Robert Kamugisha had been desperate to sit his driving test. But the waiting list stretched for months, and every week without a licence meant more pressure - financially and personally.
So when he was offered earlier test dates for a hefty fee, he took the risk.
The 21-year-old criminology student from Croydon spent most of his savings - £726 - on three test slots, all bought through resellers who snap up appointments and sell them on at inflated prices. The actual cost to take a test is £62.
New government rules now mean only a learner driver can book their own test, part of a crackdown on third party operators using bots to hoover up thousands of slots. But it was too late for Robert.
"I spent most of my savings," he tells the BBC after passing in December, on his third attempt. "I felt like I was being scammed."
Driving instructors say the black market trade has exploded as waiting times across the UK have soared, and thousands of learner drivers have struggled to get driving tests without a long wait.
Figures provided to the BBC from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) earlier this week revealed the national average wait time for a practical driving test in April 2026 in Great Britain was 22.3 weeks.
Across the nations, Scotland's wait time was 22.9 weeks, in England it was 22.7 weeks, and Wales was slightly shorter at 17.3 weeks.
Robert says his driving instructor encouraged him to use a reseller to secure an earlier test date, reassuring him it was legitimate. The reseller logged in with Robert's details, booked the test, and the DVSA sent him a confirmation.
"Once I got the booking confirmation, that's when I felt a bit of relief," Robert tells the BBC after contacting BBC Your Voice. "The expense though was crazy."
Robert paid £242 per test, plus £150 each time to use his instructor's car, bringing his total cost to £1,176 - a figure that does not include the cost of his lessons.
Sophie Stuchfield, a driving instructor from Watford, tells the BBC the black market has taken advantage of the demand for earlier test slots.
"People have found ways to manipulate the system to be able to book thousands of driving tests themselves to then be able to resell on for a massively high inflated fee," she adds.
The use of automated booking programmes, or bots, has plagued the DVSA booking system since a huge test backlog built up during the pandemic.
Illicit operators moved in to exploit the demand and used bots to book tests on the official website and resell them.
Sophie has been added to messaging lists where third parties advertise driving tests for sale around Britain for hundreds of pounds.
"I've had 3,341 messages from people trying to sell me driving tests," Sophie says.
"Many people [learner drivers] message me on social media telling me that they are being asked to pay £200, £250, £300 for a driving test and sometimes it's unfortunately from their own instructor."
Sophie has refused to charge learners extra fees on the day of their driving tests to use her car, which has angered other instructors in her area who do.
She says some instructors wait until a week before a learner's test to tell them it's an extra £300 on test day to use their car.
"I've had phone calls from other local driving instructors in this area and they're asking me why do I not charge a fee to take someone on a driving test?"
"My response is always, 'I don't believe I should,'" she says. "I already feel sorry for that person on how much they're having to spend on learning to drive."
The new rules introduced this week mean it is now against the law for anyone apart from the learner driver to book their driving test with the DVSA and the government hopes this will stop third parties accessing the booking system using learner drivers details.
From now, it means anyone selling or changing a test on someone else's behalf will be breaking the law.
Those rules won't have a direct impact on waiting times for test slots, but should result in fewer wasted tests and help the DVSA measure where real demand is - helping the agency divert resources to testing centres that need it most.
But Carly Brookfield, chief executive of the Driving Instructors Association, doubts the changes will fix the problem.
She says the rule change scapegoats the majority of instructors who were doing the right thing, and she is already hearing reports of frustrated learners who now cannot be assisted by their instructor to book a test.
"There have been things the agency's done that have been productive to stop the rot of the bots," she tells the BBC. "But the reality is we've also got this massive test supply issue that if there's not enough tests going in, people will still not be able to get a test anywhere."
Simon Lightwood, the Minister for Roads and Buses, said the government had inherited record waiting times and a huge backlog of learners waiting for tests, with the system seeing too many people paying over the odds to third-party touts.
"But we're taking action and seeing results, delivering almost two million tests over the past year, more than 158,000 extra tests since June 2025, and military driving examiners now on the ground helping boost capacity across the country," he added.
Further changes will be introduced in June which will allow learners to swap their driving tests to only three of their local test centres.
