A neighbour hit my car a year ago — yet Esure still hasn’t repaired it
MY NEIGHBOUR reversed into my car a year ago. His insurance company, Esure, accepted responsibility and I agreed to allow it to repair the car.
Within a week, the garage was demanding £1,000 and threatening to make unrelated repairs. When I refused to pay, the car was returned with damage to the internal trim and the engine in a condition that was unfit to run.
I didn’t accept the car, and three months later the garage took back its courtesy car by deception, accused me of damaging it and stole my disabled badge.
Esure eventually moved the car to another garage, which assessed it as having at least £4,000 worth of damage, with a useless battery and an engine on its last legs. It has given me a hire car but it is too small for my needs.
I have received 24 emails promising to have this investigated and the repairs made, but I am still waiting. I have written to the chief executive three times without reply. N. S., Surrey. You’ve made some serious allegations against the garage used by esure, and I’m sure it will want to investigate further.
The firm says it recognises there were initial failings by the garage, but claims these were rectified at the time. And it argues that the further issues you highlight ‘couldn’t be apportioned to the garage as there was no evidence available to support this’.
However, it agrees its customer relations team failed to bring closure to your complaint, which ‘was not in line with our usual best practice’. esure has now offered to pay you the market value of your car at the time of the initial incident, plus the costs already agreed and compensation for distress and inconvenience.
Broken down, this will be £3,550 for your car, plus £440 for the tax and insurance for the year you were unable to use your car and a further £750 for distress and inconvenience, making a total of £4,740. Furthermore, your car will be returned to you.
A spokesman for esure says: ‘We sincerely apologise for the unsatisfactory way in which Mr S’s complaint has been handled.
‘We’d like to reassure Mr S that we are addressing our internal processes to ensure issues of this kind are resolved sooner. We constantly audit our relationships with third-party suppliers to ensure quality of work.’
As for your letters to the chief executive Stuart vann, he replied to you on March 20 providing the name and direct phone number of the customer services employee responsible for your complaint. I HAVE been denied access to my mobile phone since the beginning of the year. I am on pay-as-you-go and top up with vouchers, but in January I received a text saying I would get credit on my phone. I didn’t understand and wrote to Vodafone to say I did not want this.
Since then, I have been unable to make calls, my son has been unable to contact me and I have a message filling my screen saying: ‘Emergency Only’.
We tried to ring Vodafone, but received only a garbled message we could not understand. I later received a letter saying the firm couldn’t discuss my complaint until I cleared security. I am terminally ill and need my phone for taxis, my GP and hospital. J. M., Glasgow. WHIle vodafone took some time to sort this out initially, it reacted extremely quickly when it became aware of your circumstances.
The problem turned out to be astonishingly simple to resolve. What a pity nobody realised this before sending you a letter asking for all sorts of security details.
Your phone simply required a manual reset. All you actually needed to do was turn it off and on again — which seems to be the answer to at least 90 pc of problems involving technology.
Alternatively, you could have carried out a ‘manual roam’. I’ve never heard of this, but apparently it means delving into the settings and searching for a network.
unfortunately, you became confused by the letter from vodafone, which merely confirmed your identity and was not a request for payment.
The network has now put credit on your phone and has registered your account, so it will be easier for you to speak to the right person if you need to discuss anything in the future. MY HUSBAND, who used to be a policeman, died in 1989. As a post-retirement wife I was not allowed a police pension.
Recently, I wrote to Cumbria Constabulary to see if things have changed but did not receive a reply.
Before my husband died, we were married for 15 years. M. T., Glasgow. I conTAcTed the national Association of retired Police officers, which was able to provide some guidance.
The Police Pension regulations changed in 1978 so that those marrying after retirement would receive a widow’s pension. However, this would be based only on contributions made by the deceased officer after April 1978.
So if your husband retired before April 1978, you will not be entitled to a widow’s pension, but if he retired after this, there might be something to claim.
You can contact narpo at narpo House, 38 Bond Street, Wakefield WF1 2QP, phone on 01924 362166, or email hq@narpo.org. For more information, visit narpo.org.