Some tough lessons about how to pay for a driving school

theguardian.com:

In 2021 we bought our 17-year-old a voucher for lessons with Ooosh! driving school and paid £600 by bank transfer. Shortly afterwards, the instructor, Mike Vallis, said there had been a “family tragedy” and he couldn’t start the lessons for a few weeks. After a couple of months we tried to contact him, but he couldn’t be reached.

Ooosh! said he’d been dropped because he was unreliable. It eventually arranged for another instructor, but said we would have to pay again as fees are paid directly to instructors. Since April, we have been trying to get a refund of our initial £600 from Ooosh! and Vallis.SH, Omeath, County Louth

You say you chose Ooosh! because it’s a familiar name in the north-west of England, where you were living at the time, and offers courses across the country. You trusted the brand.

What you didn’t know is that most driving schools are franchises. Customers’ contracts are with individual instructors who pay the school a fee to use their name.

You didn’t know this because the terms and conditions on the Ooosh! website made no mention of it. In fact, they specifically referred to the school’s responsibilities if a lesson is postponed. You say no T’s & C’s were provided with the voucher.

Jamie Traynor, managing director of Ooosh!, tells me he has helped “over 70” other customers obtain a refund from Vallis. “The school doesn’t handle any money, all instructors are self-employed and handle payments from learners,” says Traynor. “We thoroughly vet instructors, and Mike initially had a good relationship with his learners, but then we started getting complaints he was unreliable.”

Traynor insisted the terms and conditions were clear, although the reference to the school’s responsibilities has since been removed.

When