Right here is the rant.....

Day off today so i didn't get up till 10ish. I looked out of my window to see a yellow flyer under my windscreen wiper and thought.....hmmmm I wonder what that is.

So I had a cup of tea, as one does, then went out to have a look. On inspection it had dvla written on it saying my car was out of tax, So i looked at my tax disk and though oh shit yer it is. oops.

Then I carried on reading the note which went on to say I have been clamped and need to pay for it to be removed. I went round to the driver,s side and yes it had been clamped.

Fair's Fair, I done wrong so I had to be punished, which as a law abiding citizen I will agree to.

This is were my faith in this contries policies looses faith though.

I phoned up the clamping company only to be told that by the end of the day ( 24 hours which is really till their office closes) I have two options. I can either

1. buy a new tax disk then drive to their office IN BLOODY WIDNESS ( 40 miles away) prooving that i have purchased a new disk and pay a £100 fine for the clamp to be removed.

2. Pay £260 over the phone, they will remove the clamp with in 2 hours then go up to my dvla office in chester, again proove that i have bought a new tax disk for them to fax it off to the clamping company and then you will get £160 back.........WOW.

So I took the second option as it was slightly easyier.

This has taken all day to sort out, and if any good has come from this it will be that I will always keep on top of my tax from now on. But I cant belive the time scale they give you to stop your transport from getting towed away. absolutly criminal. On speakin to the DVLA about it, they tell me that there is nothing they can do about it as the goverment has passed law on it, and it is up to the clamping company to make their charges etc up.

Absolutly disgusting, next DVLA bike i see in the street, its getting pushed over.

Any way, i left a nice gift for the wheel clamp guy's (who were wearing stab proof jackets) to remove

gutted

i,ll get it off 4 you lol

Its done now, I could actually do it my self, with out damaging the clamp. but the police advised me not to, it would be classed as tampering with it,,,,,thus criminal damaged, id come off worse.

Got you by the balls they have.

ffs gutted for you mate. that mouse thing is funny as fook tho

Gutted for you matey.

You should of cleaned your arse on bog roll and wiped it on the locks LOL

lol, yer or just shit on to the lock, any way, I can understand now why DVLA recieved those letter bombs. Its such a Grrr of a company. Tempted to go and buy my own clamp's and set up a clamping bussiness. Licence to print money.

That's ridiculous.
Did you get a letter a few weeks ago telling you your tax would run out soon? I get a letter from them - then I go online as soon as I have the money in bank and buy a new disc.

Crazy thing is I did that as usual mid-september as tax was running out at the end. And about 5 days later the disc arrived - stil efore the end of the month. So i stuck it to the boiler in the kitchen. 30th Sept passed and i forgot about the disc, until 2nd october when i suddenly thought something's amiss - so dashed in house and got thw disc on.

Where were the clampets when my tax ran out?

Are you absolutely certain they were bonifide DVLA? Could the letter been a fraud whereby they knew you'd pick the expensive option and had someone on the phone waiting? They could easily be drifting round looking for cars about to run out of tax - coming back when its expired - clamping etc etc.

Just a thought...

Did you ring the DVLA at all to complain?

I would - just to check it was definitely them doing the fining.

You could lose your vehicle

The fees to release your vehicle are high. If you don't pay for your vehicle to be de-clamped within 24 hours, DVLA would impound your vehicle and if it it's not claimed it could be disposed of after 7 days.
Wheelclamping operators

DVLA works in partnership with NCP Services Ltd who operate the wheelclamping scheme and a number of local authorities and police forces who operate local wheelclamping schemes in their areas.
How it works

Clamping vans patrolling the streets are equipped with automatic number plate reader (ANPR) technology. Roof-mounted cameras read the number plates of vehicles parked at the roadside. The number plates are checked against a list of untaxed vehicles and any identified are confirmed against the DVLA vehicle register. The untaxed vehicle is then clamped, towed away and impounded after 24 hours (or immediately in some cases).
Release within 24 hours

To get your vehicle released you’ll need:

* to pay a release fee of £100
* produce a valid tax disc

If you don’t produce a tax disc you’ll need to pay a surety (deposit) instead. This is £160 for a car or motorcycle and up to £700 for other vehicles.

You’ll get the surety payment back when you tax your vehicle and produce a valid tax disc. If you fail to produce a tax disc within two weeks you’ll lose the surety payment and your vehicle could be clamped again and again.
Release after 24 hours

To release your vehicle, you’ll need to pay a £200 fee, and any storage charges of £21 per day as well as producing a valid tax disc or surety payment.

