Privilege insurance - Cheques in the post

azkido

After some advise as had my car written off in a non fault accident, privilege confirmed they were paying for my car & received a text from Privilege on Wednesday the 30th of Jan stating cheque had been posted, so foolishly started my car search (assuming it would be sent first class so with me Thursday / Friday at the latest) find car and put a deposit down, arrange with work to leave early the following Tuesday (5th) to collect the car, then start having daily calls chasing the cheque from privilege & returning home daily from work at lunch to see if the cheque has arrived, spend hours over the weekend speaking to family / friends to get a loan if needed if the cheque does not arrive, and speaking to my bank to arrange an overdraft, borrow money and collect car on Tuesday so I don't have to rearrange time with work etc, cheque finally arrives on the 6th of Feb and low & behold the letter and the cheque are both dated the 31st (with no postmark on the envelope). I complained as this is basically them lying to me that the cheque is in the post, their response is they are sorry but nothing they can do but pass feedback to the business, I contact the FOS who say as I am not a policy holder they can't do anything.

So any ideas what i do next as this behaviour is despicable & has caused me lots of stress (resulting in a migraine), time and money... Also does not feel to me they are doing anything to change there system to avoid it happening to other people?

Many thanks in advance

Sam

P.s Privilege's suggestion was the small claims court but that feels like overkill? Has anyone else been through the small claims court? Is it worth it or do I just walk away and put it down as a bad week or two?

Quentin

Assuming that privilege are the third party insurers then you have been advised correctly (FOS cannot intervene, and your other option is to take legal action to get redress)

forgotmyname

Not much you can do, you would have had a cause for complaint if it was your insurer but as it was the 3rd parties insurer then you have little comeback.

A week for the cheque to arrive is a little slow but not unexpected. It would have gone through their postal system and i guess their out tray for refunds takes 2nd place to the letters going out demanding money.

You could claim from your own insurer next time and let them wait out the refund from the 3rd party.

azkido

Thanks for the responses, yes Privilege are teh 3rd parties insurers, my big issue is that they informed me via SMS / text they had posted the cheque but the cheque was dated the following day, assume this is system generated SMS / text so can't just be me this happens too... but there response is sorry nothing we can do...

Just amazed in this day and age a company can get away with this behaviour, I think I just need to forget about it but has got under my skin wasting so much time Arghhhhh

paddyandstumpy

Did they say they've authorised settlement or actually sent the cheque? They are very different things.

Also, what are you planning on small claims for, because the cheque was dated one day after they text you...?!

azkido

They stated the cheque had been posted, which i presumed meant it had left them already... New to this insurance malarchy so never had to claim for anything like this... Just shocked as they basically lied to me that the cheque was in the post when it hadn't been written, doubt ( but can't prove) it was even posted that week.

Realistically i just wanted to have acknowledgement that there system is wrong and that it would be corrected but they don't seem to give a hoot which just frustrates me more, not that i want to go to the small court as only thing i can claim is he stress and inconvenience so not worth it so looks like i will just have to let it go...

Cheers for your advice everyone who responded

sheramber

I was once advised by a Royal Mail employee that business mail is the last mail to be dealt with. i.e mail that is already franked or paid for by the business.

I find second class mail sent by office mail takes 7 days to arrive.

My experience is that once the button is pressed to issue a cheque or a letter it is all done automatically.
The items are printed, put in an envelope, sealed and dropped into a box to be passed to the delivery company. All done by automation with no human input.

Some businesses used TNT for delivery and they always took much linger than RM to deliver my mail.

Recent renewal documents took 7 days to reach me. which meant I only had 7 days to compare and switch if appropriate instead of the 14 days their documents said. . The company saw no problem with this and rejected my complaint.

azkido

So sending via slower mail services just costs them more days of hire car charges... Makes no sense to me but i'm sure there is a spreadsheet somewhere that shows it as cost saving...

garth549

It's not uncommon for business mail to take 7 days or more to arrive. it's generally sent via the cheapest method possible!

FutureGirl

When a handler raises a cheque payment, it needs approval by management. When it's approved by a manager the system automatically sends out an SMS / Email / Letter to the payee at the time of approval, and at the same time the systems sends a notification to the finance team to send the cheques out, which is always done the following day.

The claims handlers don't physically print and post out the cheques themselves.

azkido

Hi Future girl

Thanks for responding... So if the text message is sent following approval why does it state "Claim update: We confirm that your claim payment of GBP xxxx.xx has been posted out to you by cheque."

Also if the text was sent at 12 noon on the 30th, based on you message you are stating it was approved at this time why was the cheque dated the 31st...

Your systems need updating to actually inform rather than mislead people... But you don't want to acknowledge or correct this....

Regulator won't do anything either... As i am the 3rd party... Laughable as basically regulated company if you are the customer, unregulated if not... All this just leads to people being in hire cars longer which eventually drives up the cost of insurance.... Great business model...:T