BackVictorians lodged more than 800 complaints about VicRoads with the Victorian Ombudsman last financial year, with many of the issues having serious financial, practical and emotional consequences for those involved.
Tabling her report on VicRoads complaints in the Victorian Parliament today, Ombudsman Deborah Glass said there were common themes to the complaints, including:
The transfer of registration process: In some cases, VicRoads transfers registration from a ‘seller’ to a buyer even if it has only part of the information needed to properly identify both parties to the transfer. This can result in people having vehicles transferred out of their name without their knowledge or consent, enabling fraud and theft.
People incurring fines and demerit points for driving unregistered vehicles, after their renewal notice was sent to a wrong address even though they had updated their address with VicRoads.
VicRoads taking months to refund people for cancelled registrations or overpaid fees.
Unfair exercise of discretion.
“VicRoads can sometimes be quick to charge but slow to refund, leading to financial hardship,” Ms Glass said. “In one case, a woman was mistakenly charged more than $1,300 extra for her registration renewal and was still waiting for repayment when she contacted my office three months later.”
Ms Glass said VicRoads had accepted all of her proposals for improvement.
“I am pleased that VicRoads acknowledges improvements are needed and has worked with us to resolve many of these complaints,” Ms Glass said. “But given the number of people affected by these issues, and the human cost of VicRoads’ shortcomings, we have encouraged them to look for interim solutions as well as long-term ones. Some of these issues will not be fixed properly without major investment in systems, which will take time and money.”
Read the full media release here.
Source: Office of the Victorian Ombudsman
