Sky Captain:
My top tip when you use those robot chat systems for companies such as banks or whatever is to over ride the robot and it’s round robin questions of getting nowhere is in the first instance submit ; Speak to an advisor or agent and keep repeating that request until a human is on a live chat .
You can always tell they are working from home as the background noise is not a call centre as you hear them tap away on their laptops.
I don’t know if this still works but it used to be best if faced with “Press 1 for Service, press 2 for appointments” etc to not press anything and eventually the system would think that you were calling on a rotary dial phone and connect you to a human.
There are various “secret” phone numbers and email addresses that you can use to get a fast-track to DVLA which you can find if you search online.