Got really wound up about something today, I’m sure you won’t hesitate to tell me if I’m wrong.

Last year I bought AA cover for about a hundred quid. A couple of weeks ago the renewal came in at a whopping £138 just for breakdown and recovery. So I went shopping around online and found that I can get similar cover from more highly rated companies for about half that price. Also it’s me that’s covered, in any vehicle not just my own, like the AA used to do.

So I decided to let it lapse then buy something else.

Today I went to get some weekend pocket money from my debit account and realised I was a bit light. The AA have gone and took the money from my account. All £138 of it.

Now tell me if I’m being naive;

Was I wrong to assume that I would have to call them up and agree to their renewal price and arrange to stay with them? And that if I didn’t my cover would simply expire?

Is it now standard practice for companies to just lift the money out of your account without your express permission?

Am I within my rights to call them tomorrow, give them an earful and get my money back?

It stinks to me. Not a fan of this practice at all. I was a bit, er, excited when I realised.

Give them a ring, explain it and they’ll refund you – the same happened to me once with AA insurance and they were fine about it

Sometimes there is an option to opt out of automatic renewals.

It’s “to prevent you being stranded with now cover by accident” or otherwise known as hoping you can’t be bothered to cancel it or chase them up.

look up autoaid. Costs about £40 a year for full cover.

Yes, when you sign up it states that if you don’t tell them otherwise then they will renew it after your year is up.

(Same happened to me with Green Flag – didn’t think to ring up and complain though because it’s clearly stated in the T&Cs… maybe I should have done).

Read all the Terms and Conditions? I assume you must have agreed to pay by DD or another recurring payment method.

Instead of giving them an earful, why not just learn to read your documents, especially the bit about automatically renewing your policy?

Not a fan of auto-renewals either, but you can always opt out and it’s always written down.

Many car insurance policies do the same thing.

My AA renewal made it v clear that it would auto renew. It was expensive. I phoned up and said I didn’t want to renew. They said “is it the price?” And virtually halved it. I was happy.

Everytime I sign up for new insurance I explicitly tell them (The AA among others) that it’s not an auto renewal authorisation.

They still try and **** me a year later.

SO Every time you get the renewal through, you still have to call and tell them no.

They did that to me once, I rang up complained and got my money back.

It’s standard policy on stuff like that unless you ring them up to cancel(they don’t make it easy), mine got auto renewed but luckily it was on my mums debit card and not mine, she rang them up and they refunded her

This once happened to me with Direct Line car insurance except the renewal more than doubled from about £400 to £1100-12000. Needless to say I didn’t fancy renewing and told them so, when they tried to “haggle” to get me to renew I told ’em there’d be no way they’d ever see another penny from me if that’s how they treat long term customers (had been with them 3 years)……roll on 3-4 months and it turns out I was wrong, they’d failed to cancel the direct debit properly and had been taking payment 😛 feckers! No probs getting it back, refund was very swift!

i m a big fan of the aa.. i pay well over 200 quid a year for breakdown recovery and homestart they ve never quibbled when i ve called them and i get about 4 visits a year for my cars/van/bikes had 3 recoveries last year and a breakdown and a wrong fuel so far this year.. if you have over 10 continuos years with them you get unlimited callouts per year unlimited age of vehicle.. something to consider with a 87 year old car.. frankly id pay double each recovery would probably cost a minimum of 200 sheets and the wrong fuel guy was with me and i was on my way in less than an hour..

The AA really pissed me off the last couple of years.

I’ve been a member for about 20 years and recently I’ve noticed they’re winding up the cost for the cover I get. The last two years I’ve done a quick on-line check and then rung the AA. Each time they’ve reduced the price to whatever I can get the same cover for on-line. But that’s not the point – I shouldn’t have to do this.

…and breath – phew 😆

OP, they don’t take the money without giving you notice. Last week I had my letter stating they would be taking the money in early April…. so about 6 or 7 weeks notice.
As I’ve bought a car that comes with 3 years cover I phoned to cancel and instead got cover on our other car for £28 (no home start though).

