AutoAid Car Breakdown Discussion

hbell86

The quality of the recovery service is highly dependent on which recovery company AutoAid choose. I recently had a terrible experience, when the recovery truck was so late arriving,and  couldn't fix the issue, he then towed me to within 4 miles of my house, to be told that he had run out of driver hours and had to leave me. He called this a relay service. The next company took a while to pick me up and then drive me the remaining distance to my house. In all a 5 hour waste of time, for a journey of 40 minutes. I won't be renewing, even if it is cheap. Its cheap for a reason. 

lightspout

I took AutoAid cover in 2017 and renewed again in 2018 and 2019. In February 2020 I received an email from them saying unless I wanted to cancel, they would automatically renew my cover. I wanted to maintain the cover so did nothing and assumed my cover had been renewed.
In May 2020, I broke down and telephoned to the AutoAid call centre. Very friendly, very helpful, they took my details and said they'd call back once they had contacted a local recovery service. They then called back most apologetic to say I had no cover as automatic payment renewal had been declined. They suggested I call customer services, which I did. Extremely unsympathetic, unhelpful woman said they had emailed me to advise of declined payment. I explained I had never received this email and would never let my cover lapse because I have an old car. She pretty much repeated word for word what she has just said. I had access to my emails in the car so checked both relevant email address inbox and junk folder. I found the renewal email but not any notification of declined payment. She pretty much repeated herself a third time. I said I was happy to pay the premium there and then and have it backdated to the expiry date. I also explained that I work for the NHS and needed to get back to my place of work - I was returning form the post office. Using a tone of voice that was extremely hard and unpleasant, she said it was my fault for not looking at my bank transactions and I should have realised no policy documentation had arrived. I recall lock down started around this time and looking at banks transactions and anxiously awaiting policy documentation  was not on my list of priorities.
I had to pay £70 for a recovery service to come get me.
Given my previous custom I resented being treated like I was trying to pull a fast one and shall never consider them as a recovery service provider again.

Sheriff23

The change Autoaid recently communicated regarding switching existing customers to auto-renewal is not legal.   It is not permitted to switch a customer to auto-renewal midway through a policy and expect the customer to opt-out (it is legal to allow them to opt-in if they wish), it is only permitted to inform the customer that auto-renewal applies at the time of renewal.  The FCA website confirms this!

MinuteNoodles

Wife's van broke down. Phoned up Autoaid, explained I was a mechanic, it was not a roadside repair and would need towing and that it was a Renault Trafic van so to send a 7.5 tonner. They phoned us back with an estimated ETA between 6pm and 7pm. 10 minutes before 7pm a 7.5t recovery truck turns up, guy confirms I was right and asks us where we wanted it taken. Takes us to a local garage we use which happens to be one he does some transport jobs for too as it's a small local chain of garages. 
Having had experiences of AA and RAC in the past had it been them after a few hours they'd have sent out someone in a van to come and look at it only to confirm that it did need towing and on a 7.5 tonner and then we'd have to wait another few hours for one to turn up. It made a refreshing change to have a call centre understand that the customer might actually have half a clue what they're on about and send what was asked for saving many hours of needless delays. 

reunited.18

I have cancelled my subscription to Autoaid as I have found them extremely unhelpful.  I have called them only once in the whole year - last summer on what seemed to be the hottest day of the year.  I was on my own, and my car had not broken down but I was unable to get a signal for Google Maps on my phone as I was in the middle of the countryside near Pocklington, trying to find the Madhyamaka centre.  When I called them, in distress, they refused to assist me in finding my way out of the very poorly signposted area I had found myself in.  I would certainly not recommend this company to anyone.

orrery

reunited.18 said:

I have cancelled my subscription to Autoaid as I have found them extremely unhelpful.

You cancelled Autoaid because they didn't provide you with a service that they don't offer and you hadn't paid for?

Pizza_Man

Received an email from autoaid yesterday that's making autorenewal the default for my policy, so a change to the T&Cs during my policy year. I'm surprised that this is allowed. 

If you get the same e-mail, there is a link near to the end of it that allows you to opt out (opt out from being opted in!). 

Autoaid enjoy being able to say that they are recommended by MSE... However, if I recall correctly, slavish loyalty and acceptance of auto-renewal imposed mid-policy year without express consent... I wonder what Martin would think about that.

Pizza_Man

Sheriff23 said:

The change Autoaid recently communicated regarding switching existing customers to auto-renewal is not legal.   It is not permitted to switch a customer to auto-renewal midway through a policy and expect the customer to opt-out (it is legal to allow them to opt-in if they wish), it is only permitted to inform the customer that auto-renewal applies at the time of renewal.  The FCA website confirms this!

thank you for this post. Can you please flag the part of the FCA website that precludes this action? Thank you.

jblackmore

I completely agree autorenewal email was cheeky, but I just clicked link on website to disable autorenewal, so not sure why people are up in arms about that.
I am more annoyed by price increases, I've been using autoaid since 2006, and have never called them out once in all that time.
2006 Cost was £32, which gradually creeped up, so 2014 was £38 a year which for personal cover including spouse I was very happy with.
In 2016 Autoaid was bought out by some insurance company I've never heard of, so price has ramped up steeply, I got no renewal sent and reviews were awful, so switched to LV breakdown cover with my car insurance for £19.63, but switched back  2018 as LV price jumped up crazy, so paid £43.31 for 15 months cover to autoaid on MSE offer, but 40% increase this year is definitely excessive especially for existing customers who never claimed/called out.
I do think they would be more sensible to let existing customers who haven't called out to renew at same price (+RPI maybe) - that's what I'd do if I ran insurance as I bet half the customers never claim so its just free money from them, which I'd just take.
New customers, I'd charge market rate - having looked around £59.99 I still couldn't beat for personal cover return to home/choice of garage, so I manually renewed anyway, but will just look around each year as I always do. 

CarlaJP

Hi, I studied AutoAid's terms carefully - their Partner rule stated that you both had to live at the same address. No problem there, my fiancé and I do. We were supposed to have been married in May, but the wedding had to be rescheduled due to Coronavirus. We have multi-car insurance, with both his and my cars on the same policy and both his and my names on the household insurance as co-habiting. We have no joint bills as the house was already mine so all household bills are paid by me, in my name, but his mobile telephone bill and wage slips, bank statements etc all show the same address as mine. Even though examples of these were provided, AutoAid flatly refused to accept us as partners because we don't have any joint bills. They even said that the council bill MUST be in joint names. It is not, it's in my name, but my fiancé is listed as living here - still no good to Autoaid because the actual bill is in my name alone.
I went back to them several times and they said that that is standard throughout all insurance and therefore they can't change it. Funny though how Admiral accept this for the multi-car policy. I even sent a copy of our wedding bans showing the same address - Autoaid would still not allow us to be partners - so I went to Gem instead.
I found them rude, unhelpful and dare I say it,extremely dense. I have no desire to go through all of that grief again - or inflict it on anyone else.