Harvey / 17 January 2025 / Categories: Brands, Opinions

RAC

When everything goes wrong

Not a rant, not a rave. Just a stupid situation.

I have to share what happened to me yesterday with the RAC because I think a great deal can be learned from the experience.

I have been an RAC member for about 8 or 9 years, prior to that I was an AA member because my Dad was an AA member.

I drive a 25 year old car by choice so it’s important to me I am covered in an emergency.

So I am not up north, I am in an expensive area down south and my battery is as flat as a pancake. I have jump leads in the car and think about whether it’s quicker to try and get someone to help me jump the car or call the RAC, who can be notoriously slow from past experience.

First off, had I been at home there would have been no shortage of jalopy’s like mine to take a jump off. In the posh London suburb, even with the help of the Metropolitan police (I know another snoop entirely) the police officer was absolutely brilliant (we were laughing on the way home about this and thought maybe my car with the bonnet up was such an eye saw for the wealthy folk the police were motivated to have it removed) we could not find another car that wasn’t a hybrid.

I decide to log the breakdown online to discover there is no record of my membership.

I call up to find out, the payment had tried to be taken two weeks prior for the membership but because the credit card on file had been stolen and cancelled before Christmas the payment was never taken and the membership had lapsed.

When I called RAC for help I discovered all this and this is where the fun began.

The breakdown person on the phone told me to speak to renewals because the membership had only been inactive for two weeks. He suggested I renew the membership and thought any surcharges due could be negated.

I disagreed with him, I said there was no way RAC would allow me to renew and then give help with a breakdown already reported.

He said they may so I agreed to be passed over to the renewal team.

He was right. The renewal team did offer to process my renewal, after being a member for 8 years and still allow me to get breakdown help. I was surprised but hey if RAC would do that for me great.

Renew, get help, membership back in place and everyone’s happy.

NOT

When they tried to add a new payment method to the account (the old card they had, had been stolen) they couldn’t get it to work, I kept punching in my credit card number but the system wouldn’t work. The customer service person started asking me all kinds of questions regarding whether the vehicle was a business vehicle or a pleasure vehicle.

I have an unusual situation where my old banger (insured by RAC for 8 years) is owned by a limited company I am a director of so technically it is a business vehicle (owned by a company) but not used for business.

Try as I might I couldn’t get through all the customer services hoops to get my policy reinstated even though everything I was saying was the truth. I made the mistake of saying the car was owned by a limited company and after that I felt the agent was convinced I was up to no good.

We even got into serious detail about what I was doing when I broke down, the customer service person I am sure thought I was lying when I told him I had just got my hair cut and had lunch with a friend.

Despite my protests that I had been an RAC member for 8 years and this was just a renewal it just wasn’t meant to be.

After 45 minutes on the phone with the RAC I gave up completely. My truth didn’t fit in the RAC Questionaire even though I was already a customer. Go figure. I put the phone down and phoned a local garage to come and rescue us, I’ll be snooping about them, they were there in in less than 10 minutes, were absolutely fantastic, got me going and I was back on the M1 heading north in a jiffy.

I have decided for the first time in my driving history to forego breakdown cover and should anything happen I’ll enlist the help of someone small and independent.

It was way easier, less stressful and much quicker.