Be Wiser dont use them

the_gorgeous_one

My husband took out car insurance with Be Wiser. He paid the deposit and the first monthly payment had gone out, he also received the certificate of insurance through the post, then on Friday he received a letter saying there had been a technical problem with the rate of premium we had been offered and they could not offer it at this price. When we phoned we were offered the new price of DOUBLE what we had initially been charged. They were not helpful on the phone they told us to phone the insurers who told us it was Be Wisers error so to phone them back.This led to a days phonecalls speaking to one obnoxious monkey after the next. No joy, it appears they are within their rights to do this. We contacted the ombudsman who will write a letter of complaint on our behalf but that is it. We have changed our insurance to Direct Line and now have to claim back our deposit from Be wiser but are being charged at the daily rate for the insurance. Dont go with them, it seems like a reasonable price but it wasn't.

nikkid28

I just cancelled my car insurance policy with 2 months left on it. First they said there was no refund but when I explained that their T&Cs clearly state that a refund will be given based on a pro-rata basis, I was offered £51 as a good will gesture. I asked for a breakdown of this amount and she said it was teh insurers refund minus a 25% fee from BeWiser. However the T&C's state a 15% fee. After 45 mins of being put on hold, cut off, waiting to speak to managers etc...I was told the extra 10% was their commission! I demanded the full refund as its states nowhere in the T&Cs that they take a 10% commission. So, my persistance finally paid off and I came away with the £59 I was owed. If I had simply taken their word for it in the first instance I would have come away with nothing!

BMTaylor

I paid by credit card the full price requested online and received an acknowledgement of the order via email confirming cover, later on in the post the docs arrived with the policy, confirming price, payment, statement of facts etc.

Then a later letter came saying the policy would be cancelled without verification of certain facts. I spent a time each day for a week phoning and being told the relevant person was not available to talk. They did phone me once when I missed them. Come Friday and the day of imminent cancellation at noon, I phoned them again and they said they would have to check if the price was still available. I said hang on I have a contract with you. Went round the houses, there was no change in the facts on which policy was issued in writing apart from agreeing to revalue the market value of car for insurance.

They said I would have to pay £300 in addition for insurance because their quotation system had made certain assumption about my continuous period of driving, which was incorrect. This was nothing to do with the stated facts used in writing for the insurance. So no problem with disclosure or accuracy. Gave me a choice of paying up or a full refund minus a hefty fee. I said no I have a contract with you and I expect you to perform it.

Ended up agreeing we were in dispute, I said I would phone FSA. Did so, FSA due to write to them, got back on phone to Be Wiser and said did they want to negotiate this or go down administrative route? They said policy was cancelled and advised me not to drive in case of police, accident etc., I said I am going out this afternoon and I would hold them in breach of contract and would seek to to recover any losses from them.

They phoned me back after about half an hour saying they would honour the contract at the price originally given. Docs to follow. They haven't turned up yet but it is the weekend before Christmas so let's see if they confirm postage on Monday morning.

At best it is a cockup, at worst they are gaming the price comparison service I used. Still it seems they are trying to evade a valid contract just because the price is too low for them

Shmurple

I took out insurance through be wiser just over a year ago. The price they quoted me over the phone was pretty reasonable and the letters they sent me quoted the same TOTAL amount payable, which included interest, commission, etc. However, the monthly payments were more than what I had been quoted and, when I checked, they added up to over £250 more than the TOTAL figure payable. On top of this, the numbers in the letter from the finance company were different again!

I rang them up and was told that the extra costs were for commission and another charge (which i can't remember now.) I mentioned that on the letter it said that the total amount covered these too. They tried to fob me off by telling me it was just the way the paperwork was written. I asked if that meant that I wouldn't be charged the amounts in the paperwork.....was told that I would. They said they'd sort it.......I then received another payment breakdown with HIGHER payments. I told them I wanted to cancel and was told that I would not get a refund of the £100 deposit I had paid and would still owe them around £70, despite still being in the 14 day cooling off period.

AGAIN, i rang them and pointed out that their terms and conditions state that I should only have to pay the £25 fee which was non refundable, when canelling within the 14 days. The man on the phone argued that they can charge me "whatever they want." I then told him, as they had changed the terms of the contract and I had not agreed to the contracts they sent me that I was not liable for any charges....he put the phone down on me.

A few phonecalls later they agreed to refund me the deposit but said it could take up to SIX MONTHS for me to receive it as it had to be sent to another office to be processed. I pointed out that they had a time limit to give refunds (think it's 30 days but I can't rememember now.)

So, a few weeks later when I had still not received the refund, I contacted them by email and was told that they were not preoccessing the refund until I had sent the insurance certificate. I told them that I wasn't sending it to them until i had received my refund and that I had spoken to my local police station who told me I could keep the insurance certificate, as long as I render it unusable by writing "cancelled" across it. Within 5 days I received my refund...guess they worked quickly to cram all that 6 months of work into a few days?!

dacouch

[QUOTE=BMTaylor;49457831
They phoned me back after about half an hour saying they would honour the contract at the price originally given. Docs to follow. They haven't turned up yet but it is the weekend before Christmas so let's see if they confirm postage on Monday morning.

At best it is a cockup, at worst they are gaming the price comparison service I used. Still it seems they are trying to evade a valid contract just because the price is too low for them[/QUOTE]

Do yourself a favour and thoroughly check the documents they send through, to make sure they have declared your details correctly and also they have offered the cover you requested. Especially check protected no claims bonus and the amount of excess as they may change these

Former_MSE_Forum_Manager

We've agreed to give Be Wiser a right of reply to help resolve the issues:

Dear the gorgeous one, BMTaylor and Shmurple,

We would like to take this chance to apologise for the bad experiences you both had in 2011. Be Wiser prides itself on strong customer care, and we’re sorry to hear our high standards were not met in these instances. Please do email dawn.g@bewiser.co.uk directly.

Dawn would very much like the opportunity to look into your concerns further.

Kind regards,

Be Wiser

forgotmyname

But this was March 2011 LOL

Well done..