letter of the day

[tla]

Posted not only for the unexpectedness of the content, but the wonderfully British phrasing in the letter.

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Dear [me],

I am writing to you because I believe that you may be entitled to a partial refund of a driving test fee.

For many years, we have charged a higher (i.e. premium) fee for practical driving tests taken on Saturdays than for those conducted during normal working hours. This reflects the higher costs we incur in providing tests outside those hours.

However, we recently discovered a legal problem. It involves the fees we have charged customers when booking practical driving tests to be taken on Saturdays. The problem affects bookings made since 1 November 2005. At that time, the law on driving tests was changed so that we could introduce some service improvements. Unfortunately, a previously unidentified side effect was that we could no longer charge a premium fee for practical driving tests taken on Saturdays. It is only over the last few weeks that this has come to light. The relevant regulations have now been amended so that the premium fee for Saturday tests will again be able to be charged.

We are, however, concerned that we may have unintentionally charged you a higher fee for your driving test than the law at the time allowed. If that is the case, we would like to put it right as quickly as possible.

[boring claim details]

Yours sincerely

Brian Gilhooley
Chief Operating Officer
Driving Standards Agency

Comments

[oonh.livejournal.com]

that's excellent.