Albany Assistance

Conderned

There was no offer of re-arranging the date, the letter stated " YOU MUST ENSURE YOU KEEP THIS DATE FREE " in capital letters. I explained that I could not attend on this date & asked for the date to be re-arranged & was told not to worry as the case is likely to be dealt with out of court before the date even comes around. Why would Albany abandon the case without speaking to their own solicitors first as the date Albany sent me a letter stating that I am liable due to not co-operating the solicitor said the above that not to worry as it may not even get to court? Am I entitled to a re-scheduled date?

straighttalker

Months before sending the letter to you about the date of the Court hearing, the Court would have sent a form called a Directions Questionnaire to all parties involved. At this stage, Albany's Solicitors should have contacted you to ask for your dates of availability. Did they do this and did you give any dates of non availability? Or did you just pig headedly say you wouldn't go to Court due to "work commitments"? The majority of people work. If they've involved in a Court case and have to attend, the Judge will not accept this as a valid excuse for non attendance.

Moving the Court date isn't down to Albany, it's down to the Court. The party that want's the date moving has to make an application to the Court which is heard before a Judge. Good reason has to be given. Albany will have to pay the costs of the application as well.

I doubt that Albany will have just discontinued their action either. If they did this and their claim for damages is over £10k (above the Small Claims limit), they will automatically have to pay the other side's costs.

In light of the above, this Court case is not going to go away. If you attend, and they did not make a full recovery, they probably won't go after you for the balance. If you don't attend, they'd be will within their rights to pursue you. Something you should have thought about before you took the keys to that nice shiny hire car.

Conderned

Thanks for a detailed response. I spoke to Albany assistance, their solicitors & Admiral aswell as Citizen Advice & have had some better light shed on the matter. This was as follows :-

Solicitor states that he has not received my statement yet & was quick to say that it may have been lost in the post( this was the statement that I received on 20.1.16 spoke to him to advise it was incorrect this was discussed in Dec 15 also , he stated that not worry & to amend & return )

Citizen advice- lodge complaint which I have done & if not happy with response to take it to Financial Ombdsmun who will review case & make judgement

Admiral - said that as I was their customer at the time they will look into this & fully investigate. I have also lodged a complaint for mis-sold services as why they put me through to Albany assistance without informing me of risks is poor financial conduct as I was shown a sales tactic of "claim through us & you pay excess & if you deal with Albany then you don't pay a thing" I only found out after the hire car went back & I was requested to attend court that I was dealing with a credit hire company where if fair conduct was carried out by Admiral at inception they shouldn't be placing customers in the line of potential debt if they have established that the third party has admitted fault at the scene.

After waiting for a response, I received an email from Albany stating that the solicitor made me aware on the 22.1.16 that there was no indemnity on the case as I corrected my statement which was a paragraph stating that I bought a car after the hire car was sent back which they the solicitor felt jeopardises the case as it shows that I did not need the car. The solicitor confirmed that Albany abandoned the case but stated that he was "shocked" why Albany would do this and pursue me for the money.

I explained to Albany that I had'nt even stated that I bought a car straight after as its not part of the conditions that I must buy a car for myself straight away( I bought a car 3 months later after lots of car viewings in order to find something reasonably priced)

After all of the above, Albany state that it would appear that their solicitor will require further investigation as by law he can not withdraw the case without informing me first( the last conversation was "send the statement back with the amendment & this should be settled by the third party insurer before the court date" & that he will need to prove that he has informed me of the fact the he has withdrawn the case to court & advised the third party Insurers that there will be no court date & the case has closed.

Albany state that they will set up a conference call with myself, Albany & the solicitor which would start the ball rolling to show the dis-honesty & mistake made by the solicitor & that in order to cover his own back he has tried to blame myself who led not forget was the one who was involved in a NON-FAULT CLAIM.

Albany confirmed that if it turns into a case of his word against mine, he will be required to prove that he informed me. He also stated that I have been fully co-operative as this was what Albany original claimed was the reason for being liable for costs however he did not want to put this writing to me. I was not asked at inception what dates i can not make it & even when I advised the solicitors of being unable to attend on this date I was told " don't worry it's likely to be dealt with prior to going to court, we just put a date down to put pressure on the third party insurers" .

In summary, Albany claim that the reason that hold me liable at present is due to the solicitors stating to them that I did not in his optinion require a hire car to begin with due not buying a car directly after the hire car was returned, a completely inexperienced unbalanced view of the situation! & it is SOLELY that this is the reason that the court case was decided to be abandoned not that fact that I advised that I was unable to go to court as according to Albany I should have been properly informed of the severe importance of needing to go to court which I never recieved or advised & was repeatedly told that " it would be ok just return that statement "

EdGasket

What you say about Admiral/Albany and the referring of non-fault claims to Albany is dead right. I would be interested to hear Admiral's response.

I was told the same thing as you ref. "use Albany and you won't pay anything" so it appears as though the Admiral customer has no choice in the matter but to use Albany when in fact you could just as easily use any claims management service.

