Driving test touts offer instructors £250 monthly kickbacks

Driving instructors are being offered commissions of up to £250 a month to sell official test booking login details to touts, the BBC’s investigation has revealed.

Touts uses these login details to book driving tests in bulk and sell them to students on WhatsApp and Facebook, charging up to £500 for tests that shouldn’t cost more than £75. This makes it difficult for students to book on legitimate routes and adds to already long wait times.

We have also uncovered evidence that Loveday Ryder, the outgoing chairman of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), was told about these operations in February; however, some retailers reporting to the DVSA are still operating. In response, the DVSA said it did not comment on specific complaints but had zero tolerance for those who exploit learner drivers.

We’ve identified pioneers operating in London, Birmingham, Manchester and the Home Counties. Posing as driving instructors, we contacted them via WhatsApp and offered monthly payments in exchange for login information to the DVSA system, through which instructors can book tests.

While one of them boasted that he worked with more than 1000 trainers, Anil Ahmed, who goes by the name “Ahadeen”, said that he enrolls two trainers every week. We have not been able to independently verify any of these claims. When we later confronted Mr. Ahmed himself he denied any involvement, but we found significant evidence implicating him in this incident.

We have not been able to identify specific driving instructors who are selling their information, but our conversations with these touts, the sheer number of tests they sell and images of their test booking systems shared on WhatsApp, suggest that hundreds of fraudulent instructors may be involved.

Separately, 30 educators we spoke to in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) said they had heard of test slots being sold at deep discounts. Ten of them told us that the touts had approached them or talked to other instructors.

According to DVSA data, 642,000 students were waiting to take exams in Great Britain at the end of October, with the average wait time being 21 weeks. There is a separate system in Northern Ireland.

According to the students we spoke to, waits can last up to six months; Some say they started screaming out of desperation. A recent DVSA survey suggested around one in three students use “third parties” to book their driving tests.

Transport Minister Heidi Alexander recently announced plans to change driving test rulesIt is hoped this will stop the touting and reduce the backlog. Starting in the spring, only students, not instructors, will be able to book testing slots.

Educators we spoke to welcomed the Department for Transport (DfT) proposals, but also said they had been raising these issues for some time and now wanted to know whether the government would root out rogue teachers. Tests were done Booked in bulk for years and resold for profitBut these instructors say the situation has now become much worse.

We were first alerted to concerns about touts by a trainer in West Yorkshire and emailed that trainer. BBC’s Your Voice inbox.

They told us they had been approached by someone offering £250 a month to buy login credentials for a system called the Online Business Service (OBS) that tutors use to book exams. Learner drivers can only book one test, but instructors can book multiple slots at different locations.

We decided to investigate and found Facebook groups, Snapchat accounts and WhatsApp communities where hundreds of test slots were being offered for sale almost every day, priced at up to £500 each.

The names of specific vendors popped up frequently, and it was clear from the volume of tests advertised that they had gained access to OBS.

The shading system we came up with seems to work like this.

Once witnesses are able to log in, they book places using student license details collected from customers who have purchased tests from them, and then sell their L plates at inflated prices to other students looking to leave.

Using individuals’ licenses to book tests may breach data protection laws. The behavior of some instructors may also appear to be a breach of DVSA terms.

Frustrated instructors during our survey — as well as angry students and their parents — many were upset with the idea of ​​students feeling like they had to pay to take a test.

Ian Pinto, from St Albans in Hertfordshire, has spent the last two years recruiting 20- and 18-year-olds to take their driving test: “These people are taking advantage of children and I don’t want my children’s friends being taken advantage of by these men.”

One of the most popular vendors in Mr. Pinto’s area is “Ahadeen.” We linked Ahadeen’s mobile phone number to a Facebook profile linked to Anil Ahmed, 34, of Luton.

Posing as a driving instructor, we contacted this person via WhatsApp and arranged a meeting.

“I book two driving instructors a week,” he boasted. He also claimed that staff were logged in as instructors all day and booked every test possible, unlike other touts we contacted.

“I will guarantee £100 will be credited to your account every month…send me your login details,” he said.

The dealer told us he could take driving tests at any center in Great Britain and sell them to students for between £222 and £242 per test.

Practical tests cost £62 from the DVSA (£75 on evenings, weekends and bank holidays), meaning he would make at least £140 from each test he sold.

He explained that as a driving instructor we could buy a test slot from him for £192 and then sell it to a learner driver for up to £300, but added that this profit was perhaps “unethical”.

After our phone conversation, we started meeting this person face to face with a new approach via Facebook. This helped us confirm Ahadeen’s identity as Anil Ahmed; He gave us the same phone number we WhatsApped Ahadeen, and public records showed an address linked to the name Anil Ahmed.

We also saw the bank details used to purchase tests from “Ahadeen”; The name on this account is Anıl Ahmed.

When we confronted him in person he refused to answer our questions directly and when we approached him he tried to deny that he was Ahmed Bey, although he responded to the name Anıl.

Later in our conversation, he said that everything we presented to him was “complete fabrication.”

Anıl Ahmed is not the only driving test monger we talked to.

Khalid sells tests in the West Midlands.

We posed as instructors again and Khalid offered us £250 a month for our entries. In its OBS accounts, it said it uses “a machine that automatically selects tests” and has “over 1,000 partner” instructors.

He also said he would add £50 to our monthly payment for every other trainer we helped sign up. He claimed some trainers were earning more than £500 a month from this.

A third tout, Jamal, operating in the Home Counties, did not try to buy our login credentials, but offered to sell us tests.

From the WhatsApp conversations we’ve seen, it appears Jamal and Khalid are working together.

Driving instructor Peter Brooks, who teaches in Oxfordshire, wrote to DVSA chairman Loveday Ryder in February giving evidence that he and his colleagues were rallying about Jamal. The BBC saw this letter.

“They never understood that we told them people were paying instructors to log in. Nothing happened and this Jamal guy is still selling tests to this day. That makes me so angry.”

We submitted all of this to the DVSA. He said he does not comment on individual complaints, but added that instructors involved in these programs may be investigated.

In a later FOI response, the DVSA told us that as of 17 November, 346 OBS accounts belonging to driving instructors had been closed for breaches of terms and conditions.

The DfT says the changes it plans to make next spring will help prevent abuse of the system. But in the meantime, students who need a test may feel obligated to pay.

At Goodmayes in East London, Britain’s busiest driving test centre, 23-year-old student Md Rahmath Ullah Mehedi told us he paid exactly £120 for a place in March.

“Going through these people seems like the only way. If I could afford it I’d pay again for an earlier test but they want £400-500 for tests in December.”

His instructor, Asif Darbar, who runs Busy Bee Driving School, said he could not remember the last time one of his students booked a test via the official route.

Another tutor, Jag Singh, told us: “One of my students failed and burst into tears because their parents will have to pay over £500 for another exam. It’s a vicious cycle.”

He said the idea that other instructors were potentially involved “made his blood boil.”

“We’re here trying to work, trying to make a living, and these guys are sitting at home making hundreds of pounds.”

Additional reporting by Sophie Wallace, Rozina Sini and Stephen West.