Some tough lessons on how to pay for a driving school

In 2021 we bought our 17 year old a voucher for lessons with Ooosh! driving school and paid £600 by bank transfer. Shortly after, instructor Mike Vallis said there had been a "family tragedy" and he had been unable to start lessons for a few weeks. After a few months, we tried to contact him, but he was unreachable.

Ooosh! said he was dropped because he was unreliable. He eventually arranged for another instructor but said we had to pay again as the fees are paid directly to the instructors. Since April we have been trying to get our initial £600 back from Ooosh! and Vallis.SH, Omeath, County Louth

You say you chose Ooosh! as it is a household name in the North West of England, where you were living at the time, and offers courses across the country. You trusted the brand.

What you didn't know is that most driving schools are franchises. Customer contracts are with individual instructors who pay a fee to the school to use their name.

You didn't know that because the terms and conditions on Ooosh! the site makes no mention of it. In fact, they specifically referenced the school's responsibilities if a lesson is postponed. You say no T&C was provided with the voucher.

Jamie Traynor, Managing Director of Ooosh!, tells me he has helped "over 70" other customers to get a refund from Vallis. "The school doesn't handle money, all instructors are self-employed and handle learner payments," says Traynor. "We vet instructors thoroughly, and Mike initially had a good relationship with his learners, but then we started getting complaints that he was unreliable."

Traynor insisted that the terms and conditions were clear, although the reference to school responsibilities has since been removed.

When I found Vallis , he claimed he had unwittingly overbooked his diary and found himself unable to complete, or refund, lessons that customers had paid for.

He said that he had also failed his instructor training lessons three times and blamed Ooosh! for not framing it. "I fully intend to repay SH if I had the money, but it has shattered my sanity and I am unable to work," he said.

It may come as a surprise to know that trainee instructors are allowed to teach paid lessons before passing their qualifying exams, provided they are registered on the Driver's database & Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) as a potential driving instructor (PDI).

Customers with concerns about a potential or approved instructor may complain to from the DVSA, which can ban them from teaching if they are found to have violated the regulations. However, the DVSA can only investigate registered instructors, and Vallis' PDI registration has expired. It also does not have the power to impose refunds.

People can take the small claims route. But this opens a new Pandora's box. If a county court judgment is won, it may not be enforceable if the person does not have sufficient assets. However, there could be a lawsuit against Ooosh!, according to Gary Rycroft, consumer law attorney and partner at Joseph A Jones.

"The argument of school that it is acting as sole agent is undermined by the terms and conditions which refer to its status as an active party to the provision of services under the contract," he said. "On the face of it, an argument that he is not responsible for the performance of the contract would fail."

Learner drivers should try to pay by credit card so they can claim against their bank under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act for breach of contract. Debit card payments can be protected by the Voluntary Chargeback Scheme. Most importantly, learners must s ensure they choose an approved instructor from the DVSA database.

But here is another surprise. Instructors can choose not to appear on the online database, so anyone wishing to verify someone who does not appear should call the DVSA and support their automated queuing system.

< p class="dcr-kpil6a">Why? The DVSA wouldn't say, but they told me they were recently consulted on possible changes to the way they publish this information.

On track for good news

It's healthy for our collective blood pressure to hear about companies that show they value their customers: I bought my boyfriend a little box of chocolates from Hotel Chocolat. When we opened them later that day, some had melted. I messaged the company on Instagram, and within an hour they had apologized. The next day a voucher arrived exceeding the cost of the original box!