Who to escalate complaint to after RAC?

Gleeful

Dripfeeding...how painful. I thought at least by the third page we would have had the full information in order to advise correctly.

hollydays

Yes, didn't want to go into detail yet posted about 18 times !

IndieSinger

Haha! Yes, I gave some of the details when asked, but I don't want to go into all the details as my request was to find out who to take a complaint to if one is unhappy with a response provided by the RAC, not a request for advice on whether the RAC's response was fair. I now have the information I need. Thank you.

IndieSinger

Pleasingly, they've now agreed to refund the full amount. Thanks to all for your help in the matter! It is appreciated.

vikingaero

IndieSinger wrote: »

Pleasingly, they've now agreed to refund the full amount. Thanks to all for your help in the matter! It is appreciated.

IndieSinger,

I'm glad that this has been resolved.

I just want to make you aware that if you need recovery in the future or your vehicle is unreliable then you need to take extra supplies with you for your children.

Pre around 2006/2007, if you broke down, the driver could take you from Lands End to home in John O'Groats in one go. Post 2006/7 recovery drivers are subject to the Working Time Directive. So Driver A could only transport you to a services where you might have to wait hours for Driver B finish a job and driver over to collect you and drive you to the next services for collection and so on. It can take hours and hours to get home using recovery these days.

IndieSinger

vikingaero wrote: »

IndieSinger,

I'm glad that this has been resolved.

I just want to make you aware that if you need recovery in the future or your vehicle is unreliable then you need to take extra supplies with you for your children.

Pre around 2006/2007, if you broke down, the driver could take you from Lands End to home in John O'Groats in one go. Post 2006/7 recovery drivers are subject to the Working Time Directive. So Driver A could only transport you to a services where you might have to wait hours for Driver B finish a job and driver over to collect you and drive you to the next services for collection and so on. It can take hours and hours to get home using recovery these days.

Good advice, thank you. We always have lots of supplies, don't worry. On this occasion, the drivers swapping over was due to the breakdown company not wanting to pay their driver overtime. He only drove us for about 15 minutes

DavidP24

IndieSinger wrote: »

Hi! I'll not bother you with the minutiae of my complaint to the RAC, just the basic details. The upshot is that I need to know who to complain to if I am unhappy with the RAC's resolution to a complaint.

When we broke down, we received terrible service from the RAC and ended up getting home (towed) 6.5hrs after breaking down. We have two young kids, one of whom is 15 months old.

Because we only have the very basic cover, we had to pay £238 to be towed. This is not the issue. The issue was with the awful service from the RAC and its contractors. At one point, we were abandoned in a service station for 1.5hrs.

I complained on the phone and was told all the calls would be listened to and the case would be reviewed.

After it was reviewed, I received an apology email and the promise of a cheque for £100. However, the apology didn't cover most of my grievances, only one small part. I also felt that £100 didn't cover my dissatisfaction.

They emailed back to say what they believe what they have offered to be fair.

On the RAC's website, it states that if you are unhappy with a complaint resolution, it may be able to be referred to the Financial Ombudsman. So I emailed back asking them to confirm that was their final response so that I could contact the Financial Ombudsman.

They replied with:

After the review, my manager has agreed with my decision and I am sorry to advise this decision remains and this is my final position. In your email you have advised you want to take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman. Unfortunately these concerns do not fall under their jurisdiction.

So the question is, where do I go next? They may well be right, that this grievance doesn't fall under the Financial Ombudsman's jurisdiction, but there must be somewhere else to take a complaint about the RAC?

Any help greatly appreciated. If any of the emails would help, I could copy and paste them.

Thanks!

You need to stop this talk of compensation and dissatisfaction.

Instead break it down into out of pocket expenses, breaches of contract, consequential loss as a result of their failure to perform as contracted.

You need to RELATE each of your issues to a particular part of the Policy, for example if they say they will do X in a specific number of hours or that they will not leave vulnerable people stranded for more than an hour. You could state that the Garage was not a fit and proper place to be dumped because someone did not want to pay overtime, I would have told the driver we refused to get out, they would still have to pay the overtime and even if he called the Police it would take hours for them to respond.

They have a pretty tight contract, it is essentially an insurance policy so I would have thought you would be able to make a complaint to ABI or that Financial Ombudsman would be involved if your case was valid

Failing that, they say on their site that they have ADR, now I know you say they say it is not for them, but rewrite your complaint making sure it does as I suggested above, put a value on the losses, e.g. your wife missed a shift at the hospital, your child caught the flu and required medical treatment.

Put a value on it and you can make a small claims courts claim.

Online Dispute Resolution

A dispute relating to goods or services sold online can also be submitted to the European Commission Online Dispute Resolution Service (“ODR”) via their website: http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/. The ODR is a platform which helps customers who have purchased goods or services online in the EU if a dispute arises. The ODR platform will send your complaint to a certified Alternative Dispute Resolution provider who works with the parties to solve the problem. For qualifying financial services products purchased in the UK this will be the UK’s Financial Ombudsman Service, and RAC does work with the Financial Ombudsman Service in connection with qualifying financial services products purchased in the UK.

LilElvis

DavidP24 wrote: »

You need to stop this talk of compensation and dissatisfaction.

Instead break it down into out of pocket expenses, breaches of contract, consequential loss as a result of their failure to perform as contracted.

You need to RELATE each of your issues to a particular part of the Policy, for example if they say they will do X in a specific number of hours or that they will not leave vulnerable people stranded for more than an hour. You could state that the Garage was not a fit and proper place to be dumped because someone did not want to pay overtime, I would have told the driver we refused to get out, they would still have to pay the overtime and even if he called the Police it would take hours for them to respond.

They have a pretty tight contract, it is essentially an insurance policy so I would have thought you would be able to make a complaint to ABI or that Financial Ombudsman would be involved if your case was valid

Failing that, they say on their site that they have ADR, now I know you say they say it is not for them, but rewrite your complaint making sure it does as I suggested above, put a value on the losses, e.g. your wife missed a shift at the hospital, your child caught the flu and required medical treatment.

Put a value on it and you can make a small claims courts claim.

Online Dispute Resolution

A dispute relating to goods or services sold online can also be submitted to the European Commission Online Dispute Resolution Service (“ODR”) via their website: http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/. The ODR is a platform which helps customers who have purchased goods or services online in the EU if a dispute arises. The ODR platform will send your complaint to a certified Alternative Dispute Resolution provider who works with the parties to solve the problem. For qualifying financial services products purchased in the UK this will be the UK’s Financial Ombudsman Service, and RAC does work with the Financial Ombudsman Service in connection with qualifying financial services products purchased in the UK.

...... or alternatively read the whole thread and discover from post #45 that the matter has been resolved and the OP has been promised a full refund.

EdwardB

No matter it will help others as might this

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/first-annual-report/resolving-insurance-related-disputes.htm