Does anyone remember tax discs? Colour-coded by month, you’d tear round the perforations and insert them in a little PVC sleeve on the inside of your windscreen. It was a selling point if your new car had 11 months to run, but if your vehicle excise duty had expired (or was about to), you’d be straight down the post office to renew, lest a eagle-eyed PC noticed the wrong colour was showing.

Fast forward a few years, and everything moved online. Tax discs disappeared, together with parking permits and sundry other visual obstructions to the driver, with arguably a safety dividend. In common with other government agencies, the DVLA exhorted us all to go digital, paying our VED by direct debit, monthly or annually. I’ve paid mine this way for so long it has become automatic. Noticing periodic adjustments as tax rates fluctuated, I’d thought, that’s clever. Other government agencies, such as HMRC, had introduced systems such as Tell Us Once, whereby ‘joined-up government’ would update records in sync. Your passport photo would serve as your driving licence photo and so on, making everything more convenient and user-friendly.

So it was that shortly before Christmas last year when I changed my car, the new buyer got me to register the transaction online, and also the seller. Within days I had received a fresh logbook (V5C) from the DVLA, confirming the changes of ownership. One of the notices came with an insert telling me not to worry if the changes weren’t immediately registered, and even to ignore any penalty charge notices from local DVLA offices. After all, I hadn’t cancelled any direct debit with my bank, nor made any attempt to adjust it.

I was travelling after Christmas and didn’t return home until late January, by which time the DVLA had served me with a £102 fine for some unknown crime. The same agency that had confirmed all the ownership changes and always adjusted my DD accordingly, had decided on a strategy of entrapment. When I alluded to its covering notice regarding VED in relation to ownership changes, it stated this only applied to refunds (i.e. when it had been paid annually and the vehicle was sold before expiry). The DVLA reserved the right to throw the book at anyone it considered was in default.

I looked at my online bank account and was relieved to see the direct debit remained active, and the next payment was due in early March. In these circumstances, I swiftly remitted a cheque for £42 (2 x £21) to cover the two months I calculated had lapsed, requesting that any small adjustment be reflected in the next payment. Consistent with its policy throughout, the DVLA refused to enter into any correspondence beyond repeating its demand for the £102 fine (with a payment deadline ‘before court action’), and returned my cheque unbanked. No telephone numbers except automated ‘payment lines’ were quoted, and no emails provided. When I looked in desperation on Google for any such contact emails, the only one I found was returned undelivered.

Were these business methods to be deployed by any private enterprise, I suggest they would result in universal outrage. I remain unaware of what crime I have committed or in what way I have been negligent, except to try to run a vehicle nowadays and thus be fair game. Even once I have paid the iniquitous £102 fine because I do not want to end up in court, I remain innocent of the further repercussions that await me, given that payments from my bank by direct debit have even now not resumed. Will this also be my fault?