anyone got 1st central car insurance?

dacouch · 21 October 2009 at 12:15AM

The 1st central unofficial rep on MSE Tom has been strangely silent since all the complaints started. He was last on MSE on the 16th October at 18.56hours (Must have been doing overtime).

When there were not many complaints he was posting fairly reguarly and telling everyone how great they are.

He seems even less likely to answer the posts on here now than his staff seem to like answering the phones...

Ragriffin1 · 27 October 2009 at 9:00PM

Hi,

I would love some help or advice. I have a policy with 1st Central and have recently moved address. I have contacted them several times by email and have been subsequently ignored so i phoned them today. I was on hold for a long time then I finally spoke to a girl there who said the reason they hadn't confirmed it yet was because the address change was going to increase my premium by £1000!!! On top of the £1000 policy I already have in place. Obviously this is completely ridiculous, i wanted to speak to someone senior so the girl promised me her manager would call me back in 30 mins. There was no return phonecall, which I probably should have expected.

What can I do about this? I've only moved a mile from my last address, my car is only worth £700 how can they justify this? I cant even get the issue sorted because they ignore my emails and phonecalls. I'm concerned my insurance cover is invalid because of their internal processes and complete lack of response.

Has any one had a happy ending to such a stressful situation as this?

rosalee_3 · 5 November 2009 at 8:28PM

oh no... help help! i just signed up this afternoon - stupid of me before checking them out.. i just figured if they were on a comparison website they'd be ok.. the guy that signed me up over the phone was SO unprofessional.. he was yawning and babbling through the parts he was required to say, not answering my questions.. it left me feeling uneasy. i've now paid the ANNUAL amount!! i want to cancel immediately!!! will i get my money back????? what happens if i don't? who can i contact? please HELP??

The_Rambler · 5 November 2009 at 9:14PM

Hi all,

Sorry Rosalee it looks like you and I were both caught out by this SCUM.

I have been driving and using comprehensive insurance for 35 years now and on every policy I've ever had there was cover that allowed you to drive other people's cars with their permission on a third party basis

I took out a so called "comprehensive" policy yesterday. When I got the docs, I was surprised to NOT see that you can drive other people's cars with their permission on a third party basis. I rang them and got what I can only call a GIT of the highest order, he was not interested in helping in any way, only to tell me that as I was cancelling the policy there would be a £30 charge despite the fact that it was still within the 7 day cooling off period.

I made it clear that I had no intention of paying as the policy was unfit for purpose and was not a comprehensive policy as per custom and practice since Adam was a boy. Since then I have notified my credit card company to stop all charges that have been or may be made by these crooks. I've also reported the incident to the Office of Fair Trading through their Consumer Direct website at consumerdirect.gov.uk.

I strongly recommend that you and any other poor sods who have gotten ripped off by this scum also report your experiences. Its only by putting pressure on the OFT that we will get rid of this scum from the industry and force the industry to clean up its act.

COME ON MARTIN WE NEED YOUR SKILL HERE TO DRIVE SOME MUCH NEEDED CHANGE THROUGH.

By the way, I have taken out a new policy with Swift Cover and there was no question about driving other cars on 3rd party cover. In fact the guy I spoke to was surprised that I asked the question.

:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

United we can drive the crooks out of business. Tarring and feathering this scum is too good for them.

Message to Tom1stcentral. Get yourself a real job with an honest company if you have any self respect. It will be a cold day in hell before I or anyone I know gets their hands soiled by dealing with you and your crooked colleagues.

dacouch · 5 November 2009 at 10:02PM

Here is a post from 1st Central's unofficial representitive on MSE, you would have thought they would have thought they could have recruited and trained the staff so they can answer the phone by now, it was 5 months ago that he posted this...

Tom1stCentral
MoneySaving Newbie

Join Date: May 2009
Post Count: 5
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts

1st Central Insurance
Hi - I'm Tom - Head of Business Development at First Central Insurance Services.

I'd like to address some of the issues raised on this forum. I'd like to apologise to those customers who have been left waiting on the telephone - Our UK Service provider is currently in the process of recruiting and training more agents and as a result we are already seeing improvements in service.

I can confirm that our service provider has never used 0870 numbers -First Central uses an 0845 for our Claims Centre and this should be charged at local rate depending on your provider. As a result of these posts we have also conducted some research into this and there are actually a number of 'big names' who use the more expensive 0870 and 0871 numbers.

