Hi,
Below is the detail on a most stressful dealing with A1 Approved Warranties Ltd where I believe I was totally misled. Does anyone have a view on what I could do next? I have written to the Motor Ombudsman who replied it may take six months for someone to even look at my case.
Many thanks in advance!
I purchased a car via a private sale. Car had an A1 Approved warranty that was up for renewal and I paid the seller of the car £465 to renew the warranty. I then paid £35 to A1 to transfer the warranty to my name.
The car had issues with the central locking system. I took it to a garage and informed A1 of the issue, who in turn told me to get the garage to contact them. The garage quickly informed A1 of the issue once they’d diagnosed it and also informed me. I told the garage to go ahead with the repair as it needed fixing regardless of who was going to pay for it.
Over the next 18 working hours A1 had still not authorised the repair. This is due to them claiming they had not received information about the cost from the garage, even though it was sent to them, once they had received it, they then wanted video evidence of the issues and told the garage to send the video to a non-existent email address (they have their email gateway configured to not bounce messages sent to invalid addresses…). By this time, I needed to collect the car as the garage could no longer keep it due to space and me needing my car back.
I rang A1 to make my dissatisfaction clear. I spoke to Brad who said that the claim had not been authorised and therefore they would not pay for it. I asked Brad could I get a refund for the warranty (I made it clear that I had spent £500 here as I had paid for the warranty to be renewed even though the prior owner’s name is down as the person who did that plus £35 to transfer) and he said no because the renewal had taken place more than 28 days prior. The transference of the warranty into my name had taken place less than 28 days prior.
Shortly afterwards I had another conversation with Brad who told me that he had spoken to a colleague and they had decided that I could cancel the warranty and get a refund. All I needed to do was send an email with my bank details. This came as quite a shock but I thought oh wow, some goodwill on their part out of this very poor situation. How wrong I was!
The email I sent stated that the cost of the warranty was £465 and that I had paid £35 to transfer it. Jack replied that “We will cancel the warranty today for you and refund you.” What I was refunded was £35 – not £465.
After complaining about this, I was sent condescending emails with a tone like they’re some sort of authority on ethics. First, I was told “Having checked our records I can see you have been refunded in full what you have paid for the cover.” So now they twisted things around. They stated I would be sent a refund for the cancellation of the warranty – not a refund for the transference of the warranty.
Upon me telling them yet again that I had in fact paid for the warranty and if they won’t refund me then refund the person who originally took out the warranty and I will get the money from them, I was sent a reply by Richard “Unfortunately, as per the warranty terms and conditions (page 11, point 8 no refunds will be provided after the first 28 days. As the warranty was initially taken out by the prior owner of the vehicle on the 20.02.23, your cancelation request does fall outside of this parameter and therefore not possible for A1 Approved to process.”
This is in contradiction to the entire email trail as they had told me that I would get a refund – it’s there in the black and white! After one final complaint about being treated like this, Jack replied “I have cancelled the warranty for you and refunded you what you have paid. I cannot refund you what you have not paid. The same as Argos wouldn’t refund me for a TV I purchase second hand on ebay for say. You cannot seek to make a profit on something that you have not paid for in the first instance.”
Upon telling them that I will be taking this up with the ombudsman, Jack’s reply was “It’s your prerogative what you wish to do, the ombudsman cannot help you where you have not suffered a financial loss, you are trying to make a gain.” This is after me repeatedly telling them that I had paid for the warranty (albeit indirectly).
Of course, A1 were very happy to cancel the warranty and refund me £35 as they are now £465 up whilst providing no service and taking on no risk.
What A1 Approved has done is trick me into cancelling the warranty which had 13 months remaining. Regardless of who had paid for the warranty, you would think that any company with any ethics would say “Do you really want to cancel this warranty? We’re only giving you back £35 for something that cost £465 and still has 13 months remaining.” No, they didn’t do that. This is the level of ethics that this company operates under.
