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Car hire confusion remains as agents given conflicting advice
Confusion remains over whether Britons hiring cars abroad will need to obtain a special access code from the DVLA after it emerged that a new Government website set up to issue the codes isn’t working properly.
When the site launched yesterday, only two-thirds of the 30,000 drivers who tried to obtain the required codes from the DVLA were successful.
The DVLA said it was aware some customers were having difficulty accessing the site and that it is working hard to resolve the problem.
In the meantime, some car hire brokers are telling agents that their customers will be able to hire vehicles abroad using only their photocard driver’s licence, while others, including Affordable Car Hire, insist drivers should obtain their one-time passcode from the DVLA.
"Whilst the majority of our car hire partners have indicated a passcode is not required, some of them have advised that they will be asking UK customers to present the one off passcode on collection," Affordable CEO Angela Day said in a statement last week.
"Given that the overseas requirements are far from conclusive we strongly recommend that agents advise customers hiring cars overseas to obtain the passcode from the DVLA."
The passcodes, which are valid for only 72 hours, have been introduced to replace the paper part of the British driver’s licence, which is now redundant. However, Europcar said it will still accept the paper counterpart when drivers haven’t obtained a code.
The government has defended the new system, saying it will save millions of pounds and reduce red tape. Last year, the DVLA had to replace 445,000 paper counterparts.
Diane
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