Had ‘auto aid’recovery insurance for eleven months now and not had to call them at all. NOW I find they are going to ‘auto renew’ my policy. I am 75 years old and have had to get a great grandchild to negotiate the fact that the ‘opt out’ policy number is on a sister site! (ERS) and is difficult to track through.  I have managed to cancel the policy even though I might have to pay more through a rival company ( and have told them this on my electronic mail) It is only the fact that I am ‘oldish’ that I have the time in retirement to keep my eye on what has become bad practice in any walk of life connected to electronic on line transactions. Old but not STUPID.

We broke down camping . We were in a field which was quite remote with 2 young children . We phoned Autoaid to see if our policy was still valid . It had lapsed by 2 months. My husband said I need some help explained the situation and couple Autoaid help. Of course , renewed membership over phone paid and transferred the call to the recovery centre. After quite a lengthy phone call to establish our location the operator asked to phone is back. She did and informed my husband the policy wasn't valid for 24 hours . I phoned back to complain. Quite an unhelpful female operator with and negative undertone answered . Asked some rediculous questions like what was the person name my husband spoke to, told me it was in the terms and conditions . Why was the call transferred to the recovery team then I questioned and no terms and conditions were discussed on the phone. The operator said there was a £15 cancellation fee but her manager said they could waiver this! No apologie, no concern for us and our young children . Shocking !

AutoAid Myself and my husband used AutoAid for the past few years. The first claim I made, was when I had a flat tyre at work (my husband was away at the time) and the second was a dead battery just outside my house (we did not have jumper leads or jump starter at the time). On both occasions, the local recovery teams were prompt and courteous. The only downside was having to wait for a while for AutoAid to reimburse me for both callouts. However, in July 2015 we went on holidays to Lake District and on the second day accidentally locked the car keys in the boot of our car. The keys were inside a rucksack that contained our wallet and my mobile as well. Luckily my husband’s mobile was in his pocket. This was a good lesson for us and we will not be making the same mistake again. However, on this occasion AutoAid proved to be completely useless. 1. When we rung AutoAid and explained what happened, they said our policy does not cover such situations. Fair enough we thought and asked AutoAid if there is anything they could do to help. The operator said he will arrange for somebody to come out, however we will have to pay all associated costs. The operator rung around and informed us that local breakdown services are very busy and it will take between three and five hours for somebody to come out to us. He also gave us a phone number for a mobile locksmith, who turned out to do residential and business properties only. 2. Finally we managed to arrange for AutoAid to send somebody out within 60-90 minutes. After 90 minutes we rung AutoAid to check when recovery van will be here – AudoAid said within 10 minutes. 90 minutes later we get a phone call from recovery van who tells us that our car is most likely deadlocked and as a result they are unable to get it unlocked. He advised us that smashing the window or getting Ford to come out with a master key are the only two options. Surely, he knew this three hours ago and could have told us then. 3. AutoAid texted the details of recovery team to a landline number (which we used to ring AutoAid initially, however we specifically asked AutoAid to contact us on our mobile number). 4. There was absolutely no update from AutoAid during the three hour wait in the rain. In the end no help came from AutoAid and we had to borrow a wrench to smash the window and get the keys out of the car. Smashing the window was a problem in itself as brick we used first kept on simply bouncing off the glass.

Been with auto aid 5 years. Had to call out 4 times. Use local garages to send out a tow van always. Never attempt to rectify on road side. Yes, it is cheap and they do reimburse quickly but go for it only if you need a towing service. In the longer run, RAC, AA might be cheaper as they fix most things on road side.

Garage took almost double the promised time to arrive (no apology), once they did, the mechanic didn't even know how to open the bonnet. Quote given to sort out the car very expensive & not even consisitant (when I queried it with them they gave a cheaper quote for the part, but bumped up the call out fee, so that it was pretty much the same anyway). Reported this back to autoaid, but they weren't interested. Given conflicting information by 2 autoaid operatives on what I could/couldn't claim on. Claim form sent almost 3 weeks ago and still not received payment, which (even allowing for christmas post) is very slow. Won't be renewing.

My partner is a policyholder and I am covered as spouse, though we have different names, this has been written clearly in the policy document. However a woman in the customer service treated me as if I am lair, and seemed to think I am making her life difficult. In the end, I had to point it out her clearly that she should have looked at policy document, so she could find my name and having different names as spouse is nothing to do with her business. When engineer came, he seemed to be rather grumpy (and I wonder why he is) and his behaviour suggested that he want to deal with me in minimum effort. He tested my car and said battery had problem, though later my local garage diagnosed differently. I also asked if he could look at one of my tyres which looked suspiciously flat, but he said he could not deal with it, I had to make another call as different job – well, when I was using AA, engineer was more than happy to help me to sort out this kind of minor admin problems. Also AutoAid engineer didn’t even give me a receipt after I made payment. I need their receipt to claim back later ! My overall experience of AutoAid was unpleasant; customer service was insulting and unprofessional. Both customer service and engineer need training. So don’t be disguised by bargain price, you get the quality of service what you paid for.

My husband used Autoaid Recovery in August a local garage down South where he was came, it then got took to that garage to get fixed the following day. Auto aid claims dept say the £45 recovery charge only will be covered, not any Labour charges unless the labour is done by the roadside. Think thats a bit of a shamne really as these tow trucks who come out anyway dont carry spare parts like an RAC/AA would so how can you ever claim something back on the labour cost then? (my husband needed a distributor cap!).