*Keeps head down*

Give them a call, chances are they’ll agree to refund it. If you want to windmill in, go to your bank and do a direct debit indemnity, you’ll get the money back immediately… but that doesn’t mean you don’t owe them any money so it can be messy.

Re taking money without permission; you’ve given it. They’ve done something that’s not too impressive, customer service wise but legally there’s no issue. So all I can suggest is don’t get excited about it, just be calm and reasonable

Is it now standard practice for companies to just lift the money out of your account without your express permission

No, that would be theft.

If they took the money, it’s because they had your permission.

Five minute phone call. Stayed on my silver level of cover with all the bumpf that entails and had it reduced to the very reasonable sum of £84.99.

All is well once again.

£85!

https://www.autoaidbreakdown.co.uk/autoaid/breakdown_services.jsp

Used them a couple of times for the land rover. First time they sent the nearest person who couldnt start it so had to call for the flat bed.

2nd time they just sent out the flat bed which arrived in 20 minutes.

I don’t mind paying £85 to be fair. The AA are a known quantity and they’ve bailed me out in the past without issue. Funny how I’ve never used them now that I drive vehicles which are younger then myself.

Don’t give anyone an earful, it’s not the poor sod on the end of the phone who charged you.

1st approach is to be nice and calm, just explain the situation.

Then if they refuse you can let loose on them!

You haven’t been hustled you’ve just neglected to read the documentation they would have sent you clearly stating that it will auto-renew if you don’t notify them. Pretty standard practice these days.

As others have said, be nice, talk to them, tell them you’ve found an alternative and see what happens.

Had a similar issue with Green Flag after moving house. Ended up with two accounts with them – one I’d created at the new address and one them sending renewals to my old address and automatically renewing.

The sums were coming from different cards and statements were coming in at different times. I missed the duplication as I’m self employed and have a large amount of transactions on the statements – I’m looking for fraudulent transactions more than anything else so money going out to a co I know I’m doing business with didn’t ring any alarm bells.

The rate at which they increased the cover price renewal after renewal was shocking. On the account I was using I always got them to re-quote every year and it came in under £100 (for two vehicles and drivers). Left to renew automatically the other account was approaching £300 per year.

No hassle at all getting it refunded I just pointed it out and they organised a refund there and then- but when I did it was nearly £1300 I was due back 🙂

Yep happened to me with AA Euro cover
They claimed to have sent me two notice letters before renewal
I never rec’d those and took out cover with someone else
Complained when I saw them take the money, wouldn’t refund it all, lost about 20% for the 1st month.
I was bored at work so argued on the phone for close on 2 hrs, getting a little higher up the chain but they weren’t budging, so had to admit defeat.
It’s definitely in their interest for auto renewals to get ‘lost in the post’ 🙄

they got me on this too…and my renewal ‘reminder’ also got ‘lost’ in the post too (very unusual for me) so the first I knew was when I saw my back statement. I’d not say that they clearly state that this will happen but agree it was in the small print underneath the application – they may have made it clearer now as it has upset a lot of people. I won’t be rushing back to them. Lesson for me is not to pay any of this stuff on a debit / credit card, it’s better to set up a direct debit and then cancel it after the payment. At least a direct debit is in your own control where as the continuous card payments require the other organisation to agree to stop collecting.

as above, many car insurance policies do the same. thats why when i got my reminder last september i glanced at the premium and did precisely naff all about it.
Had unfortunatley been issued a new card during the year so when they tried to get the money, they failed, i then drove with no insurance for three months till MID caught me up, when i spoke to the insurance company they confirmed i was not insured and they could not back date a new policy.

still the premium had dropped by nearly a ton from their first quote, which was nice.

I won’t be rushing back to them.

The AA did seem once to have the Marks and Spencers worth-paying-a-bit-more-for untarnishable brand.

Now they just seem grabby

Autoaid…waaaaay cheaper than AA or RAC and just as quick

I once got jiggled by a DD – is that anything like ?