While I was on the blog-hiatus, I changed my car (though the 306 still lives with me!). I went from the RX8 to a nice, sensible, economical diesel Audi A3. Co-incidentally, the car change happened at the same time as my car insurance was due to renew, so I took it as an opportunity to shop around for a better deal.
Using the myriad comparison websites, I eventually did find a good deal, with Privilege. So good a deal, I opted to pay up-front, instead of by instalments. After a week or two, Privilege wrote to me to ask for me to send them some ‘proof’ of my No Claims Bonus. After enquiring with them, what this boils down to is a piece of paper from your previous insurer which says “Yes, this person has X years no claims bonus”.
So, I ring up my previous insurer, Esure and ask for this piece of paper. They’re very nice and efficient on the phone, and tell me that they’ll send it out and I’ll have it within a few days. Great stuff.
A couple of weeks pass and there’s no paperwork from Esure. There is, however, a stern letter from Privilege saying that if they didn’t get the ‘proof’ soon, they may have to charge me extra. So, I ring up Esure again and ask, again, for my proof of no-claims bonus. They, again, say they will send it, and that it’ll take 3-5 days.
I ring Privilege and explain to them what’s happening, and they say that everything is ok, and they’ll hold off on any excess charges for a little while longer while Esure sort themselves out.
My personal life turns upside down at this point, and car insurance is the last thing on my mind, and some more time passes – perhaps a month or so, and we come to yesterday. I receive another letter from Privilege saying that they’ll be debiting my account with around £500 within 7 days due to the no-show of this ‘proof’.
So, last night, I rang Esure again, once again requesting this proof. They claim to have sent me it twice over, and suggest I check with the Post Office as they believe my post may be being tampered with! Yes – because naughty posties are only interested in letters from Esure, and not anything more juicy.
They do offer to verbally tell Privilege (but only if Privilege phone them!) that I’m a good driver, but when I check in with Privilege, I find that they won’t entertain such frivolity and demand this mythical piece of paper again. However, they will entertain the paperwork in facsimilie form and give me a fax number. Great!
I ring Esure back again, armed with fax number – and to my utter astonishment, they claim that it’s their policy to only fax any policy details to a person’s own fax number! Back to square one. I have a sudden brainwave, and give Esure _my_ fax to email number – which, even though it’s an 0870-prefixed number, the Esure monkey does not question. I figure I can get Esure to fax me the document, then I can print it, and fax it on to Privilege. A kind of intra-insurance-company-fax-proxy, if you will. There’s a gap in the market right there, you know!
He assures me that the details will be faxed through “first thing tomorrow”, which I deem acceptable, as it is knocking on for 9pm by this point.
This morning, Thunderbird ‘bings’ at me as my fax-to-email folder recieves a new message, at 10:40. It is a fax! Hurrah! I open the fax….and it’s a blank sheet of paper. FOR FUCKS SAKE.
Hang on – it’s ok, there’s another one just popped into the mailbox – perhaps they screwed the first one up….and…no, that’s blank too. And, oh, there’s another one. It’s blank. And another… they send me 6 fucking blank fucking faxes one after the fucking other. Either Esure really, really have it in for me, or the spotty oik they’ve got manning the fax machine in their office is feeding it the paper upside down.
I’m angry now, and ring Esure to find out just what the fuck is going on. This is where it gets really, really fruity. Someone answers the phone, or, do they – they seem to be reading a script – like an answerphone message – “I’m sorry, the department you have called is unable to take your call right now. Would you like to phone back after 2pm?”. I’m still undecided as to wether it was a person or not, until the voice said “Is that ok?”
“No. NO. It’s bloody well not ok!”. What kind of absurd idea is it to have phone operators ANSWERING THE PHONE only to tell callers that they can’t help them? Surely this achieves absolutely nothing other than frustrating the caller? If they have a computer glitch, or technical problem – why not just say so. It’s a more honest excuse, and I just found it utterly incredulous that the bosses at Esure think this is a good idea.
The phone operator who helpfully won’t help me, takes down my policy number and promises to get things sorted, but I suspect I’ll be calling again later/tomorrow in a vain attempt to try and unfuck things.
What makes me laugh the most, however, is this. Esure’s customer services department operates out of a building at 19 Cadogan Street, Glasgow. Do you want to guess where Privilege operate from?
Yep, 18 Cadogan Street, Glasgow.
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