What came next, was the most vexing and pointless application of bureaucracy I have ever had the misfortune to encounter.
After checking off each of the points on the rejection letter I had received, I was confident that I had met all their requirements. I expected the next letter from the DVSA to be a bog standard template letter with my name at the top and a Registration assignment somewhere in the middle.
Apparently not….
The reasons, as you will shortly find out, caused me to literally seethe with anger. I’ve never seethed before. I may have hummed or growled with minor annoyance, but never seethed. I’m quite a calm person I like to think, but what followed next brought my blood up to boiling temperature as I achieved a level and intensity of anger known only as SEETHING…
I received ANOTHER rejection letter… Even though I had ticked off (literally in pen on their letter) all the requirements they asked for, the DVSA were not satisfied.
Reason 1:
The cheque for tax was the incorrect amount.
Reason 2:
The dating evidence was not sufficient.
Ok
I double checked my cheque and the amount I had written on my cheque, was the amount that they had asked to receive by cheque… My cheque was correct.
The dating evidence I had supplied was a letter directly from the manufacturer of the motorbike, detailing its VIN, where it was built and the date it was supplied. So what on earth would be better dating evidence than that?
I phoned the DVSA, sure that it was just a misunderstanding that could be cleared up quickly.
I was wrong.
The cheque for money covered the registration fee and the first year of tax for the bike. When I had FIRST sent this in, and received the first rejection letter, it was sometime in March. NOW I was trying to register the bike after the new financial year started in April, the tax had gone up and I was short by £1.75….. A new cheque would sort this out.
Breath… Calm…. Carry on
The unacceptance of the dating evidence was more of a mystery. I phoned up and spoke with someone who passed me on to someone who didn’t know, but promised to find someone, who, as it turns out, also didn’t know. Eventually by phoning back and pretending to be a new enquiry, I was told that a letter from the manufacturer WOULD be accepted. It was at this point I dropped the farce and talked about my letter from the manufacturer and they agreed that it should be accepted and to send it back in.
OK cool, you might think, that’s everything. But no, not long after, I received YET ANOTHER REJECTION LETTER…
It was at this point I started to get angry. I was not yet seething, but certainly frustrated that after confirming to me on the phone that a letter from the manufacturer was acceptable, my registration has been rejected again for that exact reason.
I phoned up and obstinately refused to go away until I spoke with someone about my case who could actually make decisions and was not just someone the government employed to fill the office and mouth breath down the phone at me. I eventually found myself talking to the someone who had been rejecting all my attempts and he explained the latest reason.
Get this:
The reason it was rejected was because Ducati’s letter said the bike had been “supplied” on a date and he needed a letter saying it was “built” or “manufactured” on a date.
Now, when he told me this, I was quite proud that I didn’t walk to Swansea and beat this chap out of his chair with his own keyboard. Are you kidding me? Semantics were preventing me from enjoying my motorbike this summer?
But this is the bit that achieved me the anger level known as Seething…
I went on to ask him what the difference between a date when a vehicle was “supplied” and “built”. I engaged him in a “just suppose…” argument about a bus (because this troglodyte clearly didn’t own anything more than the pencil he used to pick his nose so could probably relate better to a bus than a high performance motorcycle…) and the conversation went like this…
“Just suppose we are talking about when a bus is being built. On day 1, the chassis is assembled. On day 5 the engine is installed. On day 10 the body work is attached. On day 15 the seats are installed. On day 20 the whole bus is complete but the new owner doesn’t take delivery for 6 months because they don’t need 1 bus, they need 10 to start the new bus route….”
“let me stop you right there”
“why?”
“because I know where this is going and if you continue I’ll be agreeing to something I’m not allowed to”
“so you understand where I’m going with this?”
“yes”
“That when a vehicle is ‘supplied’ and when a vehicle is ‘built’ can be months apart, even if the model is the same”
“no”
“but… It can be”
“I understand what you are saying, but I can’t can’t accept that”
“OK, what about if the bus was constructed, over those 20 days just as before…”
“ok”
“… And on the 20th day they have finished everything except the wing mirrors. Everything else is done and ready to go, except the wing mirrors haven’t arrived from the supplier…”
“ok”
“so when the wing mirrors arrive 6 months later and are screwed on in 5 minutes flat, when would you say the bus was built?”
“I can’t answer that”
“it wasn’t built on the day someone took 5 minutes to screw in the wing mirrors was it?”
“I need a document that says when the bike was built”
“but… logic…!
And that was as far as I could get…
I was left in the violently angry position of having to go back to Ducati – cap in hand and ask them to supply ANOTHER document, with a minor semantic difference. All this, just to satisfy the window-licking imbecile that was flexing the modicum of power he had been (clearly) mistakenly granted, purely to make himself feel better about his personal failings as a productive human being.