NDLS - National Driver Licence Service centres (Qs, waiting times, etc)

DubVelo

What's this about some email confirmation thing you get?
Been a week now and I haven't heard a whisper.

mickdw

Booked an appointment at my local ndls centre. I didn't even know they did appointments until I went to their website. Anyway, I turned up at the centre at time specified only to be told they are only ever open on a tuesday while my appointment was for wednesday. This was a confirmed appointment with reference number etc.
Joke of a setup. Now I have to take a second morning off.

jimgoose

shinikins wrote: »

Stupid outsourced call centre. Your payslip is fine, your ppsn has been verified with Revenue through your employer, so whoever you spoke to was talking throught their proverbial! Print out the payslip and bring it with you, it's on the list of acceptable documents.

I have a very low Call-Centre Knobjockey threshold, so I'll be bringing printouts of both.

Vologda69

Exactly, all payslips are accepted. Those idiots on that unhelpful-line are a joke. Thankfully the staff in front offices are a small bit more competent.

shinikins wrote: »

Stupid outsourced call centre. Your payslip is fine, your ppsn has been verified with Revenue through your employer, so whoever you spoke to was talking throught their proverbial! Print out the payslip and bring it with you, it's on the list of acceptable documents.

galwaytt

SO's new licence arrived today : 13 days since visiting NDLS centre.

Not bad at all.

Dord

Mrs D's new license arrived yesterday... 7 weeks after she went to the NDLS office. They f'd up in between with her documents and she had to return. Thankfully they backdated the issue date to when they should have issued the license.

Now, since we moved we both have to go through this hell again.

Collards

I was told this by NDLS. The guy on phone says he's "getting a lot of calls saying same thing". Hmmmm. Thought it sounded fishy. Called An Post. Spoke to a guy there who said NLDS are telling a lot of people the same thing, and that there's no way in hell that number of licenses are getting "lost in post".

I am now told that I need to re-apply - this time with the Garda stamp to say my license is "lost" - and that NDLS will be so "kind" as to waive the application fee second time around.

The NDLS are screwing up and passing the buck to both An Post and the punter who is told to go through the application rigmarole all over again.

How is this acceptable from a data protection point of view? Thought the whole point of applying in person was to increase security - and now my license is floating around God know's where?

jimgoose

My new license is due in the post over the next couple of days, we'll see how we go. I suppose it's the usual bloody nonsense one expects from various Government departments here, sure it's only taxpayer's money, citizen's private data, scumbag punter's time/health/livelihood, all of the above... :pac:

Meantime these half-wits are a forger's dream.

Graham

My renewed licence took just over 5 weeks to arrive so I wouldn't pay too much attention to the 8 - 10 day official turnaround estimates.

I did think it odd that the very helpful lady in the NDLS office wrote the central enquiries phone number on the back of the receipt and told me to give them a call if my license hadn't arrived i the next two weeks.

Collards

It's so *wrong* that I need to show up at a Garda Station to say:

"Sorry, Garda - I lost my license"

as opposed to:

"the NDLS are incapable of the most basic administrative task"

Collards

Thing is Graham, they told me that my license was posted on September 17th - and that they were sure of that.

If it were a case of a long backlog, I wouldn't be bothered.

But they are saying "we sent it. if you don't have it by now, it's lost. reapply"

jimgoose

Graham wrote: »

...I did think it odd that the very helpful lady in the NDLS office wrote the central enquiries phone number on the back of the receipt and told me to give them a call if my license hadn't arrived i the next two weeks.

Yeah, same here but she told me fifteen days. I applied on the 23rd of September.

Collards wrote: »

It's so *wrong* that I need to show up at a Garda Station to say:

"Sorry, Garda - I lost my license"

as opposed to:

"the NDLS are incapable of the most basic administrative task"

How about a happy medium, such as "Sorry Garda, the idjit NDLS lost my license!". I'd say they hear that quite a bit, by all accounts. :pac::pac::pac:

Collards

I'll try that.

The Muppet

Applied for mine on the 18th of September and it arrived this day last week .

Dord

I need to update my address. Do I need to give them the old license?
I can't really go without for 5 or 6 weeks.

Graham

Applied Aug 24th, arrived last week.

bear1

I don't get it. So you go to the Guards and get a stamp to say the licence has been lost.
Then you bring it to the NDLS center and they then issue a licence for free?

VeVeX

I renewed my license on the 6th of September in Clarehall. It arrived yesterday having been posted on the 29th of September.

Paulw

My first one was never delivered, so they said that I had to declare that it was lost. I tried to argue that I couldn't make such a declaration for something I hadn't lost, but in fact never received. It is their issue that it didn't arrive and not mine. After a heated discussion, I felt like I was banging my head off a wall. I had to go through the whole process again, going to the NDLS again. When I brought the form to the Garda station for them to stamp that the permit was lost, the Garda asked how I could make a declaration that it was lost when I never received it.

