UK Assistance Anyone had dealings with them

petercrawf

My car was referred to Stockton Branch after an accident. What an easy, problem free experience. Everything was as stated on the package. Courteous phonecalls, speedy repairs to a high standard and I was kept informed of what was happening at all stages. Full marks to them.

Mr_Walker

I had an assessor come to my house after i had a bathroom leak and my kitchen ceiling was destroyed. The floor, cabinets and vairous bits were drenched. they denied the claim of cost from my local builders and had to use there Sterling company. although they had no resources available for 3 weeks. this totaling nearly 2 months from the incident. the floor was lifted one saturday and was still soaking so needed dryers. something the said we would not need! 2 weeks later after dryers in on 24 hours a day, new floor getting layed, advisor calls and tells me that cabinet was not damage by water flood but the Dry Dog Food on the floor near the radiator, nothing to do with the puddle of water sitting under the unit for 2 months while they were F**king around arguing prices.

So dont leave dry dog food near cabinets because apparently theres enough moisture in dry dog food to curl your cabinet.

this sort of food sould come with a warning

magpiecottage

It is worth remembering that a loss adjuster (and any tradesperson appointed by your insurer) is an agent of the insurer. Consequently, if you are dissatisfied with them you should complain to the insurer, not the loss adjuster.

With the exception of cases where you are claiming as a third party, if the complaint is then not dealt with to your satisfaction, you can take it to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

tr1x13

hello everyone who has had dealings with uk assist,my car has just gone into one of their hospitals but i am very afraid of the outcome, as the docter has told me it is going to cost well over the actual job for what requires done.As i am reading some of your blogs there seems to be a tear emerging from my eye, but as i read a few more blogs i do realize that i am actually crying and there is a lot of tears running down my very sad face.Is there anyone at all out there who could make me smile a little bit about uk assist.

PLEASE MAKE MY DAY A LITTLE BETTER
A SAD UK ASSIST CUSTOMER

major_eyeswater_2

Oh yes !
Mark my words folks, I used to work for this shower and believe me, you should avoid them like the plague.
They use your vehicle as a skip while they have it and have untrained/unskilled people (like myself) doing mechanical
work on vehicles, absolutely shocking. I have video evidence to support this claim, also footage of policy holders vehicles
being treated like something out of a scrap yard, needless to say that I no longer work there but I still have loads of health
and safety breaches on film, reels of it ! Do yourself a favour and avoid the R.B.S. Group, Direct Line, Churchill, Green Flag e.t.c
as they are filthy rip off merchants.
Honestly, pay over the odds to avoid this shower, take heed from someone who knows the truth.

maxipad

Ex employee

I too used to work for this bunch of idiots and as already mentioned here stay well clear of them. They have no respect for employee's and customers alike and will constantly try to worm their way out of putting a car right that they have screwed up. When damage has been missed they will even stretch to claiming its not related when it clearly is, I was a former workshop controller for them and found myself having to constantly lie to customers to get rid of them instead of doing the right thing and put the car right.

My brother recently had repairs carried out to his car where damage was missed and left unrepaired yet over £1000 of work was carried out that the car didn't need

Be warned do not let your car go to one of their repair centre's

Amazingwoo

OK, seems I'm part of the UK Assistance Gang now - are you sitting comfortably....I'll begin.

Fri 2nd Dec - A car swerves into the side of me on the M11. I move my car to avoid, except at 65mph my car goes into a fish-tail skid. Eventually hitting a crash barrier left wing on at about 45-50mph. Surprisingly, not much damage, but has to go to UK Assistance in Basildon. And the other car? They sped off, didn't stop, so I am deemed "at fault".

Mon 5th - Garage rings. Says due to age & make (T reg Rover 214), vehicle should be written off, but it's good quality and low miles so "I'll keep labour costs low to allow the repair to go through".

At this point the garage are good, each day I get a progress report - parts on order, parts arrived, waiting for wing-spray - etc. We're waiting on a left wing, headlight (which wasn't damaged **at all** in the crash), and they'll be refurbing my wheel.

Mon 12th - Car ready, being delivered Tuesday.

Tue 13th - No show, no calls.

Thur 15th - Car delivered in late afternoon when dark, so bodywork cannot be fully checked.

Fri 16th - Car clicks when starting. Ring garage, told "Battery flat, jump start". I pop bonnet, coolant tank totally empty and nice and clean. Odd. I refil coolant, jump start and go. Except my car feels odd - the clutch is stiff and the brake pedals soft. I ring garage, am told that "If you drove a new hire car, your own car will feel odd". I accept her comment, but don't believe it for a second. I know my car and it doesn't feel right.

Sat 17th - Flat battery. Jump started.

Sun 18th - 10am, car starts!! 30min drive, park in multi-story. 3:15pm, car dead. Flag a jump-start from a teen. Get home.

