Tag Archives: Finance

Day 1 back at home after a wonderful trip walking the coast and hills of Dorset. Naturally, one of the first jobs is to go through the mail, both snail- and e-, that has accumulated during one’s absence. One missive in the snail-mail collection was my invitation, from none other than the AA, to renew my Mazda MX5 insurance. Their best offer, a different supplier from the current policy, was £198.43 with a bunch called Acromas of whom I’ve never heard. The price didn’t look bad but I thought I’d have a quick look on-line.

In order to support Aleksandr, I went into www.comparethemarket.com. Crunch, crunch, crunch went the wheels and out popped a few numbers. Let’s look at the scores in the doors. Pop! Oh, look, there’s a quote from the AA for £178.xx. Pop! Oh look, there’s a quote from Saga (yes, I know the jokes) for £155.xx.

I was perusing these numbers thinking that perhaps the AA was now not looking quite so good after all when the phone rang.

“Hello”, I said in my best macho bass, telephone-manner voice.

“Am I speaking to Mrs. Curd”, said the complete wombat stranger.

“Do I sound like a Mrs?”, I enquired.

He fed me some bullshit about their line being bad (sounded fine at my end) and proceeded to tell me he was from the AA and was I happy with my recent quote through www.comparethemarket.com? Strewth, that was quick off the mark!

“I’m very glad you called”, I said unusually and looking forward to some fun. “I’m holding your renewal quote in my hand telling me that the best price you can do is £198 but I am looking at an on-line quote from your good selves for £178. Please explain.”

“I can only deal with new customers, not existing customers. I’ll have to put you through to some other poor schmuck customer services.”

I went through the same lines again with customer services. Pause. “I can do it for £188 – that’s pretty close, isn’t it?”

“If £10 more is close, yes. It isn’t, however, close to my on-line Saga quote of £155. Oh, and incidentally, my current policy through you is actually a Saga policy which you claim you’ve had to abandon to get me a renewal quote a hair below £200. I’m confused. I’m getting used to having to jump ship in order to get a decent deal. What ever happened to rewarding customer loyalty, especially those that have not made a claim?”

“They do it to attract new customers”, he said I distilled.

“What about trying to keep existing customers?”, I enquired, “you seem to work hard to capture them so how about trying to hold onto them? I had exactly the same trouble recently with your Breakdown/Relay policy – renewal price: £108, new member price: £69. I cancelled. You lost a customer.”

Tap, tap, tap … “I could do that for £58 today”, he informed me, sheepishly.

Ye Gods! I give up!!

Since our beloved Mazda MX5 (a.k.a. “Mazzie”) is now 11 years old, for the last two years I’ve taken out breakdown and recovery cover with the AA. Although most of our longer journeys are in our tow car, it seemed sensible not to worry unduly when we were at home and we were blessed with an all-too-rare pleasant day. I went for the Roadside and Relay options.

Just prior to our recent trip to Devon, my renewal notice arrived. With Devon planning uppermost in our minds, I left it until our return. On Monday I started dealing with it. The renewal notice wanted £108.00 – £50.00 for the Roadside option and £58.00 for the Relay option (recovery of disabled vehicle either to preferred repairer or home). I began looking for alternatives.

Imagine my annoyance when I looked at the AA website and was quoted £69.00 for exactly the same cover as a new member. Worse, as a new member I could apparently include the additional Home Start option (which I don’t currently have) for £31.00, a total of £100.00, still £8.00 less than my renewal notice without Home Start. (Incidentally, my renewal notice wanted £50.50 for Home Start.)

As an existing member, even one who had not made a call out, the AA was penalizing me to the tune of £39.00, a thumping 56.5% of what a new member was being asked to pay.

I investigated Green Flag and got a quote for similar cover down to £71.40. I investigated the Caravan Club’s Mayday cover (operated by Green Flag) and found their equivalent (perhaps slightly superior) cover to be £62.00.

I phoned the AA and asked to cancel my membership. I was put through to a customer service agent who had been told that I was unhappy about the price (which I had not yet said) and that he “could do something about it”. You’re damn right I wasn’t happy about the price but by now I was determined to go elsewhere on a matter of principle. I wasn’t happy about being taken for a mug on my renewal notice. I went with the Caravan Club’s Mayday cover.

