Drivers are being warned not to be tempted by the allure of booking an early driving test via third-party sites as some illegal firms are reselling slots for as much as £200 each, with the DVSA clamping down on a thriving ‘black market’.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, driving test bookings have been notoriously hard to get hold of; in May, the average wait time for a driving test was recorded at almost 18 weeks, despite the DVSA claiming that it is “taking all measures it can to reduce waiting times”.
This has led to some illicit businesses booking tests en masse and reselling them at inflated prices. While the official price for a driving test sits at £62, research by the RAC has revealed some sites are charging as much as £195 for a single test booking – more than three times the real price.
Plus some sites and apps are even charging for ‘cancellation alerts’ – informing learner drivers of when slots become available, with so-called ‘VIP Packages’ costing over £100.
Some people are even having their identity stolen by such sites, with scammers using their details to book multiple tests for resale. The RAC spoke to a victim named Lara, who said she booked a black-market test for £162, only to fail, and when trying to rebook, she was faced with an error message – the DVSA had banned her details for apparently booking as many as 52 tests.
The RAC’s head of policy, Simon Williams, described how criminals are “cheating the system” by “using software to reserve tests faster than a human possibly could, making it so hard for learners to book test slots.
“Definitive action needs to be taken to prevent ‘bots’ booking tests and then selling them on to desperate learners for crazy amounts of money,” Williams continued. “This leads to genuine slots being wasted, and learners who are ready to take their tests missing out and having to wait months for a chance to become a qualified driver.”
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