Big online car licence renewal headaches
The government’s new online payment facility for car licence discs and driver’s licence card renewals has been riddled with technical issues.
The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) launched the service to much fanfare from the Department of Transport on 17 February 2022.
It was initially set to go live in October 2021 but was delayed to meet certain legal and technical requirements.
The system allows motorists to renew and pay for their vehicle licence discs, driver’s licence cards, and vehicle registration documents online.
Barely a day after going live, the website went offline for several days.
While it has since become available, many complaints from users online suggest that it is having significant teething problems.
Among them, MyBroadband readers have complained about the system, particularly about a lack of communication following payment for disc renewals.
In an emailed response to one of these complaints, the RTMC admitted the vehicle licence renewal service was experiencing “challenges”, including a delay in printing paid licence discs.
The printing has since commenced, and the RTMC said the complainant could expect notifications for delivery from the South African Post Office’s Speed Services within the “next few days”.
It also acknowledged an issue where customers would be stuck with a “Transaction Pending” message after making a payment.
It said a technical team had fixed the issue but advised the customer to only log back into their profile from Monday to see the change.
“You should get a popup message indicating that you have a transaction pending,” the RTMC said.
“Continue to click on it, and this will proceed in the background to clear the transaction. You should be able to proceed with your login.”
“A receipt will be available for successfully paid transactions and expect delivery in the next few days,” it added.
If the payment had failed, the RTMC advised the customer to try making the payment again or go to a Post Office to do the renewal.
Many Twitter users have also vented their frustration with the system.
“The eNatis online vehicle license renewal system does not work, takes your money but does not renew. Very frustrating as there is no way to reach anybody at RTMC via any phone number present online,” stated user Jaco van Wyk.
Others complained of problems registering an account on the system.
Consumer sentiment gauging platform Hellopeter was also filled with bad reviews about the system.
“I, unfortunately, used this system to renew three car license discs, to be delivered within three days. Payment [was made] on 22/2/2022. So far, no disc.”
“No access to the system. Zero response to various numbers or emails. Nothing appears to work,” they added.
Another said they were not receiving replies to emails while the call centre helpline was not answered after 40 minutes of waiting. They labelled the service “beyond pathetic”.
MyBroadband contacted the RTMC for comment on the issues but did not receive feedback by the time of publication.
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