Halifax car insurance - direct debit hassles

ilesmark

Hi all

Just wondering if anyone else has been having trouble with Halifax car insurance.

3 Nov 2009 - took out car insurance for a year with Halifax, payable in 12 monthly instalments with direct debit.

Sep 2010 - renewal reminder from Halifax, telling me all I needed to do was nothing and the insurance would automatically renew on 3 Nov 10. Slight problem - they wanted to up the premium by over £300 PA even though I'd had no accidents/claims since taking out the old policy and the car had stayed the same.

Beginning of Oct 2010 - called Halifax to see if they'd made a mistake. Got throughly p--d off trying to get through to them - all I did was call the number given in the renewal letter and yet I got this rubbishy spiel about how they'd transferred their business to someone else so I needed to call another number which then passed me to a DIFFERENT number etc etc and 3 or 4 calls later I finally got through to someone who told me that no, there hadn't been a mistake. By now throughly incensed at being passed from pillar to post just to get told this, I said "this call is being recorded, right?" Call centre person - "yes it is". Me - "right, I'll pay the last instalment on the policy and then I want to cancel it from 3 November." Call centre person - "OK, remember to cancel your direct debit with your bank". Halifax's renewal letter had said to contact them if I didn't want to renew the policy, and so AFAIWC I had done so.

That same day, I cancelled the direct debit with my bank, who told me that it was too late to cancel the October instalment. That was fine, as the October instalment was the last one in any case. Found a new policy with another provider, set it to start on 3 November and off I went on holiday for a month.

Early November - returned from holiday to find a flurry of letters from Halifax giving me a blow-by-blow account of how first they hadn't been able to take the last monthly instalment from the Nov 09-Nov 10 policy as the direct debit had been cancelled, then that they hadn't been able to take the first monthly instalment from the Nov 10-Nov 11 policy as the direct debit had been cancelled, followed by a letter telling me 'we note you have cancelled your policy from 3 November 2010, however you still owe us the last instalment for the 2009-2010 policy'. Checking my bank statement revealed that only 11 instalments had ever gone out for this policy, so OK - my bank must have been a bit quicker off the mark than I thought in cancelling the old D/D. Sent them a cheque for the last instalment and that - I thought - was the end of it.

Monday this week - checked my bank statement (same a/c I used to pay the old policy from, from which the D/D had SUPPOSEDLY been cancelled), to find £67-odd taken by BISL. Called my bank to find out who BISL was - !!!!!! me, it's Halifax car insurance!

Yesterday - letter from Halifax enclosing my Certificate of Motor Insurance for my new policy from Nov 10 to Nov 11.

So not only have they failed to act on my cancellation request, but have also managed to take money from my account even though a) I cancelled the old D/D and b) took no action to set up a new one!

Thoughts?

Mark

hornpipe

The horrors of dealing with that pee poor outfit BISL! Beware!
h