They tried that one with me - and yes they do have the fact that i signed a contract intially, but there is always the Unfair terms and conditions act - see intial advice on here.... i ignored it anyhow, we'll see if that was the rght thing to do! will keep posting....

i filled out the small claims courts papers, and they have decided to defend 100% and also make a counterclaim. fingers crossed!

court case submitted, at cost of £210. they have until the 3oth June to respond. Alot of paperwork getting the particulars of claim right for the specific case, but glad its of and i the hands of th litigation department. If they choose to fight it, i will proceed with maximum publicity. watchdog - or is that just pointlessly screened?

sorry havent managed to uplaod yet....very busy. Now the enthusiats club man Vernon cox appears to be holding all the vehicles documents hostage until i pay him a large amount (wont actually reply to any correspondence i make asking how much though). Absolutley at my wits end, feel as though ive been pulled through the mill backward with all this. waiting to hear final response from ym local mp, and the dvlad cheif exec Simon Tse.

here is my reply from the dvla!

knowone at DfT replied - but my local MP MARK HARPER has! He has written a letter to ceo of dvla Simon Tse as well as me. I recently received a very unsatisfactory response to my complaint to customer service head carole evans. None, and i mean none of my issues were dealt with - they simply confirmed they do not have facilities to electronically log anything that passes through local office! (so many many filing cabinets i presume! oh dear - i await response from exec team -and in the meantime, the owners club man that was trying to help me prove my vehicles age has given up - and is now charging me for the work he didnt regardless of negative outcome..... im in a quandry, and have (illy me presumed it was a free service as money was NEVER mentioned throughout.... V5 AND ALL RELATED SERVICE HISTORY NOW APPEARS TO BE BEING HELD HOSTAGE BY the mercedes benz owners club (DVLA archivists) will try and post pdf of dvlas reply. in the meantime fingers crossed for my mp's work, and if all else fails i will buy tax, and them sue them for negligence - to recoup my cots (and the owners club mans too!)

I too am reclaiming £6k in unfair arrears charges - from standard life - a division of barclays - here is my particulars of claim - any advice, is his correct? BRIEF DETAILS OF CLAIM. The Defendant’s mortgage lender, Standard life, (A division of Barclays PLC) has acted in an unfair way charging extraordinary fees and interest, without accurately informing the claimant . They sent a counsellor to the address of the property, without informing the claimant that he had a right to refuse. When the claimant tried to resolve the problems which his spell of financial hardship had brought about, the defendant mislead the claimant by sending out various letters with conflicting information and conflicting financial amounts. In there correspondence they have acted in an unclear, and unfair way. When Mr Peel employed a representative to try to help him to understand the conflicting communications, the staff at Standard Life agreed that the file is “hugely complicated” (date) and “difficult to understand.” (date) Paying these excessive charges has put the claimant into further arrears elsewhere, and has caused further penalties in terms of extra interest and his credit file being affected. PARTICULARS OF CLAIM: Particulars of Claim Unlawful Charges The claimant had a mortgage agreement with the defendant dated 11.04.2005 granting a secured loan of £33,300.00 The said loan is subject to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (UTCCR) The defendant is statutorily bound by Financial Services Authority regulations – Mortgage: Conduct of Business rules (MCOB) contained in the FSA Handbook, implemented under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 The mortgage fell into arrears after the claimant was unable to keep up the repayments as required by the mortgage agreement. The defendant levied mortgage arrears charges against the claimant. The defendants also levied further interest upon the said unlawful charges The mortgage arrears charges were levied at a rate which exceeded their administrative costs. The level of the charges were unfair because they breach the requirement of fairness contained in UTCCR The level of the charges are also unfair because they are the result of unfair treatment by the defendant and therefore levied in breach of the defendant's statutory duty to treat their customers fairly contained in MCOB For these reasons the interest charged on the unlawful charges is also unlawful Other Unfair Treatment The defendant has also levied charges in respect of counsellor visits. Claimant was not told about said counsellor visits, and therefore was unable to refuse them. The fees for the said counsellor visits were levied at a rate which exceeded the actual costs of the visits By virtue of the above, the defendant has treated the claimant unfairly and in breach of their obligations under MCOB The claimant seeks the return of unlawfully levied charges: £3,612.83 The return of unlawfully levied counsellor visit fees – £93.00 Plus associated interest: (figure) 1800 8% 2 years) (comprising 8% of median amount) Administrative costs 104 hours @ £32.00 per hour = Legal costs: 3 hours @ £180.00 – Aldo the defendant requests any negative entries associated with this claim on his credit file, to be removed.

