Dial Direct Car insurance

grimaud

I agreed to renew my car insurance with Dial Direct and left my credit card details for them to take the first payment on 7th November. For future payments I set up a direct debit over the phone. Whilst setting up the insurance, I advised I had 8 years no claims discount, which the operator used to calculate my premium. However towards the end of the call, I realised it was only 7 years, which I advised her of. She apparantly was checking if this would alter the premium, and advised that it shouldn't affect it but that I should confirm it with my previous insurers. As soon as I got off the phone I rang my previous insurers who confirmed it was 7 years. I rang Dial Direct immediately and got through to a different operator who advised it would increase my premium by £61. I therefore decided that I didn't want to continue with the policy and asked him to cancel the direct debit and scheduled credit card payment. He refused to cancel the credit card payment saying he wasn't able to do this and I would have to do it with my credit card provider. Knowing this not to be the case I put this to him, he was very obstructive and adamant that he couldn't do this. I became more and more irate and he didn't handle this well at all. I asked to speak to a supervisor which he was reluctant to allow, eventually putting me on hold for a lengthy period and coming back to say someone would call me back (which they never did) because they had more to do than deal with me!!! I ended up very frustrated and upset and ended up hanging up the call. I called my credit card provider and they confirmed that I couldn't cancel a payment that hadn't gone through. I rang customer services at Dial Direct but the operator couldn't have been less interested and gave the same stock response that they couldn't cancel the scheduled payment. Today I checked my credit card transactions on line to find that a payment has gone through to Dial Direct on 2/11/11. I rang customer services at Dial Direct again but again the same response. The operator said that 3 out of the 4 times I had rung in it was I who was the problem and that I had used abusive language - which I hadn't although I was very irate. I am at a loss what to do. Any ideas??? I know for sure that I would never ever ever go near DIal Direct as I found their operators sadly untrained in dealing with complaints or difficult calls and they turn things onto the customer, they are rude, obstructive and definitely not customer-centric. I also feel I have no control over what has been recorded about me on their systems and feel that if my call had been handled in a different way then I would not have become so irate, they way in which the operator dealt with me was inflammatory.:eek:

forgotmyname

Do a chargeback on your credit card.