Financial Rip Offs

Crikey - where do I start? Yes, defininitely insurances - half the time can't remember who I'm insured with or what it covers and am sure I double insure half the time.

So I agree with you that most insurances are a con, and even worse, I have been down for insurance that I have specifically said over the phone I don't want - whether it was for a loan or a phone, etc. You need to really scrutinise the outgoing costs and the paperwork carefully.

Also my mobile phone account - I am never really sure what I am entitled to but it seems that I am never quite on the right account for me, i.e I text a thousand times a day and am sure I get penalised for that. I don't believe they're really fitting me to the most appropriate tarriff!

Bank accounts - yes, agree with you.

Also, trying to pay off any sort of bill and asking for the total amount so that you can clear the bill only to be posted a bill demanding an accrued one pound something in interest. This drives me mad!

Quite correct. I worked for a storage company that emphasised the security of its facilities, whilst at the same time the staff were told that we should try to sell insurance for the goods stored.
We all recognised that we were trying to sell two opposing concepts simultaneously, but were told to do so.

I have a rather expensive phone, so it's worth getting insurance for, but I always put it on my contents insurance. Saves a packet.

I never insure my phone, hadn't really thought about putting it on the home insurance - good tip. Glad nobody mentioned extended warranties. The thing that makes me really angry about these is the fact that you are basically paying for insurance for the retailer.

Yes, I never get extended warranties.

Phone insurance is only something I get depending on the phone - every time I've had a smart phone (i.e. cost circa £500 or more) I get insurance. My last phone was a bit of a cheapy, so I didn't bother to insure that.

Putting it on my contents (which also covers for malicious calls, useful when you're on a contract and liable!) costs less than £30 for the year.

I would find it difficult to justify a phone costing £500. What would be the advantages? Of course, if money is no object - no problem.
Which leads me to the question - are expensive phones a kind of jewellry symbol, or a practical machine?

Well, I didn't buy it as such, it's on contract (and quite a low one by most people's standards - £18 a month and I would definitely spend more than that on pay as you go).

The benefits? Yes, it looks nice, but also has many features that I want (email, qwerty keyboard etc.). It definitely wouldn't be suitable for some people, such as my mum, but suits my needs which is all that matters I suppose.

That sounds a good deal, although you are paying £2.50 /mnth extra on insuring it. Are you required to continue to use/pay the monthly amount if it gets lost or damaged?

That's exactly what it covers you for - if you lose or break your phone you still pay your contract. That's separate to the handset. The handset is something they use to lure you in to sign on the dotted line (obviously with the assumption that over the life of the contract they'll make money above the cost of the handset).

Insurance will also cover you for malicious calls - if someone nicked your phone and racked up a huge bill before you noticed you're still liable to pay. It doesn't sound like an issue but plenty of times it's been several hours before I've noticed I've left the house without my phone, and I'm sure plenty of people leave theirs in the pub or on the bus (I know my wife has). I doubt it takes long for someone calling naughty kinky phone lines in your name to rack up a scary bill (although I suppose that depends on how long they can stay on the line before they're "exhausted"... mind you, they could always pass it around to their mates and they have a go too.... but I'm probably thinking this through too much)

I blame this thread.

Last night my very shiny and very expensive mobile phone fell into a cup of tea.

Yes, a cup of tea.

happywriter, it's all your fault.

Now it won't turn on, so here comes my first ever claim on my contents insurance since I took it out SEVEN years ago.

Are you complaining about the tea, or the phone, being ruined?
I'm pretty sure that the insurance company will not compensate the cost of the tea. Good shot though - very accurate!

It was my wife's tea, so I wasn't fussed about that.

It was quite a funny incident (despite me now being screwed for the next week...). We were sat on the sofa, heard a soft 'plop' and I didn't think anything of it for a second. Then I thought "what was that strange noise?"

Look down... "arse! Arse! Arse!" as I saw my beloved, gorgeous phone floating in my wife's mug of milky tea.

It was still on when I rescued it, but turned it off to dry it. After leaving it for a bit I tried to switch it on but it wouldn't boot up properly, so left it until this morning. Now it won't turn on at all *sniff*

I just had to phone a silly 0870 number (tried saynoto0870 but they all told me to call the 0870 number) and explain what happened. I felt a bit silly telling her what had happened... it would have been much sexier if I had lost the phone whilst saving a family from certain doom, or it had been damaged when I heroically held together a dam that was disintegrating, thus saving the lives of a whole village.

But no.... "what's the nature of the claim? Loss or damage"
"Accidental damage"
"What happened?"
"It fell into my wife's cup of tea"

A long time ago I worked maintaining radios on small ships in an oil port. We regularly had radios which had been dropped overboard into the sea, then recovered by the divers who found them whilst working.
We used to leave them in a bucket of fresh water, stirring gently for a few hours, then dry them off in the sun. Most of them survived the experience

Obviously my beloved Nokia isn't quite as tough as that!

Well, I just had to endure my first ever insurance claim call. I'm slightly annoyed, I've been with them for seven years, never claimed once but they still said "based on what you've said I need to recommend that we transfer you to a claims investigator"

What followed was 25 minutes of hell.... they wanted to know my FULL address history and dates of occupation for the last five years (that was tough as due one of my previous managerial roles I had to move about a lot on the whim of the company). They had my file in front of them, but I still had to endure it.

They then went over and over and over the details of the claim, asking me lots of similar questions from different angles. Then demanding to know my thought processes in the run up to the incident - "where was the phone on the sofa.... why was it there.... was anyone else in the house with you... how long had it been there... do you usually leave it there..." etc. I felt like saying "it was on the sofa just because, we all do these things. And if I was to randomly place the phone on the sofa, a cup of tea on the floor below it and casually knocked it off it would be a 1000 attempts before this happened again"

Then the one that made me feel like a common criminal - "was the phone working OK prior to this incident?"

And all of this on MY bill as it was an 0870 number... I feel like calling them and asking for a copy of the recording as I feel I paid for it! (They did the standard "this call is being recorded and anything you say here could have a bearing on the claim")

Never made an insurance claim, don't want to again.....

That is an unbelievable story and completely different to the experience I had the other day when my bike was nicked from the garage. They just said get a quote for a replacement and send us a letter.

We did make an accidental damage claim a few year ago. One of the kids had the winter vomiting virus and was sick on the carpet in the lounge. They had just eaten some strawberries, so needless to say we couldn't get the stain out. There was no interrogation, they just sent someone round to have a look.

I guess the number of claims for accidental damage are going through the roof which probably explains your treatment.

They will have recorded you for sure and they may have been analyzing your speech patterns - I think it is pretty ineffective technology, but they still use it.

Tony

I fully understand the recording and the reasonings behind it - just fancy a copy burned to disk and mailed to me for the £3 I estimate I've spent on the phone to them yesterday and today!

They sent me a confirmation email which has a different excess to that on my documents and as discussed on the phone today, so I've had to fire off a reply to double check that.

Thought of the day:

Why did my insurance company feel it was a good idea to call me on on Monday on my mobile to discuss my insurance claim.... when that claim was to do with the accidental damage to my phone which left it unusable?

I've only just picked the voicemail message up as I've only just been able to track an old mobile on the same network that I could borrow.

Maybe an insurance company would also send a letter to a house number which was reported as damaged beyond repair. Would they expect a response.