With regards to the Gibraltar posts - The insurer is based there, as is the insurance intermediary. I can confirm that the insurer is covered by the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme and regulated by the Gibraltar Financial Services Commission, adhering to EU Law. In fact there are a number of large 'brand name' insurers who operate from Gibraltar.

In addition, we are currently in the process of evaluating whether to include 'Driving Other Cars' as standard on policies.

Please contact me on this forum if you need me to clarify anything.

Kind regards,

Tom

Here are a post from me (Earlier in this thread) and the response from Tom about the fact they do not include Driving Other Cars and that if they don't offer it then it would be best to make this clear to potential customers (Such as The Rambler). Have a look at the date of the post which is 170 days ago, it seems getting things done at 1st central is slower than continental drift. How long would it take to have a meeting to agree to put a warning on their website about the driving other cars and then get the IT dept to change the website. Someone more sceptical than me might form the opinion they are deliberately not pointing it out.

19-05-2009, 5:05 PM #3 dacouch
Fantastically Fervent MoneySaving Super Fan

Join Date: Jan 2009
Post Count: 6,135
Thanked 2,797 Times in 2,050 Posts

Thanks for your post Tom, if you cannot offer the driving other cars it would be fairer to your customers and save you the hassle of people cancelling if you pointed this out at the point of sale. It also does not mention this in your FAQs

[EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com?subject=Reporting%20post%20http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=21695793"]

[/EMAIL] dacouch View Public Profile Send a private message to dacouch Find More Posts by dacouch Find all thanked posts by dacouch

20-05-2009, 10:28 AM #4 Tom1stCentral
MoneySaving Newbie

Join Date: May 2009
Post Count: 5
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts

Hi dacouch - Thanks for your comments. We'll take these on board and make sure we include them as part of our upcoming Product Review.

It should also be noted that Tom who was posting on MSE before the complaints started rolling in is being very quiet at the moment. However he is viewing the 1st Central threads frequently. The last time he looked was yesterday...

View Profile: Tom1stCentral

MoneySaving Newbie

Tom1stCentral

Last Activity: Yesterday 8:59 PM

As I have mentioned before, in my experience, Insurers based in Gibralter tend to be at the cheap and cheerful end of the market

mickcoll · 9 November 2009 at 2:27PM

Hi, i thought I'd better post here.

I too recently signed up to 1st central after they gave me the best quote on comparethemarket.com. After reading this forum I got very scared and decided to call them and test the waters while I was still in my cooling off period. I had a reason to call anyway, stupidly I had missed a letter out of my name when filling out the form on compare the meerkat so i had to get that changed.

My call was answered promptly and the person on the phone was very clear and professional, I could hear plenty of activity in the background which was reassuring.

anyway... got my name changed (no charge) and had my new documents emailed out to me within minutes.

also, only the customer service number is 0845. the claims, windscreen and renewals helplines are all now 0800.

seems like a fine company to me. possibly some teething issues when this forum was first started.

Quentin · 9 November 2009 at 3:26PM

Read more unbiased views here:

http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews232123.html

(The most recent reviews contain words like: Warning. Avoid. Dodgy. Horrified. Disgrace)

dacouch · 9 November 2009 at 10:55PM

mmm new member and posting praise for a company with bad reviews...

You mentioned you changed your name with 1st Central, was your previous name Tom by any chance? Oh and how do you know their renewal telephone number is 0800?

saltcoats54 · 10 November 2009 at 7:43PM

hi. on reading this thread you've got me slightly worried:o.
I had a crash at the weekend and reported it to them on sunday expecting them to then deal with the claim,but today I received an e-mail stating that we acknowledge that you don't want to claim for damage to your vehicle and that we will now close your file and carry on with third party claim(there was another car involved)my point is at no time did I state to the claims guy that i did not want my car repaired or replaced that's the reason you take out comprehensive insurance is it not.
I've tried phoning all day and all I get is music. any advice welcome
thanks

The_Rambler · 10 November 2009 at 7:44PM

My advice to anyone who has been ripped off by these thieves is to make a formal complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, they are on-line and the more of us that do the more likely they are to take some decisive action. It appears that the OFT can't deal with matters relating to finance or insurance.

anyone got 1st central car insurance?

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free