Hastingsdirect

An £876,000 car insurance premium?

Now I’m sure lots of people deal with Hastings Direct Customer Services and are totally happy. Their prices are cheap, so there’s every reason to give them a try. Actually, in the first instance – buying car insurance from them online, I was happy… barring an error in the start date of my policy. However, from that point forward I had the most ridiculous experience with Hastings Direct Customer Services – details below:

1) I Purchased an insurance policy online
2) I Realised it started a week after I needed it
3) I Rang to make the necessary changes

I had hoped it would be simple, but then was told I’d have to start a new policy and cancel the old one, so was put through to someone in sales. The new policy quote was nearly £100 more expensive than the one I had bought 5 minutes earlier online. So, I said I’d cancel the old one and try again online.

I then spoke to someone in the cancellations team, cancelled the policy, which cost me £25; for a policy which hadn’t even started yet, and had only been opened up 15 minutes previously. That would be an £876,000 per year premium going by the per minute cost of having my policy with Hastings.

I sent them a grumpy David-Mitchell-style email stating: “Next step small claims court, because I refuse to have the piss taken out of me in this manner. I’ve now gone elsewhere for my insurance, and I genuinely feel I have a grievance against you (I made sure I avoided all your sister companies/trading styles too). If your customer service agent had taken the time, and been flexible with this ridiculous sting of a cancellation charge then I probably would have stuck with Hastings… but alas, script reading and insincerity was taken to a new level by the final customer service agent I spoke to.”

In the end, they did refund my £25 cancellation fee, but what a palaver. There ends my Hastings Direct Customer Services Fail tale.

Seanclarkenterprise

Fraudsters. End of story.

As with so many of these "get rich quick" schemes, you can easily get drawn in. This one is a total scam, and you will just end up losing more and more money as you go through the process. Any website that requires a lengthy sales letter should be avoided!

Google

The best, without a doubt

Obviously Google is the best search engine, but it's range of additional features and apps are what make it a real winner.

I never use anything else!

Themeforest

Pretty good across the board

They've been pretty good for us. We often have to put up a website in a hurry, and the selection of themes is second to none.

We've only had one negative experience with them (in 3 years) and their customer service replied and refunded our money within 48 hours.

I'd definitely recommend them!

Reachlocal

Screwed us, good and proper.

They conned us into signing up for a very expensive contract (£150 per month) and this generated ZERO additional qualified leads. They made various excuses before we pulled out of the contract. At this point they made various legal threats until we sent an email in detailing the negative experiences of many other "customers" (I would say victims, not customers). These guys have a terrible reputation in the USA, and it looks like they just use the same cowboy tactics here in the UK!

Interparcel

Totally useless. Save yourself time and stress - don't use them!

On three occasions over the last few years, Interparcel have failed to collect (and therefore deliver) my parcels. We've used 3 different couriers through them at 3 different addresses.

1) No collection, no response from customer service. Had to write to get a response and a refund. This was right when they started, so we thought maybe things were better.

2) Using MyHermes via Interparcel - no collection even after phoning and emailing every day. Empty promises daily. Cancelled it after a few days, and sent with another firm. The MyHermes driver then turned up the next day!! He was grumpy and unpleasant to add insult to injury.

3) Using TNT via Interparcel - no collection! Rang at 4.30pm on the collection day and was assured of a colleciton by 5.30pm. Nobody turned up. Gave them a shout via email - received a "canned" response that was totally unapologetic.

Empty promises and poor customer care are my experiences of Interparcel. Will not be using them ever again and suggest that anyone reading this do the same. There are plenty of other companies around and it really is worth an extra couple of quid to get the customer service, and get the parcel collected and delivered!

jayand Greg Cardman found this review useful