HELP Need advise about mobile insurance

jeanuk

Hi, i bought a brand new galexy s3 at the begining of january 2013 and nerver had no insurence on it,so i looked around the internet and found a company called big warrenties,and it cost £6.99 a month to insure my mobile for loss or damage so i thought the price was reasonable so i signed up and paid by direct debit. Then in june went on holiday with my family to flaminngoland theme park and my bag was stolen,so i rung the police and reported it because it had all my credit cards and money in plus my mobile phone and other belongings.

The police told me to report all my credit cards stolen and to get my mobile blocked,so i did it stright away.

Anyway i came home early because it had spoilt my holiday,and about a week whent by and i remembered i had mobile insurence,so i gave them a ring and told them my mobile had been stolen and they started asking me a load of stupid questions but in the end they said do i have a crime number and i said no so they told me i need to ring the police and get a crime number so after a couple of days rining around i managed to get a crime number ,so i rung big warrenties back up and gave them the crime number and then they made me wait about 20mins and then they told me i need to pay the full outstanding premium for the year in full plus £50 excess before they would send me a new replacement phone out,i was totaly shocked when they told me this but i paid it anyway.

So couple of weeks went by and i receieved the new galexy s3 it came in a jiffy bag and when i looked at it looked like it had been used and there was no plasic cover on the main screen and there was was scrathes on the screen and scruff marks on the case and when i powered it up it had loads of apps installed and it had other peoples numbers,and when they told me on the phone the said they were sending a brand new phone out,so i rung them stright up and told them and they were just trying to fob me off saying that all the phone are all tested before the go out so really they are just reconditioned phones,but when i rung up before they told me they send brand new phones out,i never got no charger box usb lead and had to go out and buy all the leads again,so i would never use them again and they made me pay the full premium in full in one payment.

After deleting all the apps and phone numbers and doing a factory reset i put my sim card in and it was having problems reading the sim,so i cleaned the sim and blow into the sim slot on the phone and still wudnt read the sim card after a bit of messing about i got the phone to read the sim but sometimes it wudnt detect the sim card and then a couple of days later the phone kept freezing and the only way to get it to work was to take the battery out and put it back in and some times it would be ok for a couple of days but in the end it was doing it all the time losing signal freezing,so i decided to take it to a phone shop and they told me there was a problem with the internal sim card reader and also said it has a faulty board and he cudn't fix it.

So in the end i just bought a cheap payasyou phone and i sold the s3 on ebay for spares or repairs and got £45(lost alot of money on that phone)


So that was it thought it was all over untill march this year 2014 i noticed that big warrentys were taking 6.99 a month out of my account withount my permission and i dont even have the phone nomore,never received any mail or email or anything off them,so i rung them and asked them why the have started a new 1 year mobile phone insurence contract without my permisson and the said they said they sent an email asking if we want to start another years insurence with them,and i check my emails every day and never recieved any email from them and i have even scanned all my emails and not had one off them ,just one when i forgot my password to login,

And they said because we never replied to there email they said that was a sign that we wanted to go ahead with a new contract.

I am 75 years old and i have never had any trouble like this,i have rung them a couple of time and they said that i carn't do anything about it and i had my family even go though the emails and there is no email from them.


Sorry for going on but can anyone give me some advise please because its really getting me down thankyou.

powerful_Rogue

I dont understand what you mean by "stupid questions" - Im presuming they were trying to establish deatails regarding the situation of your claim.

As for paying an excess and the remainder of the years policy upfront, thats usually general for all polices if you make a claim - its certainly noted on their website.

You cannot claim within fourteen days of the policy becoming active, if you claim after this point you will be required to pay an excess of £25 for phones of value £400 and under, and £50 for all other phone values. If you are paying monthly you will be required to pay for the remainder of the twelve month period of your contract before a successful claim can be made.

As for the issues you had with the replacement phone, you should have continued to chase this up with them. The fact you gave up after one call and sold the phone as faulty is unfortunately your problem.

Most companies have an auto-renew policy. Have you phoned them back up and asked them to cancel the policy? If so, what did they say?

This is what it says in their terms and conditions:

We will contact You at least 21 days before the date this Policy is due for
renewal (and on each subsequent ann
iversary thereof) to notify You that this
Policy will renew automatically. We will take payment for the renewal Premium
plus any annual increase we decide to apply from You unless You ask Us to
cancel this Policy prior to the renewal date

Did you check your junk/spam mail? The email may have gone there.

If you havent, it will just be a simple call asking them to cancel the policy.