View Full Version : Customer Service At The Dvla Napier Street


goldenfleece
15-10-2004, 18:38
Customer service? AWFUL!!!! OI refer to the DVLA local office on napier street, just behind the Vine Inn off Cemetery Road. The place looks like a dole office with those foul 'take a ticket' machines and rows of old school chairs and buzzers for next number please. I kept looking around for people holding UB40's and not V5's.......

Anyway my rant is as follows:
I went in to apply for a vehicle to vehicle number plate transfer of some cherished plates. Simple form, requiring submission of tax disks, MOT's and V5's of both donor and recipient vehicles. FOrm checked and rubber stamped and I was told I would get my revised documents back in around 5 working days. Asked if the vehicles would require to be inspected and as they were identical cars and I was just scrapping an old one and moving the plate to a slightly newer model, the customer services rep said UNLIKELY and that it was all "just a formality" and new docs sent out ASAP. She asked me if the car had been "scrapped", which it hasnt and told me not to scrap it until the new documentation arrived. The car, if it needed (VIN plate number) to be inspected by the DVLA, would be done at my home address or other nominated address. Fine I thought...

SO off I go and wait for the new documents and 4 days later receive a letter from the local office asking me to bring in the DONOR vehicle for inspection. Now this was going to be difficult as the car was laid up, partially stripped and the engine removed. They had told me they inspected cars at customers homes and not that I had to bring it in. Further to this, as the MOT had expired, even I put the donor car back together I would have to trailor the thing to them as they would not inspect cars driven to the local office without MOT certificates.

I complained that I had asked if the vehicle would need to be examined and was told probably not, and that they went out to look at vehicle VIN plates at customers own homes, and the Manager was less than helpful and told me I had lost my cherished plates as the donor car was NOT COMPLETE. Apparently the donor car has to be fully complete for an inspection, which was not mentioned at my first application or indeed on their website or leaflet about vehicle to vehicle plate transfers. I told them they could go and look at the car, semi-complete and the chassis and VIN plates were all intact, but they refused, telling me I had to trailor it in as a COMPLETE car.

The total lack of customer service appalled me, and then they tell me that since I had partially dismantled the donor car the number plate is now invalid and "lost". Nothing like this was made clear to me or is on any of their documentation.

Thinking of writing to their head office......if they had told me all this on Monday when I went down to complete the application form and hand over the documents, I would not have stripped the donor car. So annoyed.....

fredsredhat
15-10-2004, 20:34
nightmare. hope it gets sorted. thing that is annoying, you have to deal with these people by law so no matter how rude or unhelpful you still have to use them. not like a shop where you can go to the competitor. maybe we should all refuse to tax our cars :-)

goldenfleece
15-10-2004, 23:29
To say I am annoyed is an understatement. Owned the registration plate for many many years and now they tell me because I have part-dismamtled a car the plate is "lost for ever" and I cant move it to any other car? After they told me there was no problem? After they told me they would send someone round to examine the chassis number at my address? After they assured me the transfer application form was just a formality and the documents would be in the post? After they assured me as the donor car had MOT within the last 6 months and tax still current the number was safe?

Good God Its not as if I an ringing a stolen 100K Porsch...we are talking a MK I Fiesta for Gods sake, worth at the very most in its present state about £20....all this bureaucracy is total ******.

The Head Office will be receiving, On Monday morning, a most lengthy and bitterly outspoken letter of complaint from myself. Of course, it will make zero difference, but one has to try......


The only way I can now "save" my cherished number is to put the old car back together and do a total restoration....which would cost 1000's, require a new chassis and bodyshell anyway as the old one is shot to bits, hence the transfer, and be so non original I would be given a "Q plate" and not be allowed to keep the cherished number if I did a restoration....

And the car has been stripped down the shell, everything taken off and many bits moved to another car. I kept the shell only in case they wanted to inspect it at my house, as they advised. Then they tell me and contradict themselves the car has to be 100% complete and NOTHING, not even a door handle, taken off....and I have to trailor the bloody thing to DVLA office and not only trailor it there, get it taken off the trailor so all 4 wheels are touching the ground "of their own accord". What a lot of old ******

Oh, you try and do things by the book and this is how u get treated....

fredsredhat
25-10-2004, 21:15
how have you got on with this? Nick

SnailyBoy
26-10-2004, 08:00
I always seem to find that people find not hearing what you want to hear = bad customer service. When usually the customer service is fine, you get a ticket so you know exactly when you are going to be seen, a customer service representative who gave you a straight answer based on his/her knowledge. It seems you've fallen foul of legislation that dosn't fit in with your personal circumstances, but it isn't bad customer service.

goldenfleece
26-10-2004, 08:27
Originally posted by SnailyBoy
I always seem to find that people find not hearing what you want to hear = bad customer service. When usually the customer service is fine, you get a ticket so you know exactly when you are going to be seen, a customer service representative who gave you a straight answer based on his/her knowledge. It seems you've fallen foul of legislation that dosn't fit in with your personal circumstances, but it isn't bad customer service.


Disagree. I think they understood me perfectly. I was filling in a form to make a legal number plate transfer. What they failed to do was point out essential information about the condition of the donor vehicle and that it needed to be 100% whole, and not have ANYTHING removed from it. The same information which they failed to provide also does not appear on their guide to filling in the form in question. I wrote to head Office and they are "carrying out a full investigation". Seems as if it is catching out quite a few people actually as I understand many complaints have been made........