In keeping with the way we've learned that our political lords and masters do things, be warned that the online application form is one of the most badly thought-out sites I've seen in a long time.
It's billed as an 'easy online application process' so let's see..,.
1. The first part requires the existing pass number to be inserted. Fair enough, I thought, so started typing in the numbers. As soon as you input the first number a message in red appears:
The Existing Welsh Concessionary Travel Card Number * field format is invalid.
Being in red and using the word 'invalid' is enough to scare most computer users with little experience. And it's wrong. Because whomever programmed it set it to respond to the first number.
Doesn't matter that it was the correct first number of the nineteen digit pass number. The red warning message doesn't disappear until the entire 19 digits have been inserted. Almost unbelievable but sadly all too common.
2. The form then asks for your postcode and finally, your DOB. Press 'submit' and
3. A new page appears saying:
"Good news! We’ve found your old card details. Where we can verify your name and address, we've copied them into this page"
Great, I thought; saves typing in the address, etc. How wrong I was...
Naturally, one ignores the next bit which starts with "If some details are missing, it may be that we couldn't verify the original card details against current Government records. Please:" because the form has already confirmed they've found all your details. Remember? It said
We’ve found your old card details.
so we skip this and go down to the next relevant instruction.
4. You'll need:
Your National Insurance number
A recent council tax bill containing the name of your local council
A digital passport-style photograph of yourself
It beats me how they can actually pay someone to produce stuff as wildly inaccurate and unhelpful as this tripe. You actually only need one of the three items we're told we'll need. It's the NI number. Nowhere do you need a council tax bill, nowhere do you need a photo.
The reason you don't need those is because we clicked - at the outset - on the link which stated
To renew an old style Welsh over-60 concessionary travel pass
.
So they've already got your photo. And the only other thing they need is your local council's name. Can there seriously be anyone who doesn't know the local council's name? In any case the instructions - again - are wrong. All they needed to state was you need the name of your local council.
5. Just when you're convinced this journey through incompetence and bad planning can't get any worse, your hopes are dashed as we come to the Cardholder Information section.
Now, remember way back in the mists of time when the page you're still marooned on stated
Good news! We’ve found your old card details. Where we can verify your name and address, we've copied them into this page"
well, turns out they haven't. You have to fill in the address details which they claimed to have found and copied onto the page all by yourself.
Now, if you're desperately seeking a crumb of comfort in the hope it will read your postcode and allow a pre-programmed list of addresses to appear - think again.
As I started to insert the address a list appeared... It searched on the first letter of our house name and produced five possible addresses - in Abergele, Swansea, Porthmadog, Botswana and Russia. Well, perhaps not the last two, but you see the utter incompetence of this process.
Having then stumbled, cursing, through the address filled completion marathon, any hopes you're getting somewhere are cruelly quelled by the NI No. insertion field.
They need this, apparently, to weed out scammers, fraudsters, terrorists and members of the Klu Klux Clan. So you start to insert the number and guess what?
The National Insurance Number field format is invalid.
appears as you type in the first number.
For those who don't know about programming a database to reject invalid formats, it's really pretty easy to do well. To display the red message as the first number is typed in is simply lazy and bad programming.
6. Finally, you're given the opportunity to provide a landline No., a Mobile No. and an email address. And just to prove that no one with an IQ above room temperature actually checked the form, the same gormless programming emerges as you insert the first character in any field.
The Mobile Phone Number field format is invalid.
7. Just to show the fun never starts, after pressing submit (if you've resisted the urge to throw the computer through the upstairs window whilst considering inventive ways to garotte the programmer with the keyboard lead) you're taken to the photo page where it starts with this:
Photo
You'll need a passport quality photo clearly showing your face so that drivers can recognise you easily.
As you start to wonder why the word 'easy' and 'this form' ever appeared in the same sentence you- decide, out of some futile hope, to read down the page.
Surprise. There - around two thirds of the page down - is your photo. And already pre-ticked is the option to
Use the photo from my previous pass.
Now, you would be forgiven for thinking that anyone who'd ever completed a form anywhere in their entire life would know to put the important information at the top. So it's the first thing the applicant reads.
Not, it appears, in the convoluted and mendacious minds of those who design online forms for Transport for Wales, it seems. No - making it the last option is clearly going to confuse far more people so there'll be lots of incomplete applications and frustrated would be travellers. Far more fun.
8. Next comes a very odd page. It offers to print any first name you want on your card. It might even cross the mind to ask them to print 'whoeverdidthisformisanidiot' as your first name.
9. The next page is for you to register how you want to be contacted by the WA, TFW, CCBC, the bloke down the road and so on. Just to prove the incompetents haven't been sleeping on the job, the final amusing confirmation of idiocy appears when you choose to reject all communications from all sources and simply click on 'submit'.
A dreaded red message appears demanding you select which language you don't want to be contacted in.
That's right. You've rejected all the communications options, yet it still wants to know what language not to send you anything in. Perhaps they're developing telepathy?
Now it may seem amusing, and to anyone who knows and understands moronic programming it's easy enough to deal with. But a lot of folk aren't computer savvy. A lot of folk will assume because it's from an official body it must be right, despite the form being littered with inaccuracies.
They were sufficiently stupid not to allow for the massive demand initially, so it crashed the servers. Now on the relaunched site they post this travesty of an online aplication process which wouldn't gain a grade 1 in the new GCSE grades.