Automated Policy Renewal, Green Flag - **WON+costs 10/10 to GF**

[LeeJ26]

I'm hoping somebody can give me a little advice on this one. I have no idea on where to go with it.

 

The basics are this.

 

We took out a breakdown policy with Green Flag 2 years ago.

 

I'm 90% sure, they sent the renewal through the post last year and i paid it online.

 

This year, renewal time arrives and it slipped my mind to do it.

 

The policy expired at the end of August 2012. (We had forgotten when exactly it expired during the next part).

 

In September my step dad took the van up to Blackpool and whilst there, the wiper motor failed.

It was lashing down with rain, so obviously he called Green Flag.

They sent a guy out to have a look at it.

 

The guy arrives and diagnosed a failed wiper motor.

He says he will have to have the van recovered to the nearest garage and from there we can arrange to have it fixed.

My step dad refused this as it would have taken at least 24hrs for the garage to get the part in

and requested to be towed back home with the van as we can get it fixed cheaper by the garage next door to us.

 

He was advised that there would be a charge for the trip per mile.

He agreed at the side of the road to pay £108.00 to be recovered.

 

My step dad was recovered, we thought nothing more of the matter.

 

I picked up a reminder from Green Flag in October which was dated September, asking for payment or the policy would be cancelled.

 

I immediately called & gave them my apologies for the oversight and offered full payment.

 

I was abruptly told that as we had not responded within 7 days of the letter dated in September that the policy had been cancelled

and if i wanted to have a policy i would have to go through to sales and get a new quote.

 

Not particularly happy with how she had spoken to me,

i asked her why if we where members did we pay to be recovered from Blackpool and what we where paying for?.

 

She was quite rude again and i told her to forget it and that i will give RAC a call.

 

So i called RAC and took out a new policy for 3 vehicles and paid it in full.

 

Today we have received a letter from Green Flag, demanding £168.00 for this years policy.

 

I called them to explain that we had cancelled the policy due to what had gone on and they have stated that,

2 years ago we took out the policy online and there was a small tick box for auto renewing our policy.

We had to remove the tick from the box if we didn't want Green Flag to automatically renew our policy every year (which includes taking payment in full from the bank).

 

We changed banks earlier in the year so the account they tried taking the money from was closed.

 

The lady i spoke to is demanding the money or it will be passed to a debt collector?

 

I really don't want to pay this out of principal.

 

Surely if the policy had expired and they couldn't take the money out of the bank that should be the end of it?.

The lady i spoke to when i tried to pay them in October told me that the policy had been cancelled?.

 

I also find it quite underhand that they would have a tick box for you to "opt out" of automatically renewing the policy

and that it should be the other way round, you should have to tick the box to "opt in".

 

Can anyone help?

 

Sorry for the massive post

 

Lee

Edited November 13, 2012 by LeeJ26

[LeeJ26]

We also found out that the total premium for last year was only £112.00. It has increased to £168.00 because we have made a claim on the policy.

 

I informed the representative that we paid £108.00 at the road side on the day of the recovery, which she had no record of.

 

After digging out the receipt it turns out we where recovered by a 3rd party company,

which we had no knowledge at the time,

but if we have paid the 3rd party company due to us technically not being covered with the policy expiring in August.

How can Green Flag justify the increase in premium.

 

The same representative also told me that the engineer who arrived at the breakdown advised my step-dad that he could fix the failed wiper motor but my step-dad refused?

and told him he wanted the van recovering.

They then had no choice but to pass the issue on to a 3rd party as he had refused road side assistance.

 

After speaking to my step-dad, this statement was completely fabricated,

the engineer checked all fuses and then checked the wiper motor with his multimeter and diagnosed it as faulty, so needing to be replaced.

 

I asked her if she understood what she was telling me, when she advised me that the engineer said he could fix a failed wiper motor as this could only be done by a specialist company.

 

I also asked her why my step-dad would refuse road side assistance,

If the engineer could indeed fix a failed motor, It would have been quicker and cheaper to have it fixed and be on his way home.

As we where losing money for every hour the van was off the road.

 

She advised me many people refuse road side assistance for things that can be fixed and ask for a recovery which costs them more?.

 

Astounded and baffled that she was coming out with such nonsense,

we agreed to end the call.

[dx100uk]

very strong letter to the CEO me thinks

 

agree with all you are saying

 

you might have some worth in watching mondays watchdog daily too

 

though it did not mention recovery firms

 

it certainly put insurance companies in their place.

 

regarding such auto renewal issues.

 

dx

[MaisyMouse]

It's not the ticking of a box either.

 

With the AA, my fiance (boyfriend at the time) wanted to insure me on the same car

and found the quote from them was attractive.

 

A year later they have attempted to take the money out of both our accounts for renewing

(which works out at 35% higher than the nearest competition).

 

Their take on it is that one of us had to agree to listen to one of their salesmen

and agree to a particular sentence within their pitch on the phone, which automatically entered us into their agreement.

 

Luckily we have replaced bank cards/closed accounts in the past four months otherwise it would be in their clutches.

[LeeJ26]

very strong letter to the CEO me thinks

 

agree with all you are saying

 

you might have some worth in watching mondays watchdog daily too

 

though it did not mention recovery firms

 

it certainly put insurance companies in their place.

 

regarding such auto renewal issues.

 

dx

 

UPDATE:

 

I took the advice above and composed a very strong letter to the CEO of Green Flag, I mentioned all of the above and also that the whole scenario was being discussed on the Consumer Action Group Website. It was also noted the site had at the time of writing the letter over 332,000 members and was not very good publicity for Green Flag.

 

Monday we received a phone call from a Green Flag Customer Relations Manager.

 

They apologised for the level of service that we had received, cancelled the £168.00 they where chasing us for.

 

Gave £30 compensation and a refund of the £108.00 we had paid to have our van recovered in September.

 

Very happy with the outcome.

 

Thank you

Edited December 5, 2012 by LeeJ26

[dx100uk]

great result!!!

 

dx