I am a law abiding citizen, I have never had any penalty points on my driving licence, I have never had a visit from the ‘plod’, I have always paid my taxes and kept my nose clean.
I recently bought a motorhome, a beautiful 2014 Hymer B544. It’s worth a pretty penny. Being a sensible person wanted to protect my investment so I took out comprehensive insurance on it to ensure it was insured prior to me getting my hands on the keys.
We used the van for outings to the New Forest, Somerset, a few times to France and more recently in Wiltshire knowing full well that for any fire, theft or road accident involving our van our costs would be covered by insurance.
The DVLA had other ideas. They use a register called the Motor Insurance Database (MID) which is a record of all insured vehicles in the UK. When you take out insurance on a vehicle, your insurer advises their underwriter to update the database with the details of your insurance, vehicle etc.
The letters start coming:
I received a letter from the DVLA advising me that my motorhome registration details were not in the MID. This spurred me into action; I called my insurance company who stated that I was insured and that they would prompt the underwriter to get the details entered.
and another letter
I subsequently received another letter from the DVLA and responded to them with a copy of my insurance cover sheet and contact information for them to contact my insurer so that they could resolve their data issue. My assumption was that’s what they would do and the matter would be closed: How wrong I was.
This time its a threatening letter
I received yet another letter from DVLA stating:
This I found infuriating. The implications of it are that the correct data is now in the MID, however, they are imposing a fine on me for something that was outside of my control. I wrote back to the DVLA asking why they are imposing this fine when I have provided proof that I had insurance on the ‘van since March. I had no intention of paying the reduced fine nor the full fine.
The threat continues…
Their next response was equally infuriating.
I have included my response below: they were clearly lying. I contacted my insurer who confirmed that there was no record of DVLA inquiring about my vehicle. I phoned the DVLA to try and clear up this mess, but they were completely unresponsive.
Despite me including my phone number on each and every letter, no phone call came from the DVLA. I awaited their response with bated breath.
Ah, a different response this time
I received a further letter.
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. My persistence looks like it might pay off, they are going to have to get off their backsides and do their job.
Finally..
I was right all along, and now they have admitted it. They have withdrawn their threat of a fine and of court action.
I thought about how they had treated me and after a few days I penned the following reply:
I am left with the feeling that the DVLA had only one purpose in writing to me and that purpose was to impose a fine. They didn’t care about the rights or wrongs, they just wanted to collect revenue. They were unprepared to listen or discuss the situation, none of their letters was signed nor had a phone number that I could use to call to discuss. The only phone number given on their correspondence was to an automated payments system.
Each letter I received from the DVLA was titled ‘Failure to Insure’. At no time did I own the van and not have fully comprehensive insurance for it.
I am left with the conclusion that the DVLA is overstaffed with underperformers, inconsiderate people who cannot be bothered to do their job properly and who lie when it suits them.
My lesson learned from this episode is that if you are not guilty of, nor reponsible for the charge they are putting forward, then under no circumstances pay anthing to the DVLA until all alternative avenues have been explored and exhausted. Persist in stating your innocence if you believe it and let them take it to court if you reasonably believe that you are right. Keep copies of all correspondence between them and you; these will be needed in court.