Accident Claims Scotland

Accident Claims Scotland

This is one of the most shocking companies I have ever had to deal with.

In my opinion, they use misleading advertising to gain your business and their customer service is appalling, to the point it would appear they tell blatant lies.

I can of course only base this opinion on my own experience, but I will include two copy letters, one from myself to the company (ACS) and their reply to me.

This should in itself give good example of how they handle business and where the discrepancies appear.

When I phoned them to discuss some problems with the repairs carried out, they were very rude and condescending, and the "gentleman" I spoke to accused me of shouting at him, when I explained I had a loud voice due to a mild hearing problem his reply was "don't give me your stories", at this point I lost my temper and a whole barage of expletives ensued, a mistake I know, but he drew that reaction from me, he kept hanging up so I kept calling back, he then said something along the lines of (in a raised voice) "I am not going to speak to you when you have just said I'm going to come through there and kick your

teeth in"!

This I balked at and actually said to him that I hoped he had that recorded as it would prove him to be a liar.

I asked to speak to someone in authority and he replied that there was no-one more senior than him, so I said, you mean there is no-one above you at all? To which he replied, "we have a managing director but he is not here" (the reply to my written correspondence to them suggests that one of them at least is lying).

They claim to be an accident management company who handle all aspects of the claim, including arranging repairs to the vehicle owned by the third party, in my case, yes they did this (arranged the repair), but when I had a problem, they told me that the repair part of the claim was nothing to do with them and that I should take up all complaints with the repairing garage as my contract was with the repairer, this is clearly contrary to what they advertise.

When I spoke to consumer direct, they confirmed that my contract is with Accident Claims Scotland and not the garage that carried out the repairs, and the garage would also be in agreement with this as this is also what they were lead to believe by Accident Claims Scotland.

Below are copies of the Email corrswpondence with Accident Claims Scotland:

My email to Accident Claims Scotland;

Accident Claims Scotland
Unit 12, Airlink Industrial Estate
Inchinnan Road
Paisley
PA3 2RS

Dear Sir/Madam,

Supply of Goods & Services Act 1982 (As amended)
Common Law Scotland

Ref: 9821

On 12/11/2009, you undertook the handling of my motor vehicle accident claim on a no win no fee basis, with this you arranged and chose the garage that would carry out the repair. The services provided as part of the contract are not of satisfactory quality.

The problems are:

•   I am unhappy with a part of the repair as it left my car looking as if it had been repaired, this would adversely affect the value and saleability of the car and I was always under the impression that a vehicle should be returned to pre accident condition.

•   I am unhappy that the headlamp washers that were working prior to the accide were now not working.

•   The air conditioning which was working prior to the accident, although new parts were fitted, is still not working

•   When I contacted yourselves to make you aware of these issues it was stated to me that you were not responsible for the repairs and that the contract of repair was between me and the garage that carried out the repairs and that you were only responsible for the hire of the replacement vehicle supplied by yourselves for the duration of the repair.

•   Also when I collected my car, the key card was damaged, in that the car would no longer lock, this was working fine when I took the car in for repair.

•   When I contacted you, the person I spoke to was extremely rude and condescending, even to the point where he told a blatant lie in claiming that I had made a physical threat towards his person.

Please respond to my complaint in the next 14 days. If you fail to respond/remedy in this time, I will have no option but to consider taking the matter further.

Yours faithfully

The reply I received from Accident Claims Scotland;

Dear Mr H*****,

I am aware of your calls to our office yesterday as I was fortunate enough to be standing next to my member of staff, Mr Kelly, when you called, and I witnessed exactly how the calls were handled.

Let me first deal with your issues regarding repairs;

Following your request for assistance we arranged for an independent consulting engineer to inspect the damage to your vehicle, and we also suggested a local garage from our recommended repairer list. I note that your vehicle is a 6 year old Renault with a recorded mileage of 101102. With a vehicle of this age and mileage, there will always be a degree of betterment when new parts are fitted and painted. It is not always possible to match weathered paintwork or worn parts. Every attempt is made to return a vehicle to it's pre-accident condition as far as is reasonably possible. I gather you complained that your old headlight was not as bright as the new one. If so, you cannot hold someone responsible for the wear and tear on your old one. The same principle applies on your paintwork. If you feel the work is of poor quality, you must take this up with the garage direct.

I would point out that, as we recover all repair costs from the negligent party or their insurers, it makes no difference to us how much work is done on your car, or how much repairs cost, provided that we can prove to the satisfaction of a court of law that the cost was reasonably incurred and directly attributable to the accident.

However, I note that you state that the air-con and washers are no longer working and a keycard was damaged. I am advised that these are unlikely to have been damaged as a result of this type of impact, but if you wish, I will happily refer these to the independent engineer who will carry out a detailed inspection, and if he feels these are consistent with an impact of this type, then he will issue a supplementary report (which we will pay for) and the garage will repair them. If however in his expert opinion these are not likely to be related to the accident, you will have to meet the engineers inspection fee, which is in the region of £85 plus VAT. Please confirm that you wish us to arrange for the reinspection. Alternatively you can arrange for your own engineer to inspect.

Turning to your other complaint about the attitude of my staff member, as I say, I was privy to his side of the conversation, and indeed your voice was raised to a degree that I could hear you coming through the headset!. Whilst I could not hear the detail of your side of the conversation, Mr Kelly asked you to moderate your language or he would terminate the call, and following your response to this,he did. Immediately you called back and he again pointed out that he would not tolerate being called names like that and repeated back to you that he would not assist you if you did not refrain from such language. He was again forced to hang up. Again you called him back and Mr Kelly was forced to say that he would not tolerate being threatend with physical violence, and that if you did so again, he would be hanging up and calling the police regarding your abusive and threatening behaviour. Again he was forced to hang up. You called back, immediately and he informed you he would no longer speak to you and was calling the police. As it is, he refrained from doing so.

I am informed that you later attended the repairing garage and told them that Mr Kelly had actually threatened you, which I can verify was certainly not the case. I am satisfied that we have dealt with you fairly despite your claims to the contrary. We have appointed a solicitor to recover all hire and repair charges in accordance with the hire agreement.

I must ask you to confirm by return that you are happy for us to arrange reinspection of the car, so that the correct repair figure can be established before we present it to the other side.

From this point onward, please deal only with my hire manager Mr Trotter or myself.

Yours sincerely

Martin Haggarty
Managing Director