The VRT’s consumer affairs programme ‘WinWin’ has discovered that crooks are making a quick buck by making appointments for practical driving tests and selling them on to people that wish to jump the queue. The driving test centres are aware of the practice but have as yet been unable to come up with a way of stamping it out. The Flemish Transport Minister Annick De Ridder (nationalist) condems the practice and says that she intends to act quickly to address it.
Driving tests appointments for sale online: “For 100 euro you can take your test next week”
Published:
In Flanders, there are two ways in which you can arrange to take your practical driving test. The first is through an accredited driving school, while the second option is through a friend or family member that has been designated as the person that is teaching you to drive. It is usually quicker to arrange a date for a driving test through a driving school as half of all available slots are reserved for them.
The remaining slots are for would-be drivers wishing to book an appointment off their own bat. However, at some driving test centres such as Deurne and Kontich, the waiting time for an appointment can be as much as more than 7 months.
Wiene De Pauw told ‘WinWin’ that "If I don’t pass, I will have to wait for many months for a new appointment. By then my provisional licence might have expired and there is even a chance that I will have to do my theoretical exam again”. Wiene made the appointment for her practicle driving test 7 months ago.
Black market on Snapchat
The fact that would-be drivers that don’t go through a driving school have to wait so long for an appointment to take their driving test is not only because half of all the available appointments are reserved for driving schools.
Unscrupulous traders are able to systematically acquire a large number of the other available driving test appointment slots and then resell them via social media. This means that people that wish to are able to take their test in the same week if they are prepared to pay 100 euro.
‘WinWin’ discovered that it is easy and quick to make an appointment for a practical driving test via the social media platform Snapchat. You simply say where you wish to take your driving test and an appointment is made. Queue jumping in this way comes at a cost: 100 euro on top of the 50 euro the driving test centre charges you to take the test. The Snapchat accounts promise an appointment within a week, while you would have to wait 5 months if you went through the official channels.
Hopelessly outdated websites
The umbrella organisation that represents the country’s driving test centres GOCA is aware of the problem of what they call “online brokers”. GOCA’s Steven Raes told the VRT that “This has been going on since we introduced online bookings. New appointments are made available every day, but they are snapped up straight away. We suspect that these people have lists of names and corresponding national registration numbers and use them to book appointments”.
How is it possible that fraudsters can schedule appointments so easily using random names? The Ethical hacker Inti De Ceuckelaire looked at the driving test centres’ website for ‘WinWin’. He concludes that "Most of the websites are not protected against bots. Bots are computer programmes that can perform all kinds of tasks automatically and therefore very quickly. There is also no security in place to check whether or not the person is real. This could be done by, for example, using the Itsme app. This means that it is easy to write a programme that automatically reserves all available slots."
GOCA says that they have implemented security measures and a valid national registration number is required in order to book an appointment. However, Inti De Ceuckelaire says that the system does not appear to be effective. “I was able to book appointments using false national registration numbers. You can even ask ChatGPT to generate false national registration numbers and simply use them.”
However, GOCA says that it doesn’t want to make it too difficult for people to book an appointment. “It's about striking a balance between customer friendliness and making far-reaching checks. However, we may need to go in that direction at some point in order prevent this kind of kind of thing”.
In reaction, the Flemish Transport Minister Annick De Ridder (nationalist) condemned those that book driving test appointment slots en bloc in order to sell them on. Ms De Ridder told the VRT that "We intend to tackle this. I will ask the Transport and Public Works Department to carry out an investigation as soon as possible. We will ask GOCA to take the necessary measures to close the loopholes".
Organised trade
‘WinWin’s’ investigation shows that it is not just a single individual that is selling driving test appointments in this way. Inti De Ceuckelaire discovered that an organised network is behind the practice “I found at least four different people that manage multiple accounts on Snapchat and Facebook groups people can buy an appointment. These groups have thousands of followers and those behind them are quite open about what they are doing”.
The issue won’t disappear until measures are taking to improve security on the driving test centre’s website.