VERY wise advice.... the thing is, it wasn't my document to copy - it was the previous owners.... but in future everything to d with the DVLA is scanned copied and logged, they have such a corrupt system it is outrageous..... any way, after recently receiving a letter with a how to complain leaflet (out of date giving previous CEO details) i have now contacted simon Tse and his PA. they all seem to be on leave so i sent a message to the mister for transport - DfT.... Lets see what happens now.... fingers crossed something will be done at long last. cheers for the heads up on the V888 form too - not once did they mention that form even existed, so how wuld people know? have sent of the form (with £10 fee) and hope to receive something soon.

Yes that would be fine, if i had that document, but the previous reg doc was sent back to infirm them of the new keeper! then a new V5C arrived with a new date of first registration: 23/09/73 most frustrating, but a usual DVLA con if yu ask me...

see attached reply - basically them saying NO.

2 YEARS OF HARDSHIP - AN ACCOUNT THAT STARTED AT -£50, NOW STANDS AT -£1460 I SENT THIS LETTER TO TRY AND GET THE CHARGES WIPED: 13rth April 2011 Dear Luke Davies, Further to your attached letter of the 7th April – I would like to contest the threatened recovery action. I have recently received legal advice in relation to my business account held with you: As I am sure you are aware, both the standard banking regulations and the Lending Code state you have a duty to treat me fairly and be considerate if I am in financial hardship. Firstly, to officially inform you, I can confirm I am in financial hardship (according to the criteria set out by the financial ombudsman). As you can clearly see from my business account, I have been struggling to keep afloat for the last two years. To confirm this statement you can see from the accounts credits, that I was in receipt of tax credits until recently. Therefore, I would like you to return all charges and fees applied to my business account since January 2009. Once you have done this I will be happy to arrange a payment plan to pay off the remaining balance although this wont be paying very much, as I am on a tight monthly budget with currently only just enough to live on. For your information, I have attached the letter sent to Sue Sprang, who kindly re-credited fee’s of £150 from my personal account, after being informed about my financial hardship. I have found it very difficult to face the financial problems my businesses decline has caused in the last few years, and although I have tried on a number of occasions to privately explain this to the staff at the branch, (I am severely dyslexic, so reading and writing is very troublesome for me) Natwest continue to add fees, and watch my chances of ever getting financially stable, diminish. Because of this, I feel very let down by Natwest; especially after discovering what the banking regulations and the lending code state. I do hope this letter can pave the way to a healthier more professional banking relationship between you and I, once all fees and charges have been removed from my business account. Yours Sincerely, Mr U

No not declared new at first registration...was made in Germany, but the manafacturers records dont go that far back. DVLA claim first regsitration was 23.09.1973 This might be the case, but i know it was built in 71, and therefore it should be tax exempt. I have written to Carol Evans, and now also to Jayne John (CEO pa), although Jayne John is on leave until mid JUNE! (Alright for some ;-)) anyway, look forward to hearing anyones suggestions. Court looms, hopefully that will be sure to conclude this 2 year farce!

