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Help - Prob with Elephant and their garage
tagz
Posts: 690 Forumite
I am insured with Elephant and whilst our car was in for a repair (I had a disagreement with a width restriction) the garage gave us a loan car. My hubby went to pick it up , late in the evening and the man waiting for him was more interested in talking about cars in general than going over the loan car. As a result my hubby signed a sheet about scratches and marks without having a proper op to have a really good look and the car was on a very dimly lit street.
When he went to pick up our car and return the loan one they ran after him claiming there was damage to the car. My OH returned to be shown a tiny dent that you had to stand sideways on to notice and had no scratch on. They then said as OH had signed without seeing this mark we were responsible for the repair. We were amazed as it had been on our drive most of the time ,it was only used to drop the kids off at school and then parked back up on the drive! They wanted £350 to repair it. My hubby came back home and we decided to ask Elephant for help.
In the meantime our insurance was up for renewal and Elephant added £200 to my premium and took off my NCD protection. As we were still waiting to find out how much the garage was going to charge Elephant and we didn't know if it worked out better to claim or pay it off ourselves we weren't happy about it but stayed with Elephant. After numerous calls we have now been told that the estimate is still £350 but it may be higher.
What I find really sus is that this garage can authorise the work themselves. So they can charge what they want for a tiny dent and charge what they want for it. I have questioned this with Elephant but they don't seem to care. I was told I could get the AA or RAC to do an independant assessment but I'd have to pay for that myself. We rang the garage to try and pay for this ourselves and they said that they are waiting a couple of weeks so that they can repair all the dents and scratches together before it goes back to the loan company and didn't want us to settle.
I feel like we've been had and Elephant don't care. If I pay for it myself I'm prob down by £350-£400, but if I claim on the insurance I have to pay the excess and lose my NCD (plus cost of insurance gone up either way). Is there anything I can do? Can I demand that they get the car repaired at a different garage?
When he went to pick up our car and return the loan one they ran after him claiming there was damage to the car. My OH returned to be shown a tiny dent that you had to stand sideways on to notice and had no scratch on. They then said as OH had signed without seeing this mark we were responsible for the repair. We were amazed as it had been on our drive most of the time ,it was only used to drop the kids off at school and then parked back up on the drive! They wanted £350 to repair it. My hubby came back home and we decided to ask Elephant for help.
In the meantime our insurance was up for renewal and Elephant added £200 to my premium and took off my NCD protection. As we were still waiting to find out how much the garage was going to charge Elephant and we didn't know if it worked out better to claim or pay it off ourselves we weren't happy about it but stayed with Elephant. After numerous calls we have now been told that the estimate is still £350 but it may be higher.
What I find really sus is that this garage can authorise the work themselves. So they can charge what they want for a tiny dent and charge what they want for it. I have questioned this with Elephant but they don't seem to care. I was told I could get the AA or RAC to do an independant assessment but I'd have to pay for that myself. We rang the garage to try and pay for this ourselves and they said that they are waiting a couple of weeks so that they can repair all the dents and scratches together before it goes back to the loan company and didn't want us to settle.
I feel like we've been had and Elephant don't care. If I pay for it myself I'm prob down by £350-£400, but if I claim on the insurance I have to pay the excess and lose my NCD (plus cost of insurance gone up either way). Is there anything I can do? Can I demand that they get the car repaired at a different garage?
I would if I could but I can't so I won't!
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