Aviva - 2 mths to get my money

[shining Light]

We spend a large part of the year in S. America where we have a home and we have become accustomed to excessive "red tape" and poor service, but I certainly didn't expect worse from a company in the UK. Here is my experience, sorry in advance, it is a little on the long side.

 

We had an Endowment Policy with N.U./Aviva which after about 20 yrs came to an end in May 2009. As it happened I was returning to the UK 2 wks earlier for 2 mths. Only 8 days before the policy ended I received a letter from Aviva asking us to sign a form confirming payment of the monies into the acct from which we had been making the monthly payments, and asking for the return of the policy document, something I hadn't even thought about. (The document was still in S. America with my wife).

I made a number of calls to Aviva who stated they needed my wifes signature and the Policy Document. They also said their "Policy Termination Letters" were sent out 6 weeks before the due date (which mine wasn't). I was told there was no alternative so I signed the document and it to my wife in S. America. No surprise, 2 wks later she hadn't received it. After a number of calls to Aviva (always an Indian call centre) it was eventually agreed I could send a letter and they would telephone my wife to confirm the payment could go into our bank acct. This was eventually done and I was told that as soon as they received the document they could process the payment.

 

Over 2 wks later it was confirmed they had received the document and all they needed now was a signed letter from my wife! I argued that they had already agreed the verbal agreement was acceptable and had they not already agreed to this, my wife could have written a letter and sent it with the document, but they wouldn't have it. After confirming everything else was ok and the letter would finalise this matter, I again rang my wife in S. America and again she had to drive 15 minutes to the nearest post office to send the letter.

 

Meanwhile I returned to S. America and a couple of weeks later received a "secure email" from Aviva saying they had received the letter but they needed the "original" policy document before making the payment.:evil:

I spent 20 mins drafting a reply outlining everything that had happened but surprise surprise, their secure email had "an error" and I lost everything.

I sent another message by standard email saying the document we had sent was the only one we had, their response was "can you send a letter saying you have looked for the original and no longer had it. :mad:

By now I was a "little annoyed" as they had previously said the document was ok and they only needed the signature from my wife, and I replied saying that if we had the original we would have sent it, and if we did have it, what good would it be as they had the copy already, they had our signed letters and the payment would be going into the bank acct from which we had been paying them for years.."what is the problem here?"

Eventually somebody there used common sense and the payment was made with interest but nothing to cover hours of wasted time, calls to S. America and petrol for trips to the post office (I didn't ask for anything but they never thought to offer).

 

And I thought it was bad here!!