Complaint Rating:

Company information:
Tesco Car Insurance
United States
www.tescofinance.com

I rang Tesco car insurance on Monday 25th February 2008 relating to my direct debit mandate and my policy been canceled without my knowledge, and that Tesco had failed to inform me of such an action. On Monday 10th September I rang Tesco to insurance to inform them of my change of address, I know this because it was the day I rang and changed all the companies I have direct debits with including my bank. Also I have proof of this.

When I called Tesco insurance they ran through their normal security check procedure and one of the questions is to relate my current address to the operator, I did this and my address (one listed above) was verified and I continued my conversation with the operator, Jenny Cunningham, to whom I spoke to twice.

I did this three times in total whilst I was gathering information from other sources, after each time I rang back the security checks were verified with the above address. On the last occasion I was transferred to an operator called Geri, a customer services manager, who then put me through to the account manager Damien as my problem related to accounts.

When I asked him to which address he had sent all the notifications to about my policy he told me my old address of 30 Cantilever Gardens in Warrington WA1 2GU, from October 2007 to the present time. I was correct in stating that I no longer lived at that address because I had informed Tesco of my new address on Monday 10th September 2007 as I have explained earlier.

This gentleman continued to bereft me on the telephone refusing to enter into any further conversation in relation to this matter, his manner was one of complete amateur not worthy of the position of manager where he would, of course repeat any training course to any of his team if they had spoke with this attitude to any customer of Tesco.

I am appalled and disgusted that such a company of the stature Tesco has, has not recognized this mans failure to even comply with the basics of civility when speaking to customers. To continue Damien stated that such a mandate was canceled by either myself or the bank on one of the two dates (he did not seem to know which one himself) Wednesday 3rd or Thursday 4th October 2007, I contacted my bank to see if this had happened they informed me that it had not. I have written proof of this from my bank.

My other concern is that on Thursday 27th September 2007 I paid an outstanding bill of £74.39 when it lapsed on Tuesday 4th September 2007 and set up a new direct debit mandate with Tesco. My bank never received this mandate from Tesco they have only ever received one direct debit mandate which was the 1st June 2006, I have written proof of this from my bank. It obvious really how can I cancel something that was not set up in the first place!!!

Further Damien then kept on reiterating that according to the information on his screen they did and therefore it must be the banks error, my bank is adamant that this is not true, because only myself and Tesco have the authorization to cancel such a mandate and as I have stated I certainly would not risk driving my car without insurance.

After my conversation with this demeaning manager the conversation came to a natural end, I continued with my research on this error by Tesco and when I rang back I went through the security check as I did many times before and on the same day Monday 25th February 2008, and would you believe it when I gave my present address, like I had done so on the many occasions previously, I was denied access to any conversation because my address was wrongly given and when I was asked had I another address I gave my old address 30 Cantilever Gardens and was accepted. This sends alarm bells ringing for me with data protection as this accounts manager is entrusted to handle Tesco customers personal details and I find this a very inconvenient coincidence as up until speaking with this accounts manager, Damien; my address (the new one and my current one) had been accepted on several occasions during the security checks that day, but after highlighting this error to him my address has changed. Furthermore why would this security match have been changed after speaking to this accounts manager Damien also has there been a cover up by this manager to hide an error on his departments behalf?