It is a crazy process. I plan to write a letter of complaint.

Thankfully the replacement arrived the other day.

Collards

<<When I brought the form to the Garda station for them to stamp that the permit was lost, the Garda asked how I could make a declaration that it was lost when I never received it.>>

Exactly my point!!!

dougal

20 years ago when I got my US licence I received it there and then in the DMV office - Credit card type licence with Colour picture.
They just took the picture, entered my details and printed the licence.

Why is this not the case here - I assume it is to allow for an added level of unnecessary bureaucracy and have a bunch of back office people doing a job that they always did!

jimgoose

dougal wrote: »

20 years ago when I got my US licence I received it there and then in the DMV office - Credit card type licence with Colour picture.
They just took the picture, entered my details and printed the licence.

Why is this not the case here - I assume it is to allow for an added level of unnecessary bureaucracy and have a bunch of back office people doing a job that they always did!

Up until last year you brought your own damn photographs and got your new license over-the-counter in about fifteen minutes. It is rather difficult to escape the conclusion that the whole thing is little more than busywork for De Lads. :pac:

Gosub

Earlier this year my wife and I needed new licenses due to address change. We both attended the office on the same day. My license arrived in the post 2 weeks later, my wife's didn't and still hadn't a month later (total 6 weeks).

I e-mailed them and asked where my wife's license was, explaining that we both attended at the same time. They said they would look into it and let me know. The license arrived in the post a few days later. Looks like they had lost it behind the couch or something.

mickdw

jimgoose wrote: »

Up until last year you brought your own damn photographs and got your new license over-the-counter in about fifteen minutes. It is rather difficult to escape the conclusion that the whole thing is little more than busywork for De Lads. :pac:

I'm awaiting my licence in the post.
I can tell you this right now. If it does not arrive,
I will not be going down the road of declaring that I lost it.
I will be issuing a legal letter to them. If they are not using registered post to send the licences, that is a major mistake on their behalf. There is quite a responsibility when handling important personal documents and as such, just sticking them in the post doesn't cut it.
If a licence failed to turn up and if ndls cannot provide proof of postage, the ball is in their court.

coylemj

Virtually every letter that arrives on my doorstep shows signs that someone in An Post attempted to peel open the flap. Doesn't surprise me one bit that licences are going missing.

I got a new credit card in the post recently, the bank included several leaflets with Ts &Cs, list of charges etc. so it felt like a letter with 10 or more pages, I assume to disguise the fact that there was a plastic card inside. Go figure.

Collards

That is exactly my take on it mickdw. It's basic logic.

I sent them a message to say that, after speaking with An Post and discovering this issue to be widespread, that I would not be reporting it as lost and that the ball is in their court to fix the issue i.e. I had already done my part of the license renewal process.

I got a response that said :

"It is for security purposes that we ask all applicants whose licences have been lost in post to reapply in the centre. We need to update our systems so that the lost licence is not linked to your profile on the system.

Please ring the number below to make a note on your system that you are entitled to a free in lieu licence."

So *I* had to phone *them* to put a note on the file to say I won't be charged second time around. I asked for written confirmation of this note on my file by e-mail as I have no faith in their processes. The guy reacted like I had just asked him to fly me to the moon. He had to put me on hold to speak to a supervisor, came back and said I would receive an e-mail. Still waiting on that mail.......

They lost my license. I did not.

Collards

If that is happening, coylemj - you need to report it to An Post.

Nothing ever arrives to my address looking as though it's been tampered with.

You could have a bad egg in the system at your sorting office.

dougal

Collards wrote: »

I got a response that said :

"It is for security purposes that we ask all applicants whose licences have been lost in post to reapply in the centre. We need to update our systems so that the lost licence is not linked to your profile on the system.

You have to laugh that they are worried about security purposes now when they send out the licences by un-registered post and they are going missing!!

Gosub

A bit off topic, but relevant.

After I contacted them by e-mail I got this reply:

Dear Customer

I am contacting you to advise that the Road Safety Authority has experienced a data breach which may have involved a third party accessing some of your personal information. This arose after you made email contact with the National Driver Licence Service via the “Contact Us” page of the NDLS website. The breach meant that the information you set out in the email may have been viewed by at least the next person who used the “Contact Us” page. This means that any personal information you submitted may have been viewed by a third party. We are reviewing each email that we received to assess the nature of information submitted. Following this review we will get directly in touch with any person where sensitive data was or may have been visible to another party. Please be assured that we are treating this as a very high priority and you will hear again from us very shortly.

Finally, can I apologise for this error and for the inconvenience and distress that it has undoubtedly caused. The RSA has reviewed its processes to ensure that this does not happen again.


Yours faithfully

Enda Gilvarry
Driving Licence Section| Road Safety Authority|Primrose Hill| Ballina| Co Mayo| Phone

Thankfully, I used the e-mail address that I use when contacting anyone I don't trust.

hi5

Why not give people the option of registered post, it costs 6 Euros?