Thank you for renewing your policy with Dynamo cover.

Aylesbury_Duck

FlaatusGoat said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

FlaatusGoat said:

MorningcoffeeIV said:

Unlikely you've been ripped off , either by Dynamo or your family.

What does your policy say re renewal?

I was never sent any policy or renewal notification. I think I have been ripped off by the fact that the renewal was 4x the price of the original policy and I had no prior warning or renewal quote. It's an absolutely awful way to do business, at least with my car insurance renewal I get a quote before it renews.

Check the terms that apply to your policy (such as the DD terms provided in the previous post).  If they haven't adhered to their own terms you're on good grounds, but if they can prove that they sent a letter to your old address or to the email address you gave them, you don't have any comeback other than goodwill.

As for the price, £100 for an annual(?) breakdown policy strikes me as being pretty good.  If you got an annual policy for £25 last year it must surely have been an introductory offer, therefore priced as a loss-leader and therefore not really comparable to the new premium.

Thanks, just by way of comparison I've now renewed my break down provider with a competitor for £31. Same level of cover. Besides that, is what you're trying to point out here that if it's on their T+C's they can in effect renew me at 4x the price in a year without any prior warning. I will look back at my emails and see whether I have a more recent warning or notification that this will happen but either way it's just terrible business practise and it's poor poor poor if a consumer has no leg to stand on re these limited warning auto-renews and zero cool down without hefty 'admin' fees for cancelling. I think I had 5 hours of cover by the time I'd cancelled it. I'd happily pro-rata and pay the 6p or whatever that might have come to.

All well and good, but it remains to be seen if they've breached the terms you've signed up to.  Your opinion on whether it's terrible practice or poor service is irrelevant because you're in a contractual dispute.  Their response suggests they're confident they've done nothing wrong, whereas you appear uncertain as to what you've signed up to.  If the chargeback proceeds, it will determine who's correct.

TELLIT01

I'm assuming the OP didn't inform the company of the change of address so their case is extremely weak in claiming that the company didn't try to contact them.  The OP can claim that the family members still at the old address would have informed them but that certainly isn't proof that nothing was sent there.

Olinda99

the op may have a case if they could show that 1. they were not advised clearly at the beginning that the policy would auto renew and/or 2. they did not get the required notice before it did actually auto renew

Aylesbury_Duck

Olinda99 said:

the op may have a case if they could show that 1. they were not advised clearly at the beginning that the policy would auto renew and/or 2. they did not get the required notice before it did actually auto renew

As long as they updated their address, which they didn't.  It's possible the notice went to their old address and family members binned it thinking it was junk mail.

Olinda99

Aylesbury_Duck said:

Olinda99 said:

the op may have a case if they could show that 1. they were not advised clearly at the beginning that the policy would auto renew and/or 2. they did not get the required notice before it did actually auto renew

As long as they updated their address, which they didn't.  It's possible the notice went to their old address and family members binned it thinking it was junk mail.

yes agreed - but in this scenario they would deem to have been advised. I meant not advised in that the company sent nothing.

eskbanker

Aylesbury_Duck said:
All well and good, but it remains to be seen if they've breached the terms you've signed up to.  Your opinion on whether it's terrible practice or poor service is irrelevant because you're in a contractual dispute.  Their response suggests they're confident they've done nothing wrong, whereas you appear uncertain as to what you've signed up to.  If the chargeback proceeds, it will determine who's correct.

Just to be clear, chargeback never actually determines who's correct as such, it just determines whether the bank is prepared to side with the customer by reclaiming the money from the merchant, but if they do, the merchant remains entitled to take further action to recover the debt from the customer, and it would ultimately be up to a court to determine who's correct.

Aylesbury_Duck

eskbanker said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:
All well and good, but it remains to be seen if they've breached the terms you've signed up to.  Your opinion on whether it's terrible practice or poor service is irrelevant because you're in a contractual dispute.  Their response suggests they're confident they've done nothing wrong, whereas you appear uncertain as to what you've signed up to.  If the chargeback proceeds, it will determine who's correct.

Just to be clear, chargeback never actually determines who's correct as such, it just determines whether the bank is prepared to side with the customer by reclaiming the money from the merchant, but if they do, the merchant remains entitled to take further action to recover the debt from the customer, and it would ultimately be up to a court to determine who's correct.

Yes, you're quite right.  Poor phrasing on my part.

FlaatusGoat

On the address issue, I have family members at my old address and they tell me about any post. I'm about 10 minutes away and pop up and pick up what arrives. It's a block of flats though at it's been known to go through to the wrong door or the communal landing and get binned by cleaners/maintenance. However, I've lodged a subject access request requesting copies of all correspondence and crucially 'when it was sent'

To be clear on the policy wording if there's some tiny small print saying we will renew on X automatically have I effectively got no leg to stand on. Should push come to shove I don't know if I can rely on the 'reasonable' argument...any further guidance here? Is it time to get some qualified legal advice here or try to contact CAB?

Aylesbury_Duck

Qualified legal advice will cost you, so I'd be certain of your liability before engaging it.  If by "tiny small print" you mean terms you agreed to read and comply with, then I doubt a lawyer is going to help.  Wait until you get your SAR results back before wasting any more time or money on it.  

FlaatusGoat

Aylesbury_Duck said:

Qualified legal advice will cost you, so I'd be certain of your liability before engaging it.  If by "tiny small print" you mean terms you agreed to read and comply with, then I doubt a lawyer is going to help.  Wait until you get your SAR results back before wasting any more time or money on it.  

Thanks yes I'll do that. Re the threatening email on the chargeback with the ultimatum. Ignore?

Just further to this, when I raised a complaint I was sent an attachment in response from 2022 mentioning auto-renew in tiny print right at the bottom of the email. Along with a 6-7 different types of documents, policy wording, key facts etc. At the very least this is obfuscation and at worst intentional obstruction combined with book throwing. Annoying to say the least. What would you do at this point (if you don't mind me being direct...)?