kelly

Although I cancelled my "DVLC" request to you within 15 minutes of applying, your company maintained that I was not entitled to a refund. On complaining I was told that you would review my case within 14 days. When no reply was received in 14 days, and prompted by another email from me, you merely referred me to your terms & conditions. Subsequently, when I warned you that I was considering legal action you then ignored me.

Kelly, why you feel justified working for a shitty company that operates on the fringes of UK law is well beyond my comprehension.

In the same way that your director has urged you to pester me for a response, please forward this email to him in the hope that he can eventually find an ethical path to follow in order to reward his (obvious) entrepreneurial spirit.

Best regards,
Carolyn Sandford

[lyndaclark]

i have just fell for this too. i realised my photocard licence had to be renewed so typed in google dvla driving licence renewal and clicked on the site which i thought was the dvla site, i should have checked for the .gov but it looked like the dvla site. i completed it thinking i was applying for my licence and paid £80 for the honour of someone filling in a form for me. its only today when i received the form through the post and saw that it is saying i need to send £20 payment to renew my licence that i have realised what i have done. the paperwork i have says drivinglicences.org.uk on it. is this the same company that has already been mentioned. it is 9 days ago when i did this so will i be able to claim a refund from them. The site is completely misleading and does lead you to beleive you are paying for your licence. the part where they state its a checking service is not in big bold writing and was actually at the bottom of the first page after all the click now to apply buttons.

i have shared my story on facebook in order to warn others and would urge everyone else on here to do the same.

[ByTheSea]

This just made me so nervous as I just applied for a provisional licence for DS1 yesterday. I got an email saying that they would send him a form to return to them, which I thought a bit odd. But...I just used the government gateway ID and password and was able to log into and track the application on the real website linked here, so I guess we are okay. The scams should be illegal.

[Spider14]

SusieDid message re www.dvla.driving-licence
What a bloody scam. So cross with myself.
Have done exactly this applying for my daughters provisional licence this afternoon. Have contacted them to cancel via their terms and conditions. How long did you have to wait to hear from them? Have contacted my bank but as I paid by debit card not much they can do. Any advise would be appreciated.

[taz44]

hello. I was also scamed by this website as it says its DVLA. I lost my licence due to being in a state as i had to have my dog put to sleep after haveing her for 15 years. I applied for a replacement for 20 but they took 60 instead. Because of this i also got a bank charge. There is nothing on the site saying that its a third party site it just says dvla-driveing licence.co.uk. Ok fair enough i have to replace it but 60 for a replacement that expires 2016.? Also i never utherized 60 to be taken from my account. Need help on getting these thieveing scammers shut and our money back.

[dexter73]

taz44 - that website doesn't seem to exist anymore. I get a message saying that 'The address for the site //www.dvla-driving-licence.co.uk was misleading and has been acquired by GOV.UK to protect the public.' Perhaps you could try contacting your bank to see if they can help with getting the money back.

[Shellwood1]

I tried to change address for our son's driving licence and the first website //www.dvla-driving-licence.co.uk appeared official, so I filled in all details and parted with £40.00. After over a month nothing came back so I contacted the dvla direct by phone to find out they had no information, so I went to my bank and completed a customer dispute disclaimer. Checked that website today (8 May) and found that finally the official gov.uk dvla website 'has been acquired by gov.uk to protect the public'.
All be aware in future and ONLY go the official government website re anything to do with driving licences. My bank will attempt to get the money back.