Got a letter today, a sort of demand/ threat from some government department.
‘Please comply with our instructions or receive a fine. Do not ignore this letter.’
Firstly they mis-spelled my name. Secondly due to my disabiity I am unable to obey their commands.
There is no means of contacting a human to discuss this state of affairs. There is only machine operated instructions, either over the phone line or online, demanding numeric keypad replies that do not cover my situation.
Being disabled means I do not have money to waste on fines but neither have I been given the opportunity to explain my situation.
Tomorrow I’ll contact ‘Stroke Association’ and see if they can help me with my dilemma.
I’m not looking for an answer to my problem in this thread, just using this as an opportunity to vent my utter frustration.
Bob do you think it’s a scam? Don’t think HMG would threaten you,I feel the spelling mistake with your name rings alarm bells. Hope you don’t fret over it, stay cool and keep us informed👍
Could be @Pds but the matter it concerns makes me think not.
It is simple enough but too complex for me to try to explain here.
A short conversation with a human in the department concerned would hve sorted it at one time. Nowadays where replies are all automated there is no wiggle room for grey areas.
Yup @Mrs5K DVLA - my dilemma is connected with them.
@Mrs5K that sounds like exactly what I need. I couldn’t find anything like that when I looked earlier, but I was, a little like you, upset at not being able to sort it.
I’ll check it out tomorow, it definitely sounds like the way I should be heading. Give yourself a big hug of thanks from me, Mrs5K.
Im fortunate in that I’m fairly OK with websites and have the assistance of my husband at times when Im not but I did find the DVLA website confusing and the chat bot thing there was helpful
Very probably a scam.
treat with extreme caution, and dont give anyone any money and certainly not your bank details
Your local authority trading standards people might be worth a shout. I was caught out a while ago, fortunately didn’t lose any money. But the trading standards people were brilliant.
Don’t be scared. If is bona fide, you will be able to speak to an officer. If you can’t get through to a person it is very likely to be a scam, so bin it and don’t worry, call the police if you’re getting stressed by it and report it. It’s all a hassle and exhausting. There are predators out there so be very cautious and suspicious.
Good luck
Tony
It has taken me a while to deal with this. I’ve been carrying it around like a very heavy load.
For a start it turned out not to be a scam, but as a few of you said it is definitely as well to be wary.
Eventually I followed Mrs5K’s advice. I’m very glad I did.
I went to the internet DVLA site and accessed the webchat via:
From there I selected the option I required, then on the next page I selected to communicate ‘by webchat service’
In the chat window I explained I had recently had a stroke which was making things difficult to manage and I needed human interaction to continue.
After a zero wait, a very kind human asked me for some details and guided me through to completion of what I needed to do.
Remarkably from opening the webchat to successful completion of my business only took a total of 26 minutes. I’m very pleased with that result. There was next to no waiting at any stage. It would probably have been much quicker if I wasn’t so slow making my entries. The human was very understanding and patient as he worked through it with me.
So, many thanks you lot here at the Forum for your encouragement and advice, especially @Mrs5K for suggestng the webchat function.
My attempts at using the telephone numeric keyboard selection process had been driving me totally bonkers. (brain damage + bonkers is not a good combination)
