Appalling

Absolutely horrific experience.

Just abit of a back story, this evening 17/2/23 was suppose to be a mother's evening off turned out to be a stressful, panic filled evening because of admiral breakdown recovery.

The cars steering was hard and the car was making an straining noise at one point there was smoke coming out from the front of the bonnet. Called the breakdown service was told that someone will be with us 2 to 4 hrs this was at 7.30pm at 9.45 someone joined us and gave us a diagnosis of the problem the car steering wheel pump has been worn out and there was an oil leak. I had to drive the car out of the car park slowly and arrive at a stop at what was deemed to be a safe place.

I was told by the recovery agent that I have to call back the recovery line and let them know of the situation and he will do the same on his end in order to initiate the next step of the recovery process which is the tow truck service.

Upon calling and updating them of the problem, I was told that there for be another 1 to 2hr wait but someone should be with me for 12am. Then this person (forgot ask for his name) asked are you of this ethnic background to which I replied yes, awkwardly he just chuckled and said yeah it's going to be a while. Despite telling him I have babies waiting for me at home and me and my freind also a mother and that we were caught in between a police chase not to mention how late it was being in the middle of a busy road of drunks he showed no care repeated the same thing like a robot. Hanged up and then called again because this time they didn't provide a link where you can get updates for the recovery truck, the same person picked up and asked the same question rather annoyed I asked why does it matter what ethnic background I belong to? He goes because I'm just being transparent (whatever the heck that means) but the earliest time you are looking at is a 2 hrs wait and we dont provide a link for third party recovery. We had no other choice but to wait.

I called back after an hour just to check for updates .... this time it was someone named Jas, he said nothing has been put through about recovery tow truck. In utter shock and appauled, we had just waited an hour and the vehicle pick up wasn't even put through. He kindly put it through and made it priority which the first employer said he had done, and said it will be a 2hrs so now we are looking at 12.55am as the earliest arrival time.


1am came and went called again they added another 30 mins, in the meantime, there were drunk people breaking glass bottles, all the surrounding shops had closed we called back worried and terrified as ilford is known to be a crime ridden area called back again desperate for someone to actually listen to us but the employers from then on lacked to empathise or have any sorts of remorse to the fact that we were mothers stranded in the middle of a desolate area with drunkard men wandering about. One lady (an employer) even advised to go and wait inside the travelodge which was a 5 mins away even though i had told her there were a group of drunk men , because of course nothing can happen between these 5 mins whilst walking there. Not to mention the horrific murder happened in Iflord.

Attempted to call back again waited on the line for 43 mins no one picked up I was trying to find a private tow truck company affordable one at this point it was 3am and my sitter needed to get home as I was suppose to be home for 8pm not only I had to pay my sitter for extra 8 hours but also had to pay for the private call out service. Already a single mother things got even harder for me financially.

At 2.45am I called a private tow truck company who was charging £180 but assured us that he would be there in the next 15 mins desperate we went with this option as there was no call back and no one was picking up my calls. We arrived home at 3.15am and yes you guessed it still no call back. The waiting threshold time was between 2 to 4 hrs we had waited over 5 hours with no one picking up our call just left stranded with no empthay and care and this was a service that I received being a member that has been paying for breakdown recovery service for the past 2 and half years .

This has caused me and my freind so much distress spent triple the money in having to pay for our sitters, we were terrified for our lives thinking whether we would make it home to our children, and nearly every employer just tried to rush me off the phone as though my situation wasn't important at all. I paid for a recovery service through my insurance with admiral, and I will be contacting
To get my breakdown cover money back for the past 3 years that I have been with them, because they lacked to show any sympathy and as a service provider failed to do what they said they would do. And I no longer want to pay for a service that has no respect nor care for its members.

Why am I paying for a breakdown service every year, when in the end I had to pay extra for a service that they promised to provide but failed to do, furthermore, being a single mother I struggle to put food on the table all this has set me back for the next few months I will have to starve myself so my babies (2 and a 3 year old) can eat. It's not only affected me mentally but also financially and I don't have no family that are local to me, this is my 3rd year with admiral but this is the last year I will be with them. I will be demanding a refund for breakdown cover as not only they were unable to provide me with an efficient service but severely lacked any sorts of compassion towards the situation we had to go through and ultimately left hanging towards the early morning of the night.