The No 1 Breakdown Service Provider - Hell No, Appalling organisation

“The No 1 Breakdown Service Provider - Hell No,...”

Written on: 28/06/2011 by abiiba

My friend and I were travelling from Birmingham to London and we got a split tyre on the M25, unfortunately, my friend did not have a spare, he phoned the AA who said to him that due to the fact that we had broken down on he M25 and were in a dangerous position they would come and move us within 40 minutes, 2.5 hours later we were still there, because the AA twice gave the recovery vehicle the wrong junction, it was only by chance that the recovery vehicle saw us as he was on his way to the second position that he spotted us. He then took us to a safe location,(a petrol forecourt that had toilets and facilities) he did suggest to his office that he might as well take us home (he was willing to do this, so was his company (Langleys) who were subcontracted to get us off the motorway) however the AA said he could not as it was not in his contract,(it seems the AA were unwilling to pay him to do this) we were dropped off at this safe location after 9pm at night and when my friend rang the AA to ask when were they going to get us home we were told that it would not be until between 2am-2.25am the following morning,as they were busy, despite the fact my friend told them that there was a female passenger as well. The time came and went and my friend tried to ring the AA numerous times to get an update but the call centre was not answering the phone, traffic cops turned up at this service station that were at and my friend spoken to them but they could not help us as they said, they had lots of complaints about the AA that day and it had taken their offices 2 hours to get through to them. They kindly lent my friend their in-car charger to recharge his phone. I subsequently spent the whole night sleeping in my friend car in the forecourt of a petrol station, just before 4am the following morning we got a phone call saying that Langleys would be arriving to take us home. I jokingly said to my friend I bet it is the driver that dropped us here, my friend said it would not be, however, low and behold it was the same driver who the AA would not originally allow to take us home the previous evening. He told us that they had only been given the job about 15 minutes prior to him coming to us, even though the AA knew where we were in the safe location from 9pm the previous night and despite telling us that we would be picked up at a certain time our predicament sat on their system from 2am in the morning without them making any attempt to get us home. I subsequently got home at 5.30am having left Birmingham for London 4pm the previous day.

At no time were the AA helpful, their service is disgraceful, God forbid what may have happened if I as a lone female had broken down on the motorway by myself,e as it was I was with a friend who has AA service that came with his banking

They call themselves the UK's no 1 breakdown provider, however their customer service is rubbish, I for one would never recommend them to family and friends and they ought to be ashamed of themselves, firstly for telling us they would be with us in 40 minutes and due to their incompetence this became 2.5 hours, and secondly because of their incompetence we were forced to spend the night on a petrol forecourt