Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

HMRC. Aaaargh!!!!! :(

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

HMRC - Oh I agree with you 10 fold.

I enquired about how to claim back 'French Witholding Tax' on company share dividends, boy did they go to town on me after that question - Undeclared Foreign Overseas Income! I didn't have a pathological hatred for them before that but now......

Been on PAYE for the past 1/4 century but ended up having to submit a tax return for 5 years on the back of that, share dividends now in shares not cash!

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

I'm going to amend my GotD as when I finally got to speak with a real person, she was very helpful and friendly. She gave me advice that saved me an £800 tax bill.

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

If you think HMRC are bad, try and avoid having to deal with the DVLA. Even when you get through to speaking to a person it is like speaking to a robot.
I had about 6 months of trying to get through to their medical department to get my driving licence back ( medical condition but passed fit by hospital consultant due to satisfactory treatment ) When I eventually got to speak to somebody in the DVLA medical department they said they couldn't understand what had been going on and they would send my licence the next day, which they did. (about 6 months after they had actually received a letter from my hospital consultant stating treatment was successful and I was fit to drive !)

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

'Having lost an initial appeal against a decision relating to the deployment of the safety car – which allowed Max Verstappen to pit for fresh tyres and then slot in behind and surge past his helpless rival – Mercedes were leaning towards putting the reputation of the sport before their desire to correct what they deemed a major injustice.
That was despite the emergence of Hamilton’s initial reaction to being passed by Verstappen, with the Brit shouting four corners before the chequered flag: “This has been manipulated, man.”
I am not a big follower but it looks like Hamilton has been fiddled out of the title. I understand he was leading by 6 seconds ,which is a long time in racing, before the safety car fiasco.

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

It was a farce of a final few laps. Masi properly cocked up the safety car/lapped driver decision and cost Hamilton the Championship.

I would not be surprised if the result does not change with a legal challenge, even in spite of multiple rules being broken.

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

In defence of my former department, unfortunately because everything has been moved to call centres all the call handling staff work to scripts and prompts, so it's not difficult to see why they can't deal with it like the old face to face relationship at a local office.

But someone decided to close all the local offices and centralise everything, so that's progress I'm afraid

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

If there had been a racing incident during the Tour De France, then the race leader would have still had his lead when the race restarted. An example was when the level crossing closed to let a train through. All gaps remain the same.

So I found the decision to allow Verstappen to close up to Hamilton really odd, especially on fresh tyres, surely it gave him an unfair advantage? Why was he allowed to pit? I know Hamilton could have pitted, and maybe a tactical error by Mercedes.

Didn't make F1 look good, as in any race, when is the race leader penalised for something that wasn't their fault?

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

Mercedes would lose track position, and not knowing how long the SC would be out for decided against it. Red Bull took a punt as it was theirs to Win/Hamiltons to lose.
The odd decision was to say the lapped cars could not unlap themselves (only that they could not over take) & then Masi only let the few through that were between Max & Ham. The rules say when this happens the safety car has to stay out for another full lap to let them catch back up to the back of the pack - which did not happen.
It should have either been red flagged, and had a re-start/5 lap shoot out. Or ended under the safety car.
Hopefully Mercedes got the proper review in Court on how this was handled (although this is not how i would like it to be decided) & its the final nail in Masi's coffin on this job and he gets gone.

Re: Gripe of the day - What is yours?
 

I think the SC should have stayed out until the end, Hamilton was 12 sec in front at the time of the incident, so wouldn't have been caught by Verstappen on the tyres he was on at the time.

Does seem like a monumental **** up