Do you like the photo on your licence?
Unless you are Khloe Kardashian and can call on a full crew of hair and makeup artists and a lighting cameraman to take with you down to the AA, you are probably in the possession right now of a very ordinary photo of yourself, on your driver’s licence.
You probably like to leave that in your purse, pocket or wallet. But when you need to prove you are who you are, that photo ID is the go-to.
Except a growing number of you are getting in touch to say that you are fading away. From the licence anyway.
It began with a distress call from Christchurch where Fenton Thomson had become one of the faceless men. We aren’t referring here to the shadowy assassins on Game of Thrones (so last month). Fenton had joined the league of Kiwis facing a bill of $38 to replace their driver licence card well before its 10 years are up, just because the photo had faded almost completely from view, for no good reason.
Fenton wasn’t happy - "It's not fit for purpose," he told Fair Go. Nor durable we would say. These are qualities laid down by law under the Consumer Guarantees Act (CGA).
AA was sympathetic but said it’s up to the Government. The NZ Transport Agency fobbed Fenton off, telling him it was probably his own fault and the card had rubbed on something.
Fenton was adamant that’s not the case and can show a perfectly good West Australian licence that also sits in his card wallet in a similar but distinct pocket.
Under the CGA you can go to the manufacturer for a remedy. The maker of these cards, Placard Pty Ltd, claims it manufactures more than 100,000,000 cards every year in Australasia – bank cards, credit cards, airline loyalty cards, the AT Hop card used by Auckland commuters and of course, the photo IDs for the 3.6 million people on the New Zealand driver licence register.
Placard didn’t want to inspect Fenton’s faded photo when Fair Go asked - they say they have very low spoil rates. They thought it would be easy just to replace it for Fenton (and very cheap for them to do so) but it wasn’t their call. They also referred us to NZTA.
AA took another look and were happy to confirm this was a new one on them and was not typical sun damage or scratching. They referred that to NZTA.
NZTA said this was very rare and decided to invoke its policy of waiving the replacement fee for Fenton.
Fair Go hopes NZTA will be just as understanding like for those of you getting in touch to say that you also have this problem.
Give it a whirl – talk to NZTA - and be faceless no longer.
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