AutoTrader Car Insurance

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So, the AutoTrader insurance was slightly better priced than some of the others I looked at, it was a respected name as a car magazine, so I thought I would give them a try. I checked out the price, the installments etc, so opted for £30 down and £15 a month - result.

Or rather, I thought proudly that it was a result.

It all started well. I got my cover note within a couple of days, so I was fine and dandy ...
...I had a letter from Autotrader promising they would look into this and I would have a full report by 15th January. Needless to say, I have still heard nothing, and they are still trying to get the double payment out of my account. I spoke to my bank to get them to cancel it when I got a nice surprise (I know sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but I think I've got to the point of deserving to use it). Apparently if it was a direct debit or a standing ... more

I had bought a replacement car when the old one went to that scrapyard in the sky, and was keen to find some value-for-money insurance. So, I went on a couple of comparison sites such as gocompare.com, confused.com and moneysupermarket.com. Some of the prices were pretty good, I guess since I have been claim free since passing my test in 1995, female driver, only doing the social, domestic and pleasure (i.e. school runs, grocery shopping, bill paying, ferrying elderly relatives about etc) so I decided to upgrade from Third Party Fire & Theft to fully comp. I had had a quote off the insurer I was with (Hastings) but they wanted £25 to change my policy and another £80 because I had gone from an N reg to a T reg. Hence, much cheaper to go elsewhere and tell them to shove it.

So, the AutoTrader insurance was slightly better priced than some of the others I looked at, it was a respected name as a car magazine, so I thought I would give them a try. I checked out the price, the installments etc, so opted for £30 down and £15 a month - result.

Or rather, I thought proudly that it was a result.

It all started well. I got my cover note within a couple of days, so I was fine and dandy about it all. That was when it started going wrong. I think it is probably best if I cut and paste below firstly the email dated 7th November (with read receipt that was never returned), and then the last letter I sent them at the present time, dated 15th November 2007, and sent by recorded delivery.

*****
7th November 2007

Re your letter which arrived this morning (dated 3 November 2007).

You ask for proof of NCD. This was emailed to you as an attachment on 27th October 2007 and I have a copy of the "sent" in my email programme as evidence. However, I will attach it yet again for your attention. I sent this NCD the minute you asked for it in your letter after a warning that I had been asked for it before - which I had not. The only previous paperwork I had had from you was my insurance certificate, which did not ask for my proof of NCD at all.

I am highly annoyed that in your letter you claim that because of my not sending the NCD (which I already have), you will more than double my premium and intend to take £33.04 from my account. double the amount originally quoted. I would suggest that you do not attempt to do this. As I have proof that I have already sent you my NCD, should this demand for extra payment leave me overdrawn, I will take action to recoup any overdraft costs incurred as this is an error not of my making.

It is not a good start to an insurance relationship that first I am not asked for NCD until your letter arrived on 27th October, and then when I send it on the exact same day as an email attachment, I still get sent a threatening letter telling me my policy cost is doubling because of an error at your end. It doesn't reflect well on your company at all.

I attach yet again, copy of my NCD for your attention and trust this sorts the matter.

Regards

*****

Follow-up letter:

15th November 2007

Dear Sir or Madam

Re: car insurance policy XXXXXXXX car reg XXXXXXXXXXX

I refer to your letter dated 11th November 2007 enclosing changes in insurance policy from £153.89 to £360.81.

I would wish to respond as follows.

1. In the email from Trader Publishing dated 12 October 2007, it stated I would receive details of how to apply for free warranty cover. No details of this have ever been received (see attachment "a").

2. When being sent paperwork (Certificate of Motor Insurance) dated 13th October 2007, my NCD was not requested at that time and I awaited details of what address and to what department my NCD needed sending to.

3. On 27th October 2007, I received a letter from yourselves dated 24th October 2007 stating that you were awaiting receipt of NCD. As I did not want to waste any more time, I used the email address on your paperwork which stated "Why not choose one of the following options to ensure we get the proof quickly. You can either post or fax your proof to us or, alternatively why not email your proof to ncd@insurance-system.co.uk". I scanned in my proof of full NCD (see attachment "c") and sent it to the given email address on 27th October 2007.

4. On 7th November 2007, I received another letter from yourself, stating you had not received NCD proof. I was surprised at this, since I had most definitely sent it by email and had an email in my "sent items" folder proving this. Your letter was dated 3rd November and threatened me with doubling my insurance and taking twice the amount of the original monthly payments from my account. Needless to say, I was extremely annoyed that your company had overlooked this, and having read the letter again, noted, "…. Or email us at ncd@insurance-system.co.uk" so again, I emailed the email address given, wanting you to receive the paperwork promptly in order to try to alleviate any potential problems, and attaching for the second time proof of NCD (see attachment "c" for exact copy email) on 7th November 2007. I sent the email with a read receipt to enable me to know when the email had been read. No read receipt has ever been received at my email address meaning no one has even bothered reading this email despite the time and effort I put into sending you my NCD proof a second time.