Provided you’re registered as the vehicle keeper, DVLA will write to inform you that your vehicle has been impounded and will be disposed of unless all fees are paid.

You could also face prosecution with fines up to £1,000 as well as paying any arrears of vehicle tax owed and costs.

Unclaimed vehicles are crushed after seven days. Vehicles of economic value are disposed of after 14 days. Any vehicles of significant value are resold at auction.

Taken from direct gov website.

Try ringing the number again that you had to ring - see if its still working...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wOuVhMz4WFw&feature=related

yer, it was npc that done it, it was official and above board, just disgusting the fact you get like a day to sort it out.

oh and when i went to the post office to get the tax disk, the lady at the counter noticed that the address on the log and my insurance documents were different, the van was registered to my old address, thus why i didnt get a reminder note.

Nice one lol

Even The Stig can't escape the clampets!
[youtube]Wlwtxi1NaOA[/youtube]

I've known someone to take the strut out and then just sling the clamp by the side of the road.

Try putting a 'THIS IS NOT PROPERTY OF THE GOVERNMENT' sticker on your car, just to remind them it is wrong to remove civil liberties because you made a mistake. Absolute gits, the lot of them.

Try proving a letter was lost in the post as well!

They must have been on a bonus today because I've seen half a dozen cars with the DVLA clamps on them whilst on my travels today - and that was only in the Liscard/New Brighton area.

cheers station i will do, it cant hurt cant, Its left me in a state of disheartenment tbh though. On speaking to a good mate of mine at t he gym tonight, he summed it up in a few sentence's. He is a social worker, see's real ... bags all day long etc etc.

Today he tell's me he had to go over a charge and fine/penelty sheet with some one who had broke the law over the past 20 years. He had 42 convictions, 5 jail sentences, some for fire arms etc etc, and his total bill was £700.
I forget to tax me motor, and recive at bill thats 15% of those convictions, made to feel like real ..., all i done was forget a bill. \i've worked all my life, tryed hard, I dont brake the law.....Is it me or is this place backwards

As their office is in widness I assume they must send van's around the north west. The wirral must have been on the roster today. Sickening really, I've been watching lots of clips now on youtube about wheel clamping. They really are heartless barstard printing their own money.

...thats kinda what I was expecting when you mentioned about a little pressie

I'm beginning to wonder if they were right...

The options you weregiven to start with sound stupid. (assume you have 1 car) how exactly are you supposed to drive a clamped car to their offices?

I said that, they said train, bus, taxi etc etc etc, I tried to demonstrate over the phone the difficulties of traveling from prenton to widness in 5 hours with out it costing 10 million quid, But the was no sympathy.

Impossible.

lol..nice way of taxing the motorist...AGAIN.....AM SICK OF THIS GOVERNMENT!!!!!

thats not like u andy, i thought u would have been the removing the barstard yellow thing as soon as u saw it!!

utterly shite tho, like u say licence to print money!

Surely if you don't damage anything getting it off, then it is not classed as criminal damage?

As long as you then take it straight back to them so you don't then get accused of theft. You left this on my car, i'm just returning it to you.

All details are on a database, and if your tax is up it starts alarm bells ringing. As already said there have been a few round here the last few days, so I can only guess they check all the registered addresses of the vehicles out of tax and if its there, and on the road - CLAMP!!

Dont forget, its also an offence not to SORN the car now, so even if its parked off the road, you can still get a fine

I belive there is also still a "grace" period, but its a strick 7 days I think...

Its the van that drive's up and down road pickining out cars that numberplates its read, and some things fishy, as stated b4, my van was registered to my old address.

...that'll be why you didnt get a reminder then

Guess its just been a bit of bad luck mate

Fishy as in there's someone in your road who decided to shop you? Did you park in someone's spot? lol

I did wonder that too - Haggis?

question is where did you get the dead mouse from?....

is it a mouse or rat?

if i were evil i'd have poured a tin of black treacle over the lock (i have 2 tins of it rotting in the cupboard)

lol, im 90% sure it was the random van, and if i was shopped it would be haggasis next door neigbour, and the mouse was just next to it dead, the little guy probably read the terms and condition's laid out by the clamping company, couldn't belive his little eye's and thought, wow - if thats how they are treating each other im well and truely screwed as a mouse.

and threw him self in to a moving car for a fast and hopefully painless death.

Gutted mate.

Seen a few cars clamped around mine too.

B*stards. Least you got it sorted though

Cheer's joe, only just though, the lesser fortunate who never managed too must be in a world of shiit right now, Goverment twaats.