Driving test 'rackets' are being set up in which people are legally block booking dates and then selling them on for up to £450 online.
Dozens of Facebook pages and other sites are rapidly popping up, with people acting as booking agents able to hoover up any available slots – which on average cost £62 in the UK – to then sell to the highest bidder. Such individuals are understood to be using bots and other black market tricks to get around the Driving and Vehicle Standards Agency's (DVSA) strict stance permitting a single practical driving test to be booked at any one time.
A DVSA spokesman told the Mirror demand for driving tests has "exceeded availability". He added: "People are using bots and apps to buy tests and sell them for as much as £450. Some of this activity is being carried out by driving instructors (ADIs) using a DVSA system designed for instructors to book their pupils’ tests."
The government body last summer overhauled its application system for booking tests, to ensure only ADIs had access. Terms and conditions were updated to make it clear such behaviour could result in access being removed for certain people. Bot protection was also increased.
Any new registrations on the DVSA system from companies not directly employed by a driving instructor have also been blocked, while around 4,500 accounts have been removed as part of the clean up. However, the spokesman reiterated: "It is not illegal to sell tests at a profit." And despite such measures being taken, Lauren Rachel Jones is among many learner drivers who have been unable to book a test for months.
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Her theory test certificate runs out in September, meaning she's in a race against time to pass her practical counterpart, having failed in January. The musician, in her 30s, from London, has spent the last seven months logging onto the DVSA site every day to no avail.
She said it is causing her anxiety having already forked out an estimated £3,000 on lessons, tests and other related costs since before the lockdown when she started learning. She even paid for a phone app which is supposed to send out an alert when a test becomes available in the area a learner lives. But she said there are seemingly so few available that none ever came up.
Lauren has stopped taking lessons for the time being to save money but was advised by a previous instructor to join test cancellation groups on Facebook, initially set up to let people fill odd vacant slots quickly. However, the groups are being used by booking agents who list all the dates they have available for huge profits. The practice has also attracted scammers who simply disappear after the money has been transferred.
Lauren, originally from Brynmawr, South Wales, told the Mirror: "I don’t understand how it’s legal to block book tests, or how they are doing it. But they are block booking them and then selling them on for £300 a time. That’s because people are desperate to get driving tests booked in. They're paying three or four times the proper rate.
"Then other people are just scamming people. I thought the lack of availability was a backlog because of lockdown, but it’s now 2023, we’re halfway through the year. There must be something else going on. I don’t get why no one is complaining as much as they should be because surely if you’re having driving lessons the first thing you should be told is you can’t get a test booked in.
"It all just seems like a moneymaking scam for everyone apart from the people just trying to get driving. I’ve also complained to the DVSA, I’ve sent them emails. I’ve been through their system. I’ve been a proper Karen. It’s p****** me off."
Lauren said she was recently speaking to someone who paid someone £250 through Snapchat for a practical test slot. Asked if she'd considered paying an inflated fee on social media, she said: "I was really tempted at one point, I thought right I’m going to bite the bullet." She said she found someone offering tests but was put off by the fact the page appeared to have only just been setup, suggesting it was potentially a scam or someone who'd had a previous page closed down.
"I thought I’m not going to be scammed," she continued. "If they were trusted, I’d probably do it. But I feel like no one is standing up and this is wrong. This is all completely wrong. If you want to book a driving test, you shouldn’t have to go through rings to do it."
Fraudster Olivier Yolo, 27, from Greater Manchester, was jailed earlier this year after charging people to take their theory tests for them. Other similar cases include Salim Basalim, 32, who admitted twelve counts of fraud and received a year in jail for taking tests. And Mohammad Shoaib, 38, was given a community order after paying a ‘ringer’ £800 to take a test for him after he failed it 14 times.
Lauren said the DVSA and other authorities should take such harder lines with certain activity. "There is so much stuff going on," she said. "It’s legal - or appears to be - but I don’t know how it’s safe or allowed. They (the DVSA) just don’t seem to know what they’re doing. It’s so weird, they’re a government body."
DVSA Chief Executive Loveday Ryder said: “DVSA is committed to tackling the reselling of driving tests at profit, and we have zero tolerance for those who exploit learners. We have changed the rules to prevent anyone from selling tests at profit, deploying new bot protection to stop automated systems from buying up tests unfairly and we will remove the accounts of those who break the rules.’’
To sign Lauren's petition click here.