People who book their NCT and have to wait longer than four weeks for the test to be carried out are entitled to a full refund of their test fee. However, Mayo Fine Gael TD John O’Mahony has learned that the booking centre that administers the tests does not disclose this information to the public because they themselves are not aware of it, or were not aware of it until Deputy O’Mahony highlighted the issue this week.
“This became an issue last week when a constituent of mine, who had to wait over six weeks for his test, contacted the booking centre to query whether he was entitled to a refund. He was told that the booking centre handles bookings and nothing else and that if he wanted a refund he would have to contact the customer service section and they would deal with it.
“I’m not attaching any blame to the people at the call centre as they are only following procedure but I do believe that the least the company that runs the NCTs could do is to let their customers know every scenario relating to booking their test. If someone rings up and asks to book an NCT then he or she should be told there and then that if they have to wait longer than four weeks they are entitled to a refund.
“The way things stand at the moment is that the onus is on the customer to do all the chasing. I don’t think it’s good enough by any means and I believe that the NCT should change the way they do their business,” he said.
