Motorcycle Insurance Refund advice

wrtscotland

Hi,

I took out motorcycle insurance with Bennetts on the 11th January 2013 as a new customer to the company.

I was asked for proof of NCD which I send and also emailed (as they didnt recieve the letter) after they proposed to take a further £208 from my account on 9th February and put my no claims back to 0 years.
Prior to emailing this proof I verified with customer services on the 8th February that if I emailed this as postal copy still had not arrived then the £208 would definately not be charged, which they said yes to.

Few days later I got an email with new documents stating NCD - 0 years.
I checked my bank and found a payment of £208 pending.
I was straight onto customer services and explained everything. I was told they will attempt to stop the payment failing that the accounts department would sort out a refund on Monday 11th February. This refund would take up to 7 days.
The result of the charge was they failed to link the recieved email with the NCD to my account in time as it was a different department that deals with each item.

Go forward 7 days and no payment so I called customer services again to be told that other than email accounts there was nothing they could do and it would take another week to refund the charge.
The next day I called again as still no payment to be told accounts are still dealing with this and the customer supervisior emailed them. It should be in my account by 22nd February.

Is this right that they can keep a hold of my money that they took from my account due to a fault on their part for so long and should I write a formal letter of complaint?

Ximian

Hmm surprise surprise, the same thing happened to me with Bennett's as well! I sent them a renewal notice from my other insurance company which clearly displayed 9 years of NCD and then I got a letter in the post reminding that I still need to submit proof (which I no longer had) I phoned Bennetts, told them I had already posted the letter which they claim they never received and then I provided the policy number of my previous insurer and they contacted them while I was on hold, all sorted in 5 mins.

I wouldn't be happy if I were in your shoes, in my opinion they should have notified you to either cancel your policy or requested additional payment for 0 years NCD but not go ahead and deduct the money without your authorisation.

wrtscotland

Forgot to mention they did send a letter stating the proof of NCD hadnt been recieved and would increase the premium by the £208.
That was why I called customer services about it and ended up emailing a copy of the document (I never send originals)before the date the payment was to be taken. To prevent the payment being taken but it didnt work.
It seems each department can only email each other and customers cant talk to anyone other that customer services as I requested to talk to the accounts department due to customer services not being able to help me.