Hi all. I am in desperate need of some help & advice, so after spending some time trying to find info off the net have ended up at the CAG forum. my car insurance was due for renewal on the 23rd of this month & I received an email from the insurance company saying that they would automatically renew my insurance & that I didn't need to do anything & it would all be done for me. Well the renewal quote was completely ridiculous (even though I was apparently getting some sort of huge loyal customer discount) so I shopped around & got a quote that was £200.00 cheaper & paid in full with the insurance to continue on the 23rd of this month when my old one ran out. I tried to contact the insurance company on a few occasions when I got in from work but the office was always closed by the time I got in, as I didn't want them continuing my insurance on the renewal date I requested "call back" from them, this call back never materialised, so I tried again, this time using their "contact us" page I was able to leave a message explaining everything to them & also had to include my Name, policy number, phone number & email address. At the end I received a generic message saying thankyou & someone would be in touch IIRC within 24 hours. I didn't hear anything back, so after a couple of more days I once again requested a "call back" from them & this time At last they called me back, I explained everything to the guy on the phone about trying to contact them & giving them the info etc & he passed me on to another department, I explained it all again & the guy said its too late now because the money was taken from my account on the 17th of this month I told him that it wasn't to late as I had not requested this & in fact had requested the opposite, & that I was already insured with someone else from the 23rd of October, he said would I like to cancel it then & I said Yeah Of Course! he then said he had cancelled it & he would refund the £549.19p back to my bank account. I asked if it would be straight back into my account & he said it could take up to 3 working days to show in my account but I would get it back (I had to explain the situation to a friend & borrow some money as I didn't have enough left in my account to cover my mortgage & other direct debits) Well that was all said on Monday 21st October, today is Friday 25th October & still no money refunded to my account. I contacted the bank & was Shocked at the (none existent) help I received from a sarcastic girl on the phone, I was told that because it was a card payment & Not a direct debit they couldn't do anything about it & nearly all insurance companies do it now & I would have been made aware of it when I renewed my policy last year (I certainly was not as I would have refused to allow them to automatically renew it without my permission) & was told that I should have cancelled it before any payment was taken & she also said if I did cancel any future payments from insurance companies, to realise that I would never be able to get insured with them ever again because the cancelation is permanent & cant be reversed. she said that she would contact the insurance company, & if they say that I did cancel it & they were supposed to pay me it back they would take it back on my behalf, HOWEVER... if the insurance company says it hasn't been cancelled & they weren't supposed to be refunding me, then there is nothing she can do about it & I would have to just sort it out myself with them???????? She couldn't give me any sort of timescale of when I would have the money back in my account or anything. And after the experience I have had & reading the horror stories on here about insurance companies ripping other people off, I now have serious doubts about them handing my money back to me anytime soon & it appears that if they ever do hand it back it isn't anytime soon & certainly without putting up a battle first. I seriously think that insurance companies should be set stricter rules on how they operate because it seems that a Lot of them are only a stones throw away from crooks/thieves. I'm ranting on when what I really need is some good help & advice on where I go from here in getting my money back, I just simply cant afford to lose £549.00 & the only reason I pay my insurance in one go is because I save it up over the year to save on the extra costs making monthly payments. any help or advice you can give is greatly appreaciated. Darren

Hi there. As its considered good forum etiquette to introduce yourself first, I just thought I would pop in here & post a hello thread. As you will no doubt have guessed I am in need of some advice due to an insurance company taking a very large sum of money from my bank account without my permission, but I best save that for the correct area. Anyway off to find the correct section to post it in so hello. Darren