Aviva appalling customer service in the UK...you need to be aware

RichardB1

Good god, I'm experiencing how bad they are. I've been trying for a week or so to speak to someone to cancel my policy as I'm moving house. So far I've spent about 3 hours listening to music and have yet to speak to a living soul. Do they actually employ anyone?! Thankfully my renewal is up this month too so I'll just be cancelling the direct debit, but I can say with some confidence that I'll never be putting any business their way for the rest of my life. Perhaps they should stop paying Paul Whitehouse for this appalling ads and actually employ someone in Customer Services!

Mr_Man_Full_of_Love

RichardB1 wrote: »

Good god, I'm experiencing how bad they are. I've been trying for a week or so to speak to someone to cancel my policy as I'm moving house. So far I've spent about 3 hours listening to music and have yet to speak to a living soul. Do they actually employ anyone?! Thankfully my renewal is up this month too so I'll just be cancelling the direct debit, but I can say with some confidence that I'll never be putting any business their way for the rest of my life. Perhaps they should stop paying Paul Whitehouse for this appalling ads and actually employ someone in Customer Services!

You still have to be careful to cancel the policy when the re-newal papers come through. Cancelling the direct debit won't cancel the policy. If they don't hear from you they'll just re-new it automatically.

Skie_2

I too have had fun and games with Aviva.

Their voice recognition worked fine for me (and I'm a Scouser!) but then having to repeat everything anyway to each human you speak to made it completely irrelevant.

Called up recently as my renewal was £200 higher than last year and £300 higher than quotes from AXA among others. First time I got through to "Steve" from India, who spent 15 minutes doing not much then said that their IT was down and could I call back in 30 minutes. Erm, great!

Called a few days later, got through to a UK call centre and went through everything again but they couldnt match the AXA quote, all they could do was send me £40 of high-street vouchers :rotfl:. Told him to cancel my renewal, and noted down where to send the notice of cover to. Which I sent straight away.

Then today (just over a week after the second call) I get a letter from Aviva with £40 worth of vouchers in it. Checked my policy online to see if they had actually cancelled the renewal and yep, its all blank. So it looks as if their incompetence can actually work both ways!

I seem to have great luck when it comes to cancelling insurance. Last time Admiral refunded me £400 more than I had paid them after I cancelled my insurance in the first month of the second year with them (changed car, they quoted me a crazy number for it so I went with Aviva who were cheapest). :A

Chris1001

Voice recognition still has some way to go yet methinks. Type 'voice recognition elevator' into YouTube - sorry am new here so am not allowed to do links.

georgiethejudge

My Aviva endowment life policy, that was held for the full 30 years, was due for maturity on 1st March 2011 and all the papers were signed and returned well in advance of this date. They then wrote to confirm everything they needed was received by them.

On the date of maturity no money came and I rang them. Their customer service rep said the maturity date simply meant the date the policy ended. Their website glossary of terms says maturity means the date the money is payable which is the same as what common sense says. It seems after their computer has confirmed the amount payable they need need to check it manually!!

She went on to say they operate within what the FSA permit in time terms and I may get paid out within three weeks.

I worked for this firm when it was General Accident and not run by people who have been responsible for having to pay huge fines to the FSA for compliance transgressions and have to come on the radio with public apolgies for poor security processes.

When will they ever learn that the people will never recommend a new customer when the existing ones are treated like an annoyance?

dacouch

Ahhh an old GA man, they were the days, a proper Insurance company with a different kind of staff and customer

brimil

Hi all from a moneysaving newbie!!! It has been a most interesting read! Thought I'd let you know that I'm fighting Aviva over their endowment mortgage product. I've got a 25 grand shortfall on a 57 grand product! Currently utilising the FSO, FSA, MP- the works.
I have started a facebook complaints group. If anyone would like to contribute, feel free. It will sort of database the info. Put 'anti aviva complaint gripe group' into google and you will find it. It's actually for endowments but if I get enough traffic I will alter the terms.
Best of luck everyone.
They really are the most awful company.