5. This morning, 15th November 2007, I received another letter from yourself, dated 11th November 2007, stating you are pleased to enclose updated documents. As you can understand, having gone to so much effort to send you the NCD on TWO previous occasions, I was absolutely incandescent with rage to find the "change in circumstances" is you not bothering to read my proof of NCD on the previous two occasions it was sent, and instead charging me the double payment for insurance in spite of my continued efforts to sort this problem by providing the requested copy of NCD stating I have ten claim free years, i.e. full no claims discount. This means in spite of my sending proof of NCD twice, I am still being charged double what I was quoted at through no fault of my own, indeed in spite of endless time spent by myself in attempting to get this sorted.

I therefore state the following.

• You have been sent NCD on TWO occasions - 27th October 2007, and also on 7th November 2007.
• In spite of this, you have still chosen to double my insurance cost for no reason whatsoever other than your company's failure to adhere to basic administration and actually bother to check your emails.
• In doubling the policy, should any payments you take incorrectly and without my permission to do so leave me overdrawn, then I will actively pursue a claim with your company to claw back any banking charges in making this unauthorised charge from my account in spite of me having sent you sufficient proof on sufficient occasions to warrant the original quoted cost of £153.89.
• You state in your policy that you will charge £20 for duplication of documents. Since I am now sending you a copy of my NCD for the THIRD time, then surely I should charge your company £20 for the second copy of NCD produced and sent by email on 7th November 2007, and a further £20 for the third copy I have produced and attached to this letter (send by recorded delivery), to cover my administrative charges. This will be to enable me to recoup my costs in chasing up and attempting to sort out your company's negligent mistakes.

For the third time, I now enclose copy of my NCD and trust this settles the matter. I look forward to receiving confirmation of the quoted rate of £153.89, for having the correct amount taken from my bank account, and sufficient financial recompense for my having to chase this matter up yet again and any payments taken incorrectly from my account.

I have to admit, at this current moment in time, I am torn over whether to cancel the insurance altogether with you, since you are obviously an extremely unprofessional company who invite policy holders to email their proof of NCD, and yet never bother checking their emails and then harass the innocent policy holders for documents they have already provided on several occasions. This is, I am sure you will agree, an extremely poor way to run a company. I will most definitely not be recommending your company to any of my family or friends.

Yours faithfully
XXXXXXX

********

As of today's date (20th November 2007), I have still received no response. In spite of this company having my email address, telephone number and address, I haven't heard a thing from them, and yes, a payment of £33.04 has been taken from my account instead of half of that which I had been quoted.

Needless to say, I wouldn't pee on this company if they were on fire. The matter is still ongoing. I wouldn't recommend them to my worst enemy. I say avoid this bunch of amateurs at all costs.

It is a shame the lowest rating is one star, because they could do with negative stars as they are worse than zero rating.

UPDATED 10TH JANUARY 2008

Once again, I had to send these blundering idiots a nudge as the four week deadline passed by without hearing from them. And yet again, another amount of £33 was taken from my account instead of £16. I have now paid six months worth of insurance at the quoted rate in three months. I received a letter saying they are still looking into the matter. However in responding to that letter, they acknowledge that I sent them the NCD proof yet again, and yet again they have done nothing to change my insurance payments to what I should be paying. Can you imagine the gross incompetence of a company who have now received my proof of NCD FIVE TIMES in three months and have still not sorted this out? They are still taking twice as much from my account as they should, they have made no attempt to change that because of the proof of NCD, instead concentrating on why it went wrong in the first place!

Needless to say, the FSA (financial watchdog) are getting a copy of all this. This is probably about the worst company I have ever had the misfortune to deal with, and there is a lot of competition for that!

NOW UPDATED AGAIN - 16TH JANUARY 2008
Yes, this is still ongoing! I had a letter from Autotrader promising they would look into this and I would have a full report by 15th January. Needless to say, I have still heard nothing, and they are still trying to get the double payment out of my account. I spoke to my bank to get them to cancel it when I got a nice surprise (I know sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but I think I've got to the point of deserving to use it). Apparently if it was a direct debit or a standing order, I could cancel the payment, no sweat. However... Autotrader, unbeknown to me, did not put in for a standing order or a direct debit, instead for reasons best known to them, they are just taking a monthly payment straight from my debit card. "What's the problem with that?" I hear you say. Well, I asked myself the same question to be honest. The answer was... well... I'll explain and you can make up your own mind. If it comes out of my current account by standing order or direct debit, I can cancel it either online or over the phone. Because it comes straight from my debit card, I can't cancel it, I am not allowed to cancel it, and neither can my bank, the only way round it is to politely write to Autotrader (again) and ask them to change it to a standing order or direct debit. and then once it is set up to come out of my account that way instead of my debit card, then I can cancel it! WTF??? Well, since I have been sending them my NCD for three months without them actioning it, any guesses how likely this is to happen? So here I am, with a company taking twice what they are meant to from my account, and neither I nor the bank can do a single thing about it. Now either I am mising something here or the bank is. You can only imagine how frustrating, annoying and upsetting this is, and the complete feeling of impotence that I can't stop a company illegally taking money from my account under false pretences, and to my mind that is theft, and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. Even writing to them and cancelling my car insurance will not be guaranteed to stop them taking this money - after all, how much notice have they taken of the four copies of the NCD I have already sent them?

Well, the bank has said they will send me a form to fill in, and if I can send them all paperwork relating to this, and they might see if there is anything they can do (but are not hopeful), and so the story rumbles on and on and on, I get poorer and poorer and more upset. 

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