Avoid.
I have already posted this to Trustpilot.
I have had premium cover for several years and after a serious tyre blowout on a very busy main road, I called them for the first time, from a layby. I was told they have no mechanics at all and only ever offer a tow but not to the garage of my choice which was just over their limit of 25 miles away. I had to choose from a list of four garages they then sent me, contact the garage myself, then ring them back. It all took over an hour, what with all their phone menus and “exceptionally high call volume”. Of the four, one was just a petrol station and two were busy one-man bands. The other, the only option, closed at 4pm. Since they were going to take two hours to reach me (not the 50 minutes they estimate), it would have been pointless. I was collected by my wife and agreed to pay for a local company to collect the car later. When I tried to complain this morning to 2gether, the people I actually paid money to, I was told I could only complain to Emergency Assist themselves, for which they refused to provide a phone number, just an e-mail address, although they are “sister companies”. There were also a lot of ridiculous questions, such as when did I last use the car and had I at any point left the radio on. Completely useless and a total con.
I am not alone, there are many one-star reviews and many of those are recent, recounting similar experiences, often using words like “scammers” and “cowboys”. And thirty people have read mine. It does turn out that I have only paid them for two years’ cover rather than “several” and I will admit that the cover is cheap (I have now jointed the AA which is a lot more but I guess you get what you pay for). Since we humble customers are not permitted to telephone Emergency Assist, I sent an e-mail quoting the review above.
I did get a reply to which I responded, describing it as a word salad. Now they have stopped responding at all.
I wrote back: “In terms of the facts, your people said that they never sent mechanics out under any circumstances very early on in the call. The entire process took or would have taken nearly four hours. I never mentioned anything about the suspension [which they claimed I had], only that there had been some damage to the rear of the car – only damage to the bumper was visible to me. I do not think googling and forwarding the names of garages without even checking whether they were suitable or not is at all acceptable. Nor do I understand why it was down to me to contact them. It depends how you define ‘accident’ [they stated “…it was established that the cause of the breakdown was as a result of an Accident and as such should not receive assistance”], but a blown out tyre would not fall under a normal understanding of the word. It is precisely for incidents like flat tyres for which people take out cover and pay premiums. In what sense was there an ‘accident’?”
I have remembered other details too. When I first spoke to them the first response was that they couldn’t help because their mechanics didn’t carry tyres. Well how could they, given the variety there is? When I said there was no need since I had a spare wheel, they changed their tune and that was when they said that they never sent out mechanics at all. They remind me of those dodgy parking services at airports – we waited four hours for our car once too, at ghastly Gatwick, and so did a lot of other people to the extent that the police appeared in case they was any trouble. The police said that the drivers were often uninsured and unlicensed and it turned out cars were parked anywhere they could find. To get ours in the end I had to go with a driver to a hotel where they presumably have some dodgy arrangement. People’s cars came back covered in filth and I took a photograph to show that they were parked bumper to bumper – literally. The problem with companies like these is that a complaint to Trading Standards might eventually get them shut down, but they just reappear under another name. They are shameless.
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