The DVLA, whom God Preserve.

[excoriator]

In June I received a reminder from this fine organisation that as I am now over 70 I have to reapply for a driving licence. As my passport had expired I had to submit a form and enclose a Photo. It just so happened that I had an eye examination at the Local hospital so decided to get a photo at a machine on the way home.

Alas, I hadn't realised until the photo came out of the machine that they had used a stain on my eyes, and subsequent rubbing of them had spread a canary yellow stain around my eyes giving me the appearance of a Panda seen on acid.

I wasn't going to go back and spend another fiver so I sent it off anyway. Two or three months slid by. My licence expired, but no new Licence appeared. DVLA had managed to completely insulate itself from all irritating contact with the public with their annoying questions so I was unable to even check my application had been received, let alone whether my bizarre pic was acceptable to them.

I needn't have worried. It did eventually turn up, but the B&W picture is so bad it is hard to identify it as that of a human let alone that I have yellow blobs around my eyes. I could have sent a pic of Homer Simpson or Ronald Macdonald in full clown regalia and it would have made no difference whatsoever.

One wonders why they bother with a pic at all.

[skylark]

You didn’t try to phone them, did you?
I submitted my form last November and got the usual reply that because of my eye condition I needed an eyesight test at Specsavers. The letter explained this could not be done now but I would hear.
My licence expired in February but because of a section of one of the RTAs I was covered to drive for a year. Come July I’d heard nothing so phoned. And phoned. So I emailed, and was told to phone. So I phoned.....and the end complained, not so much about the delay but at the failure to answer the phones.

[excoriator]

Skylark, I tried EVERY method of communication known to man. Letters, emails, The DVLA Chatbot. That's a right laugh that is! It asks for every detail about you down to your shoe size and how you like your eggs fried. When you've supplied all this guff, it presents it all back to you to check, and when you've told it that its accurate, it tells you to try phoning!

It is, of course, the phone that advised you to try the on-line help!

A lot of organisations try hard to discaourage contact but teh DVLA seems to have raised to an art form!

[skylark]

The response to my formal complaint was to pack me off to Specsavers for my test, then send me a new licence. That served my purpose but did not address my complaint, which was the failure to answer the phone!