Default - Timing of Letters

Malcolm12

Good Morning

I had car insurance with AA which came to an end in March.   They phoned me but after discussion I decided not to renew my policy as they could not offer me a good deal (in fact it went up £20 despite no claims!).   So I went with admiral instead.   At the tail end of March, I was checking my bank and had 3 DDs set up with AA so cancelled all of them as I assumed my final payment end Feb covered me for the coming month (as when I signed up I paid a month up front).   Anyway, on Saturday 18th April, I received a default letter stating they had written to me previously to advise that I owed them a final months payment and as I had no responded I now have a default on my file.   I spoke to them on the phone and the operator advised that a letter was in fact sent out to me on Tuesday 31st March, stating I had 14 days to respond otherwise a default notice would be placed on my account.  I did not receive this, they do not do proof of postage but I cannot dispute it was sent just that I did not receive this (it is worth nothing our mail has been very erratic since COVID started). 

One thing I have picked up on, is that the letter apparently sent on Tuesday 31st March stated I had 14 days to respond or a default would be placed on my file.   The letter I received on Saturday 18th (dated April 12th) has the default applied then.  This is only 12 days between the date the first letter was apparently posted and the date the second letter notifying me of the default.   Secondly, even under 'normal' circumstances if a letter took up to two days to reach me I'd only have been given 10 days to respond.    So firstly should I be given a full 14 days from letter sent to default applied i.e. if sent 31 March default date should actually be 14th April not 12th?   if so is there any leeway for me to argue any of this?   I've been a loyal customer to them for years and never missed a single payment.  In addition to this, I lost my uncle on 31st March to COVID and as you can imagine it's been a stressful time with all this heaped on top.   I feel like they have hardly given me a chance to respond to anything - the timescales have been so short and given royal mail is taking longer at the moment it just seems harsh.  I did pay off the remainder owed on Saturday so that's now cleared, that was a genuine oversight on my part.   The payment was 2.5 weeks late when I cleared it.

Many thanks

Malcolm12

Just to add, the default date was 29th so there are 14 days between the default date and the default being applied on 12th, it's the actual timeframe I'm given to respond that I am querying also that given current circumstances (slow mail, off work etc) it seems extremely harsh.

D3xt3r5L4b

They have a duty to report what is correct regardless of “current situations”.