Mon 19th - Ring garage. Told that "It's cold outside, your battery is working harder but can't cope, you need to buy a new one". They said it wasn't disconnected during the headlamp repalcement (it should have been), so the cables are fine and not loose. They refuse to accept that the battery has never died before and insist I replace it.

6pm - Car starts!! I drive to gym.

7:50pm - Car starts (woop!), I drive home from gym.....well, I try. Dashboard lights look paler, the coolant needle is slightly higher than normal. I have no heater on, no radio, no blower. The needle leaps sky high, I pull over, pop the bonnet, fan whirring like crazy. Coolant tank totally empty. Car dies.

I get new bottle of coolant from boot (I always keep a new spare there, for emergencies - mine or others!). The fan stops, I refil the coolant tank, screw on lid then *gurgle splash* coolant tank empty. Did it leak or get sucked into the rad, my torch not bright enough for me to tell.

Ring financee to come out and rescue me and bring a fresh bottle of coolant.

Tuesday.
Sick and tired of garage fob-offs so I explain everything to Direct Line (after waiting on-hold for 15mins). They say they'll speak to garage. D.L. call back. The garage has told them they didn't touch the battery or coolant (despite the coolant tank being so clean it looked like it'd had a spin in a dishwasher). The faults are "Wear and Tear, and Coincidence and not accident related". D.L. said to take my car to a garage for an independent assessment, at my expense - and once I get a report back, they'll check through it and see what the next step is. I said that surely, after an impact, the engine bay is checked for movement, loose cables, wires, etc. It would seem not.

I rang my local garage who are gems - I was asked who the crash centre was and as soon as I told him, was told they have the worst reputation going and they caused his friends car excessive damage after they tried to do a short-cut fix - eventually the engine needed to be totally replaced at a cost of £7000....to the owner, as the garage refused liability.


I've priced the parts the garage claim were used on my car from car parts websites and several wheel refurb sites, obviously there will be slight variation but it works out to be roughly:-
Wing - £22
Bumper chrome trim - £15
Headlamp - £60
Wheel re-furb - £60
Side indicator light - £5
= £163 parts.

Respray of wing? I'd put at around £150.

The garage put in a bill of £1062.04 (they would not give me a full breakdown, just the total) - so this means a labour cost of £749.04 which considering my car was waiting on parts for about 3 days is quite excessive.


Sooooo. My poor car is now in the local garage waiting on a check and when I can renew my insurance next year, I am moving away from Direct Line and when I sign up with a new insurance company, my first question will be "Who does your accident repairs?" and if it's UK Assistance, I'm running a mile!

SHADOW

I am ex-directory and have asked BT to ensure that no cold calls come to my telephone. This has worked well for the last few weeks.

At about 13:00 today I was called by someone, with a strong Liverpudlian accent, claiming to me from UK Assistance and asking if anyone in my family had been involved in a traffic accident in the last few months.

I said there had been and then asked him to verify who he was. He seemed to take this as some kind of personal slight, yet irritatedly went over who he was again. I still said that I did not believe that he had satisfactorily identified himself. He then said that his system had identified us as having had an accident. (I had told him we had had one already.) - My mistake and I should not have told him anything until I was satisfied he was from a bone fide organisation.

He claimed he could get us money for 'aches and pains', I said we did not have any aches and pains. At this point he seemed incredulous that we should be turning down his offer of free money for injuries that had not been sustained.

He then called me a Kn*BH**D and terminated the call. That is a first for me.

1471 was not helpful as there was no caller ID.

It may be that this was not a caller from UK Assistance - it might just be a random scam - still the lessons are there.

1. Do not answer anything until you are completely satisfied that you are talking to a genuine representative of a respectable company

2. Don't talk to anyone who wants to give you money for injuries you have never sustained - (That should rule out a lot of firms!)

pollyannapink

I recently was involved in an accident where someone ran into the back of my car whilst I was stationary at traffic lights. My car insurance is with Sainsbury's who were excellent. A courtesy car was provided the day following the accident and my car was taken to a UK Assistance garage in Stechford, Birmingham. They were always very courteous when telephoning me and I was kept up to date with the repair situation. The car was repaired to my satisfaction and the work appears excellent. The car was also throughly cleaned inside and out.
I was surprised to read such derogatory remarks about UK Assistance so felt I should put a positive side with my experience.

Amazingwoo

Hi,

You must be one of the few lucky ones! My car came back in a worse mechanically un-sound condition than when it went in. My local garage said that the car would require over £1500 of work to rectify, un-surprisingly UK Assistance don't want to know.

I've logged the complaint with Direct Line for them to investigate. Yesterday I had a call from the third D.L. employee who is now handling my case - I logged my complaint 22nd December yet they've still not done anything.

In the end I gave my car away as no-one would buy it, so that plus the excess means I am over £2800 out of pocket.

Wish I'd rang the RAC and had the car towed to my local garage instead. Foresight is a marvellous thing.