I paid THREE lots of insurance for my motorbike
M.H. writes: I am unemployed, so recently I got on my motorbike and moved to a different part of the country to find work. I pay my insurance by monthly instalments through Close Brothers, so I rang them and my insurance broker about my change of address. I was charged £40 for amending this, even though my bike is more secure at my new home. But, the real problem came when I found that two unexplained payments had also been taken from my bank account, leaving me just £8 to live on.
YOU moved a long way, from Sussex to County Durham, but your new address had the advantage of secure storage for your motorbike, which had previously been parked on the street. Despite this, your premiums stayed the same and you were charged for changing the address on your policy.
But it was not the £40 ‘adminis- tration fee’ that was the final straw. That came when you checked your bank account and found you were still paying for insurance at your old address as well as the new one.
On top of this, you were paying premiums for someone completely different, whose name meant nothing to you.
You rang Close Brothers and were told the missing money would be back in your account in no more than five working days. When ten days had passed and nothing happened, you rang again and found a state of confusion, with three sets of records making you liable for three monthly payments instead of one.
You told me: ‘Being unemployed means living on a tight budget as it is, so there is no safety margin for events like this.’
Close Brothers is a long established company, and in any big business there will be slip-ups from time to time. It means a lot when a major company can move quickly to put things right, so I am happy to say that this is exactly what has happened here.
Within days of my making contact, a spokesman had investigated and admitted there were ‘administrative errors’ by the company. It also uncovered errors made by your broker.
The result is that the £40 you paid to change your address has been refunded as a gesture of goodwill.
In addition, Close Brothers is sending you £75 to make up for the inconvenience.
Now all you need is a new job to go with your new home, so good luck with that too.
If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.