Dear Carole Evans, It is with great regret that I must contact you again with yet another complaint about the DVLA. As I am sure you will note from your files, I have previously been in contact with you in the passed regarding some serious failings within the DVLA’s customer service department. As in previous correspondence, I am writing on behalf of Mr U , who has severe difficulty with reading and writing. Since June 2009, I have been trying to class a vehicle belonging to Mr Peel in the historic vehicle class To give you an overview of my complaint, Approximately 2 years ago, I sent in a number of documents that the DVLA advised would be needed to make an application to re-classify this vehicle's tax status. Having sent in this information, I was then passed around various members of staff, having to explain the problem time and time again. I then was asked to re-send the initial documents I sent in a further two times. This was because "although we have received some documents, they weren’t logged correctly and cannot be found. " this level or dis-organisation, I'm sure you will agree, is just not acceptable, especially from a government body. I was finally told in writing that what I had sent would not be sufficient and that I would need to contact an owners club. Mr Peel’s vehicle didn’t have an owners club, and therefore he had to go to an owners club for vehicles with no owners club (details provided by DVLA Bristol) Within this time period, I have tried to contact the DVLA in Bristol to explain the only evidence for the date of manufacture (needed to re-classify the vehicle as historic) was that which was sent in initially, that which they refused. Once I explained this, they recommended Mr U bring in the vehicle in so they could inspect it. Recommending Mr Peel to take an un-taxed vehicle 23 miles along the M4 to there office was simply ludicrous, and when I suggested this they offered an even more un-reasonable solution: to bring the vehicle in on a low-loader at almighty cost to the owner. This simply was not financially possible, or viable, and therefore was not done. It was then mentioned after more tireless conversations with the un-informed staff at the Bristol office, that “very occasionally” the DVLA will send people out to inspect vehicles. I said this would be the only suitable option, and they promised to contact me within the next 2 months with a date when an ‘inspector’ was in my geographical area. Needless to say this never happened. On Tuesday 4th May 2011 I spoke to a very helpful lady called Noreen in the Swansea office, - she agreed it was a problem that the Bristol Local office should be able to deal with and passed me on to them, promising a call back within 2 hours. As promised, I did indeed get a call back within 2 hours, by a Rob Newson. He was incredibly rude, sarcastic in his tone, totally un-helpful and un-sympathetic to the situation. He even tried again and again to talk when I was talking (a basic politeness one can and should expect of anyone. (Not least those working in the customer service departments) After having a conversation that only served to antagonise both Mr Peel, and myself he agreed to pass it on to the office manager, and promised a call back within 2 hours. The office manager Paul Edwards did indeed call back, and had a similar tone to that of Mr Newson. He was rude, unreasonable, un-helpful, and ultimately very un-professional. You might also like to know, he told me a number of miss-truths during our conversation, and these include the following: “Carole Evans is not the person to complain to about local offices complaints”, not true according to the website and ‘how to complain leaflet’. “DVLA Local Office in Bristol holds no electronic files, only paper ones due to costs” I find this statements incredibly hard to believe, and am interested to hear the truth about how information is kept. “This Case has only been going on since May 2010” easily dis-proved by my email correspondence of 18th May 2009 (see attached) Miss-truths, making things so incredibly complicated in the hope that people will give up, being sarcastic, unhelpful and rude on the phone, promising contact within a certain amount of time, and not carrying out these promises. These are just some of the un-acceptable things that have happened whilst this case has been open and un-resolved. Because of the fact it has taken two years I now write to you with a time limit for a full resolution with regards to this matter. If I do not receive a written response from you either by post or email within 5 working days, I will contact the chief executive Noel Shanahan who might be interested in how things are being managed at a lower level. If this case is not resolved within 10 working days of today’s date (4th May 2011) I will file an application to the county court to ensure this matter is dealt with professionally and promptly, I will do this with maximum publicity. Vernon Cox is an Archivist and DVLA Liaison officer – and manages the Mercedes –Benz club. He has said after two years of research he is willing to write an official letter stating he believes the aforementioned vehicle was built before 01.01.73. However, he cannot write a dating certificate, as the evidence of when this vehicle was built is limited, and there is no evidence of the exact date of manufacture. He has exhausted all possible ways of obtaining evidence, and therefore I am left with what I started with. If once reading this you arrange for this vehicle to be moved into the historic vehicle class (making it tax exempt) then I will ensure no contact is made with the chief executive about the matter, and also that no county court action takes place. In the meantime, should you wish for any further information, please do not hesitate to contact me. Yours sincerely,

the date on the V5C changed when i bought it, previous owner's doc (that he returned) said 01/01/73 I have a datacard saying 1971 on it, and very little else. I have been to THE vehicle enthusiasts/owners club for those with no owners club - this is a rare vehicle, so doesnt fit into the groups easily at all. The head of the owners club cannot do me a dating certificate because apparently he gets fined if there is no evidence to back up his date (he has said he is willing to write an official letter stating he 'believes' it was built before 73) but that is all. Sent Carol Evans a recorded letter asking for a reply within 5 working dates ahead of court action = NOTHING. It is now 7 days, and so i will pay my fee and take them to court.

Hi All, i have an ongoing battle (that has lasted 2 years now) with the DVLA. The jist is.... I have a converted horsebox that was built before 01/01/1973 - having tried unsuccesfully to tax it in the historic vehicle class, i am now on track to take the DVLA to the county court. They argue that my evidence (the only evidence exisiting for this vehicle) is not proof enough, therefore i must tax it. I argue: they cannot dis prove my supporting evidence thats states it was built in 1971. i thought i would attach my letter to Carole Evans n case anyone else finds it helpful. I have been dealing with the Local office in Bristol for two years, and within this time they claim various mis-truths including: that my first contact was a year ago, with date marked emails to back this up, that they do not hold any electronic files, it is all hard copies in filing cabinets, and that i MUST purchase tax for this vehicle if my proof isnrt good enough for them.... what a load of rubbish i say, will keep you posted on my progress - letter

I have just attempted to start the process of small claim court action - and where you inpit the address, as SL's address is in Scotland it wont let me continue... Can anyone advise me on what to do? STANDARD LIFE WAS BOUGHT BY BARCLAYS recently - should i be suing barclays instead? Also, if anyone else has issues with SL id love to hear - i have many letters ive sent that might help you! Xenia