Fraudsters providing overinflated early driving check slots for £200

Learners are being exploited by a ‘driving test black market’ as long waiting lists to sit practical tests goes on and slots have become hot commodities.

Given the huge demand, test bookings are now being sold at inflated prices of around £200 through third party websites, exploiting learners struggling who are desperate to become qualified drivers.

The RAC has warned provisional licence holders to watch out for ‘misinformation’ from fraudulent websites and avoid giving out any personal details.

Since January 2023, the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), which is responsible for driving tests, has issued 283 warnings, 746 suspensions and closed 689 businesses for misuse of its booking service.

However, the RAC has still found many unofficial sites offering booking slots for around £200 each.

This is almost four times the standard price of a practical test slot, which costs £62 for weekdays or £75 if a learner books for a weekend. 

Drivers should only ever book a driving test via the official Government website, and never book or alert them to available slots through a website, the RAC says. 

It comes as the practical driving test backlog – accrued during Covid 19 lockdowns and tests being off limits – remains at around four-and-a-half months across England and Wales.

Some desperate learners are going to huge lengths to get earliest test slots possible – even if that means driving the length of the UK to sites that are more remote and in lower demand.

A bit like third party concert ticket scams, fraudulent sites are using bots to book test slots faster than a human could. 

These slots are then resold at overinflated prices, or by paid-for services offering to alert users to test cancellations in their local area as they become available.

Despite the DVSA clamping down on these sites, the RAC has still found third parties selling many slots via encrypted WhatsApp chats. 

Sneakily, sellers use the ‘disappearing message’ function so conversations can’t be traced.

Other third parties are using ‘cancellation alert’ schemes and apps to charge users a one-off fee to receive an alert every time a slot becomes available sooner than their original test.

While these sites require legitimate proof of a DVSA test, sign-up fees can still set drivers back nearly twice the amount for the official test. Some ‘VIP’ packages are being advertised for up to £117.

There’s also the worry of stolen personal information, which happened to one freelance journalist.

Lara Olszowska fell victim to this, telling the RAC: ‘I bought into the driving test black market at £169 for a test worth £62, just to avoid having to retake my theory and delay my practical exam. 

‘I gave them my driving licence number, my theory certificate number, and my home address without batting an eyelid. After failing that test, I went online to try to book my next attempt, but the DVSA website kept popping up with an ‘error’ message.

‘That led to a fateful phone call with the DVSA where I learned my account was blocked for having ‘too many’ tests booked using my details – even though I was blissfully unaware for the years it was going on. 

‘A company had used my details to repeatedly book tests under my name 52 times and swap them with other candidates who wanted the slots for triple the price.’

RAC head of policy Simon Williams said: ‘Definitive action needs to be taken to prevent ‘bots’ booking tests and then selling them on to desperate learners for crazy amounts of money.

‘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. It’s no wonder some learners end up booking test slots before they’re ready.

‘It’s also very wrong that real people who are genuinely trying to book their tests are being treated as if they are ‘bots’ because their data has been stolen by fraudsters.’

How to avoid test booking scams

As the RAC advises, always  book directly through the Government website rather than through a third-party ‘black market’ site, which often contains false information such as how frequently you can book your driving test.

 Make sure you don’t sign up to alerts or give away personal details.

Be aware that scammers are even recommending their sites on forums like Reddit and Mumsnet on threads where learners are voicing frustrations with  the booking process.

Speaking from experience, Olszowska also said to always book via the DVLA (website or phone) and recommended that if you have to wait months ‘plan backwards from there with your instructor so you know you are more than ready to pass by the time your test date comes.’

The lengths of the country learners are going to take tests

In August This is Money reported that multiple freedom of information requests to the DVSA by Marmalade car insurance over a six-month period revealed learners travelled an extra 48 per cent further to take their driving test in 2023 compared to 2019.

The average distance travelled from their home to a test centre grew to 12.33 miles in the most recent full year – 2023 – compared to 8.33 miles in 2019.

And it’s set to get even worse in the future, as the distance will increase per year by 10.3 per cent. 

After in-depth analysis of over six million driving test records, Marmalade discovered learners could end up having to travel up to 25 miles (24.49) on average for a test in 2030 – a 194 per cent increase on 2019.

In 2023, one learner travelled a staggering 647 miles from Exeter to Shetland to take their practical exam, while another travelled 633 miles from Folkestone to Shetland.

Driving test backlog explained

Continuous delays since test centres had to close their doors in 2020 due to Covid, were blamed on a ‘post-pandemic lag’.

Yet by the summer of 2022, over half a million people were still waiting for a test – an increase on the pandemic backlog from 2021 which was just shy of 500,000.

But despite DVSA measures to increase test capacity, and Parliament being assured pre-pandemic levels would be back, average waiting times worsened or stayed at the same at 45 per cent of test centres. 

And in March, three quarters of driving test centres still had average wait times in excess of six weeks.