Driving test slots shamelessly flogged for over three times official fee, Sun investigation reveals
SCARCE driving test slots are being shamelessly flogged for three times the official fee amid an unprecedented national backlog.
A shortage of examiners, strike action and a post-pandemic surge in demand have left a queue of more than half a million learners.
Now The Sun can reveal opportunistic instructors are openly offering pupils’ cancelled dates for resale.
Our investigation also found Facebook fraudsters trained by organised crime gangs are fleecing desperate learners out of hundreds of pounds for bogus tests.
Officially, tests can be booked through the Government’s Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) site for £62 for a weekday test, or £75 for a weekend slot.
But despairing parents say they are waiting over six months for dates to become free and travelling across the country just to allow their children to attend exams.
Becky Kelway’s 19-year-old daughter Fran is due to take her test in November — six months after booking it.
Becky, of St Albans, Herts, said: “It’s a minefield. I think it’s criminal that these organisations are allowed to operate. It’s like a cartel.”
Kirsten Scheider, 48, also from Herts, is facing a 500-mile trip to Aberdeen — the closest town she could find with test availability for her 17-year-old son.
She said: “It’s ridiculous. Instructors tell you to book anything just to get on the system, then look out for a cancellation closer to home to swap it with.
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“There’s been nothing, so I guess he’s going to Scotland.”
And Jeanette Lendon, 50, says son Callum, 17, has spent weeks searching for a test date, to no avail.
“It’s so frustrating,” said the smartphone photography trainer. “I went through pages and pages on the official website, right up to Callum’s birthday next June. There’s nothing.”
Exploiting loopholes
The DVSA has an online portal for legitimate driving schools to secure test dates for pupils.
But the agency admits unscrupulous brokers exploit the service and even use bots to make block bookings.
The Sun spoke to one broker, under a condition of anonymity, who said he gets test dates from an instructor and makes up to £2,400 a week by reselling them for £240 apiece.
“My friend has access to the portal so he can book dates, and I’ve built up my client list to sell them,” he said.
“I don’t feel too bad about it - it’s not my fault that all the test centres are booked up, I just use it to my advantage. If anything, I’m helping, and if the DVSA cracks down, it’s on to the next hustle.”
Former DVSA examiner Asif Zamir now runs the 1 Driving School in North London.
Its website lists more than 20 fast-track driving tests for sale — with admin fees of up to £165 on top of the £62 weekday test fee.
Adding VAT takes the cost of some weekday tests to more than £270.
Asif, 39, says he doesn’t use bots to book tests, and that his dates are sold on behalf of learners who need to cancel or rearrange.
He said: “It’s not something we’re making loads of money on. All we do is offer a swap shop service - they sell their date and we find them a new date inclusive.
“The DVSA system does allow you to reallocate dates and their guidance says we can ask for an admin fee for the work - it can take 10 to 15 hours to find a new date.
“The fault here lies solely with the DVSA. The quickest way to clear this backlog would be to recruit more examiners and to stop telling learner drivers to book tests when they’re not ready, just to get on the system.”
Don Harris, another instructor based in Hastings, East Sussex, said his usual wait for a driving test used to be around six weeks.
“Now we can’t even get anything this year,” explained the 70-year-old. “Kids are desperate. Instructors and their pupils are depressed.
“I’ve been doing the job for 40 years and I’ve just had enough. It’s absurd.”
Crooks cashing in
Crooks are also cashing in via Facebook groups that claim to offer a test date swap shop.
In reality they are used by swindlers who advertise scores of fake tests and arrange sales on Whatsapp or via Messenger.
Once the fee has been transferred to a bank account, the scammers vanish.
Online security expert James Bore warned: “Anyone who is a genuine agent of any kind isn’t going to be conducting business in a Facebook group.”
The Sun spoke to one scammer based in Cameroon who explained how organised criminals recruit crooks through cyber cafes and charge $200-a-time for extortion tutorials.
“You pay the big people in the game and they give you the strategy,” the man told our reporter.
“They also supply bank account holders who get a commission every time we convince someone to pay.
“It’s hard - I do maybe just one or two a week. I know it hurts people and I want to stop, but I can’t say that I will because I need to eat.”
London-based student Pinchas Levy, 21, lost out to the con.
“An admin on one of these groups posted a date that looked good for me,” he said. “We arranged a sale on Messenger but after I transferred £100 he stopped responding.
“My bank told me I hadn’t done enough to make sure it wasn’t a scam, but luckily - as a goodwill gesture - they refunded the money anyway.
“It was a good outcome, but the reality is I’m probably going to have to pay a broker for a test because I’ve spent hours and hours searching and can’t find a thing.”
Rule confusion
The DVSA told The Sun that reselling tests was not illegal, adding: “Approved driving instructors are allowed to charge reasonable fees if they are booking tests on behalf of a learner, but they are not allowed to make a profit from doing so.”
The agency does not offer any guidance on what amounts to a ‘reasonable’ fee.
However, Karen Bransgrove, general manager of the Driving Instructors’ Association, said: “In my view, no additional fee is reasonable. We would always advise clients to book tests through the official website at the official rate.”
DVSA chief exec Loveday Ryder explained in a statement that in the last six months the agency had closed down almost 200 businesses and issued hundreds of warnings for abuse of its booking system.
She 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 help 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.”
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Facebook’s parent company Meta said it had removed three scam groups after being notified by The Sun, and stressed that the firm works with law enforcement to keep crooks off its platforms.
A Meta spokesperson added: “We’re constantly working to improve our systems, and encourage anyone who sees content they believe breaks our rules to report it using our in-app tools so we can investigate and take action.”