When I was 'forced' to use Albany I fortunately didn't need a hire car as mine was still driveable however apart from confirming the TP's insurers, Albany did absolutely nothing and I had to sort it all out myself with the TP and the TP insurers including threatening court action against the TP. All this should have been handled by my insurer but it was more effort trying to make Albany do something useful than to do it myself. Every time I spoke to Albany it was someone different and I was just getting fobbed off so they could put the phone down.

What I am not clear about is where the insurance 'legal cover' comes in. I did have legal cover but at no time was I offered the help of a solicitor by Admiral to chase up the third party; I only got referred to Albany who were 'handling it'; yeah right they were; not.

straighttalker

OP, thanks for the more detailed info.

Yes it looks like the fact that you bought a car months after handing the hire car back to Albany will be severely detrimental to their claim. The question which will be asked in Court would be if you managed without a car after the hire car was sent back, why did you need a hire car in the first place? This is obviously no attack on you, just a likely scenario.

It'll be likely that Albany's Solicitors will be reticent to disclose this statement and will try to settle first. If they get any recovery of a proportion of their outlay, they will deem it a success.

You've got to remember that one reason their hire charges are so high is that they expect them to get knocked down by the paying party.

I highly doubt they will run this to a final hearing and at the latest will settle at the doors of the Court.

straighttalker

Ps, apologies for being sharp in my previous responses. In my previous life, I was a Defendant Solicitor who used to dispute hire charges like this...

captainawsome

Some encouraging news from my end too OP. I contacted Albany today after reading this thread and by pure coincidence was told a third part offer was accepted on 28th Jan and the case closed this morning. As people often say the increased offer come after the solicitors got involved and the threat of court, luckily it never got that far. Best of luck with your situation, sounds like the solicitor is well out of order. Please keep us posted

LM9

I was foisted onto Albany a few years ago after a non-fault claim with Admiral. On reading the t&cs for the hire car it was clear it would be impossible to comply under any circumstances and so meant I could not with any honesty accept the car.

So I spoke to Albany who confirmed the t&cs did indeed mean pretty much that and if I made a false declaration by signing up to impossible to fulfill criteria then they would pass this on to the authorities and other insurance companies and recover any losses directly from me.

I can't remember the exact details of the impossible conditions but it was something like I had to sign up that there was no other possible options for me to get around such as public transport, lifts from friends and family or taxis whilst also minimising costs (so generally procluding taxis / trains for any long trips as their hire car would be cheaper, however I couldn't use their hire car as there was another option, namely taxi).

I contacted Admiral who took the claim back and provided a hire car under my guaranteed hire car provision which had only reasonable and acceptable conditions assigned.

captainawsome

LM9 wrote: »

I was foisted onto Albany a few years ago after a non-fault claim with Admiral. On reading the t&cs for the hire car it was clear it would be impossible to comply under any circumstances and so meant I could not with any honesty accept the car.

So I spoke to Albany who confirmed the t&cs did indeed mean pretty much that and if I made a false declaration by signing up to impossible to fulfill criteria then they would pass this on to the authorities and other insurance companies and recover any losses directly from me.

I can't remember the exact details of the impossible conditions but it was something like I had to sign up that there was no other possible options for me to get around such as public transport, lifts from friends and family or taxis whilst also minimising costs (so generally procluding taxis / trains for any long trips as their hire car would be cheaper, however I couldn't use their hire car as there was another option, namely taxi).

I contacted Admiral who took the claim back and provided a hire car under my guaranteed hire car provision which had only reasonable and acceptable conditions assigned.

Wish I had read those before I signed, luckily nothing worse than opening my eyes to these horrible companies happened. Sounds to me like Albany have there bases covered enough to claim back from the hirer if the case falls through for almost ANY reason. It's so easy to fall into the trap of accepting these rediculous t+c's without fully reading/understanding, I done it myself but it will not happen again.

Conderned

It sounds like, & I mean this with the greatest of respect, that you gave up too early. We are lucky enough to have government regulators that are free to use & that they have powers to fully investigate matters like these & make judgement not just based on technicalities but also on how fair was the consumer treated. If a regulator (in this case financial ombudsman) feels that the consumer was treated unfairly & the practices of Albany are concerning & mid-leading in the interest of the regulators opinion than the have the powers to impose conditions with a time frame to Albany to change their working practices, this is generally why unfair financial businesses do not want the Financial Ombudsmun sniffing around them as it could potentially cost them 100's of 1000's in loss of future income, compensation & high costs in staff training.

In my case, there was no conference call as per my last post as the solicitors havegona a bit quiet knowing that they should have informed me of a discontinued court case. By law that have to inform me & obtain my consent in writing that I agree to the discontinuation otherwise they cannot apply for the discontinuation & if they have done so on this occasion which is what has happened, it's a breach of procedure & Albany are likely to hold their own solicitors liable for the outstanding charges rather than me as they are aware of this procedure aswell & they severe importance of following this procedure.

This procedure can be found on the ministry of defence website under section 38 Dis!!!!inuous, part 38 section 38.3.

I'm gona assume at this stage that I will be having a conversation with Albany & will update once recieved