The office is run by texting, there aren’t any real live people and the few who can answer the phone haven’t a clue.  I gave them a list of post codes, the problem is I work in 5 OL post codes but they would text me pupils an hour’s drive away because it was OL.

When I started there were just two DD instructors in our area, met the other instructor in a supermarket car park a couple of weeks after I joined and she said it was hard getting work from them, you had to text every day to remind them you wanted work. The poor woman had their car so was stuck with them, she’s still around.  

The two of us quickly grew to half a dozen and by this time I was so disillusioned with them I’d stripped off the D/D decals. The other D/D instructors one by one started driving around with their own old boxes on the roof. Haven’t seen any for quite some time now.

When you complain (by text) about not having any work they text you a list of inquiries and tell you to ring them.

One week they took the franchise from both the Standing Order and my debit card, because even though my statement said the Standing Order had been paid they said they hadn’t received it, and……. They charged me an extra £3 for using the debit card.

Drive Dynamics (things can only get bader, bad grammar I know)

Took a few days to sort out because I insisted on ‘speaking’ to someone, the problem is the finance department are very busy Monday and Tuesday because they have the incoming franchise to cope with. Then from Wednesday they have to start work on the money to be paid out on the Friday. I did get the £99 back, but had to fight for the £3. Probably cost me more in phone calls and texts but it was the principal.

I was allowed 2 free franchise weeks and was told to apply for them quickly as only a certain amount of instructors per week were allowed free franchise. As we had a cruise booked for July, I applied in March but was told the only weeks available were what were to be my last two weeks of the 6 month contract.

In the meantime they decided that instead of text they would operate an email system, if you had a problem you mailed them and got an auto reply saying they would respond in three working days. They didn’t, and I’m not sure what happened to that system because it was never mentions again.

The organisation at D/D deteriorated even more as the weeks went on, they would text me saying I hadn’t paid my franchise. By this time the first thing I did on Monday, my day off was to go into the bank to check the franchise had been paid. Then sure enough I would get a text asking for it. There were so many mistakes I can’t possible get everything in the correct order.

The next was for them to take the £99, plus of course the handling charge, which incidentally I didn’t pay the first few weeks while I was working up to full franchise from my debit card even, thought it had been paid by standing order.

This was when I discovered how good the personal bankers at my bank were, I got the money refunded, had to fight for the extra £3 and the bank put a stop to D/D having access to my debit card.

More to come this is only the good bits.