Penalizing existing customers seems to be a common theme in our modern world. We have to go through the pain of changing car insurers every year to get the best deals because new customers get a discount. I’ll have to do that for Mazzie in May for his insurance. Constant change is both time consuming and stressful (when it comes to No Claims Bonus proof, anyway).

What happened to valuing customer loyalty? Now it’s always existing customers that get penalized almost forcing them to jump ship. The whole ethos is intensely irritating. I happen to think it’s also completely stupid. Not that I was actually a salesman but, in a sales situation I was taught to value repeat business and to hang on to existing customers. Once you’ve lost an existing customer it’s harder to win them back than to win brand new ones ‘cos those who left you did so for a reason. In this case the reason is being penalized and taken for mugs.

We’ve completely lost it.

When we landed back in the UK on Sunday after a wetter-than-expected but enjoyable trip to Spain, a couple of depressing situations greeted us, apart from the fact that it was raining slightly and the country appeared pretty much flooded. [I must say that since Sunday, the weather has been quite bright and reasonable, if cold.]

The first monumentally disturbing thing we saw was a headline proclaiming that Gordon Brown was on track to win the upcoming general election. This is quite incredible. I cannot believe that Joe Public’s collective memory is so short. This is the man that, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, unilaterally dealt a devastating blow to yours and my pension funds and who sold off a large portion of the country’s gold reserves at rock-bottom prices. If only we had that gold now, now that it is trading at very high prices. Far from being handed the top job, he might rightly have been tried for treason in my opinion. Where is Joe Public’s memory and how on earth have the Conservatives failed to capitalize on his ineptitude and the almost constant sleaze?

The second depressing situation stemmed in part from the first. When we went to Spain we heard about the Greek so-called government’s inability to run a budget. They’ve run up such enormous debts that the EU has to bail them out. It would appear that they’ve been doing their damndest to sink the Euro. Excellent, I thought, with self-interest at heart, this ought to make the Euro sink against the Pound and go some way to restoring half-way realistic exchange rates. What do I see upon my return? Despite Greece’s best efforts at bankruptcy, the Pound had fallen back further against the Euro. Why? Apparently, because Joe Public isn’t giving Gordon Brown the severe kick up the backside that he so richly deserves, the currency market “is concerned about a hung parliament”. Christ! How reasonable is that? The currency market is apparently prepared to take a bankrupt Greek parliament in its stride but at the merest suggestion of a hung British parliament, down we go.

If  this isn’t complete political nonsense, I don’t know what is.

I am ashamed to confess that since retirement I had become something of an ostrich – burying my head in the sand, as it were, by only rarely keeping up with the news. I think it was because I used to get a daily dose of news from Radio 4 driving to and from work and, when that journey stopped, I failed to adjust my habits.

The current financial debacle has changed all that. Suddenly, with our life’s savings either invested in shares or entrusted to banks, I have a vested interest in being interested again. A crisis is quite an educational process, though sometimes the  lessons are learned a little too late. Banks going under is a relatively new phenomenon and quite suddenly, whereas the guarantees offered by the FSCS used to seem of little relevance, they now seem absolutely crucial. 20-20 hindsight is always wonderfully clear.

We personally have rather too much cash currently locked away in one of Iceland’s famously failing financial institutions and we are, of course, both relieved and very grateful that our government has expressed its intention to underwrite all personal investments. It is clearly going to take some time to sort out but at least the situation looks more hopeful.

Today’s new lesson came while listening to the Channel 4 news at 7:00 PM. It broadcast a story about Icelandic offshore accounts administered in places such as the Isle of Mann and the Channel Islands not being covered by the FSCS. I had once very briefly dabbled with an offshore account but dropped it, not because I realized any limitation but simply because it didn’t suit me. In this shambles, holders of those Iceland-mismanaged offshore bank accounts now seem to be disturbed by their lack of cover, quite naturally, I suppose. They want the Chancellor to cover their loss as well, just like every one else.

Wait a moment, though. The point of an offshore account is to avoid paying any tax on interest accrued to the UK government, isn’t it? So, having deliberately taken steps to avoid paying anything to it, they now expect the very taxation system that they did their level best to avoid to extend to them the same benefits afforded those of us who did, at least, pay something for the privilege?

Strewth!