Diamond

ddavis

Hi all,

My girlfriend has had a few problems with diamond.

To cut a long story short they autorenewed at the end of july. This would have been fine but we received no notification and no renewal quote (as it happens they were a little more expensive).
We finally received a letter saying we owed 360 pounds because our card had been declined (i'll come back to this).

We contacted them to say RAC wanted 311, more than happy to stay if they match it. Somebody agreed but then we were passed from pillar to post until being cut off. We persevered and called back to be told we had to pay the full price because the policy was in effect. We were also told it was our fault that we didnt receive any post.

The man was rude to the point of putting my girlfriend in tears, she didnt call up for an argument - she just wanted to resolve the problem that diamond had created.

Now i'd be happy to pay them for the months insurance, despite the fact that the car was off the road anyway, but they want 97 for 1 months insurance. They are taking the michael and we wont stand for it.

I've looked at their terms and it says they will auto renew but it also says they cant guarantee it if 'they don't have explicit permission from the card holder first'.

Her mum originally arranged the insurance last october which is why we assumed it was up for renewal then, but she did a 10 month policy. As they live in Greece its difficult to just pop round and look at paperwork. The card belonged to my girlfriends father. He has never given them permission to auto charge it and they made no attempts to contact him for permission. Fortunately the expiry date had changed and the card was declined.

Surely they're breaking all kinds of laws by doing this? If I rang up and gave his card details they would ask security questions and want to hear him say yes you can charge my card so why do they think they can do it once a year willy nilly?

Does anybody know where we stand? I'm happy to give them 30 quid but i refuse to be taken advantage of because of their companies inefficiency. If they had sent us notice and we'd not acted on it then that would be fair enough but that isn't the case.

Thanks in advance...

fabbers

There may have been a verbal agreement re auto renenwal when the policy was first taken out i've been informed of this before also there is a possibility that the renewal details were sent to the card payers address so could be somewhere on their way to Greece. In regards to paperwork i'm a little surprised it's in Greece what happens if your girlfriend was asked to present documents at a police station, the cover note etc. should be in the possesion of the user of the car. Can her parents not fax a copy through so you can see what's what?

Automatic rebilling for recurring payments is not illegal but you would normally expect prior notification, the circumstances are a little strange with the bill payer being in a different country so maybe get in touch with them, but speaking from experience (my parent live in Spain) letters especially official looking ones, seem to take 3-4 weeks to arrive at their end.

ddavis

fabbers wrote:

There may have been a verbal agreement re auto renenwal when the policy was first taken out i've been informed of this before also there is a possibility that the renewal details were sent to the card payers address so could be somewhere on their way to Greece. In regards to paperwork i'm a little surprised it's in Greece what happens if your girlfriend was asked to present documents at a police station, the cover note etc. should be in the possesion of the user of the car. Can her parents not fax a copy through so you can see what's what?

Automatic rebilling for recurring payments is not illegal but you would normally expect prior notification, the circumstances are a little strange with the bill payer being in a different country so maybe get in touch with them, but speaking from experience (my parent live in Spain) letters especially official looking ones, seem to take 3-4 weeks to arrive at their end.

thanks for that, but i should clarify something (my apologies, i missed it out)

they do have a property in england where they lived when they purchased the policy. I personally check their post for them every 1 to 2 days because i drive past it on my way to work

diamond have no record of the greek address and they stated on the phone that it was sent to the old house

i honestly wouldn't mind if they had just admitted something went wrong, we obviously didnt notify you etc we'll meet your other quote as an apology - it was only 40 quid difference. But the rudeness blew it as far as our custom goes.

If she is ever asked to produce paperwork at the police station i'll just ring and ask for a cover note to be faxed. I know its not ideal but it'll do

ddavis

oh, and no auto renewal agreement - i know that one because he only answered their questions and gave the number...

ddavis

anybody?