MsHT:We are also at the receiving end of Drive Assist's insistence. My partner (rather foolishly) lent his car to a colleague over a year ago and his car was involved in an accident with a lady who was driving a car hired from Drive Assist. Drive Assist passed the matter to their lawyers who issued a claim against my partner for the hire costs the lady had to pay. He defended the claim explaining that he was not the driver and so was not liable for her losses. They withdrew the claim as no case to answer. They have now issued the same claim AGAIN which my partner will have to defend again following a barrage of letters repeating the same thing (i.e. asking him to pay up). It seems we are going round and round in circles and will be forever pestered by Drive Assist....

We are also at the receiving end of Drive Assist's insistence. My partner (rather foolishly) lent his car to a colleague over a year ago and his car was involved in an accident with a lady who was driving a car hired from Drive Assist. Drive Assist passed the matter to their lawyers who issued a claim against my partner for the hire costs the lady had to pay. He defended the claim explaining that he was not the driver and so was not liable for her losses. They withdrew the claim as no case to answer. They have now issued the same claim AGAIN which my partner will have to defend again following a barrage of letters repeating the same thing (i.e. asking him to pay up). It seems we are going round and round in circles and will be forever pestered by Drive Assist....

I wrote a letter to the complaints manager Lisa, and she is completely useless. She promised to call me back and never did. She never answers her phone! I would suggest to anyone that you go straight to the FOS and your insurance company as they seem to take your complaint more seriously.

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Thanks for the advice its good to know im not the only one! I received call from a supersior today from sheilas wheels following me complaining she said it was explained to me in the initial claim call that drive assist are a third party but she appreciates that it may not have been made clear enough. i told her that they only said a company would call me with regards to a hire car and collection of mine. as drive assist have done basically nothing i have today spoken directly to the third party insurer who were really really helpful and they have agreed with me a settlement which i am happy with, they have been more helpful than my own insurers. you are right i am going to write letter of complaint to both drive assist and sheilas wheels as i was basically left with no representation from either of them and had to resolve the claim myself! im not going to let this go i will be taking this to the ombudsman as it cant be right that they can do this and the amount of stress it has called dealing with drive assist is more stress than the accident itself. oh by the way the supervisor from sheilas wheels stated that drive assist are predominately a hire company so i asked why the hell then are they allowed to deal with customers insurance claims!!!!!!! the answer was they are also an accident management company. figure that one out.

@Kelly, you need to kick ass! File a complaint (threatening the Ombudsman) against both Drive Assist and Sheila's Wheels, saying that you are very unhappy with the service received to date and that you expected your insurers SW to deal with it not pass your claim onto DA (especially as neither DA or SW make any attempt to explain the implications for you of using DA when you think they are just a helpful replacement car hire company!). After our experiences with SW (we finally obtained an apology and compensation) we have vowed never to use them again especially as one of their "straplines" is how helpful they are to the fairer sex. In our experience, this is plainly untrue since as you say they try and wash their hands of you once they have sold the claim to DA. Let me know how you get on.

@Kelly, my advice to you is to contact your insurers, Sheila's Wheels for advice. After my accident my insurers, Provident told me that in cases like mine (my car like yours is 10 years old) repairing is considered dead money, I got the impression that Drive Assist would rather repair a car and charge heaps to the third party than write it off. However Provident told me that they actually can't do that, they have to make sure that it is a fair deal (I got the impression this was much the way they operated in the past) what Drive Assist are supposed to do in cases like this is to inform your insurer who will then decide whether its worth the car is worth repairing or dismantling, so this may explain why drive assist are not communicating so well. Incidently, like yourself, in my case the Drive assist garage were slow to get in touch with me, my insurer thankfully beat them to it and recovered and assessed the car first, I got a real telling off from Drive Assist when they discovered this and as such DA are just chasing the hire charges now, from what I read I feel I got off lightly. Anyway I sincerely hope you get it sorted soon, the least you have to do with Drive Assist the better by the sounds of it.

Advice needed am at my wits end with drive assist!

I really hope someone on here can offer some advice if you have dealt with drive assist. i had a car accident last thursday evening which was not my fault as a car pulled out of a junction from a side road onto the main road in front of me. i rang my insurers which is sheilas wheels who took all the details and then stated that a company called drive assist would contact me within 24hours to arrange recovery of my vehicle and a hire car. the next day drive assist called and did arrange delivery of a fire car for the next day and said the garage would contact me to arrange recovery of mine! after several phone calls the recovery garage finally collected my car 5 days after the accident. I have had virtually no communication from drive assist as to dealing with my claim. I then received in the post yesterday a cheque from the third party insurer whith no explanation or any covering letter. i called drive assist to find out why and they stated that the insurer should not have sent that and to hold on to it as the third party insurer had not even been provided with the estimate for my car. Today i still hadnt heard any more from drive assist so called them again! they state that they have received the estimate from the garage and they are reviewing it!!!!!!!! and that they have not yet decided whether it will be written off or can be repaired. considering the repairs come to £3,500 i think this is a no brainer considering my car is ten years old. drive assist seem to be delaying for some reason and they never call me to keep me updated i am constantly having to call them to find out what the hell is going on. i have gone back to sheilas wheels and explained that i am not happy with how my claim is being handled. sheilas wheels have informed me that my claim has been closed with them as it is now with drive assist which i agreed to!!!!!!!!!!! i stated to them that they put me in touch with drive assist and i was under the assumption that drive assist were just working for sheilas wheels and that my contract is with sheilas wheels not drive assist. i was then told that they could take my claim back but it would affect my premiums as it would show as a claim being registered on my policy even though i was not at fault and the third party insurers have accepted full liability. any advice greatly appreciated

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We had a run-in with DA's lawyers as they wanted us to sign off a statement for court action against the other driver. We marked this up to reflect the actual position (i.e. not clear this was a credit hire agreement, not been kept informed that ths issue had not been settled etc etc) and also wrote to our insurer and DA to tell them we intended to make a formal complaint through their Compliaints Procedure and also majored on the stress that this has caused us (as the issue arose almost a year after the original crash!). In the end, DA's lawyers settled with the other side (we had paid the waiver fee) and we also got financial compensation from our insurers. I suggest that anyone affected stick to their guns and complain in writing to the insurer and DA and threaetn to take them to the Ombudsman. If necessary, involve the media such as the complaints pages of the financial press.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the internal workings and politics of this shocking company, I would wager my redundancy pay on deliverydude not being a lowly driver. Most likely a headoffice dweller who's input to this thread does not count. I wholeheartedly believe that this company which treats its frontline staff with such contempt would have the backing of a single driver.

Whilst I have no axe to grind as I was lucky enough to benefit well from my employment, it does still anger me that they continue to operate as they do. With little regard for their staff, customers, or indeed clients.

Recently my sister had similar problems with Drive Assist RE bogus claims of damage to a car, which she didn’t actually take off the driveway in the end. Go figure! The shame of it is that I am well aware of the issues people have with DA and if I’d have known before she agreed to take the car, I could have pointed her here.

I ALWAYS ask a new potential insurer to clarify the courtesy/hire car issue (who provides it etc..) and I specifically name Drive Assist as the reason I will not be taking insurance with whatever company it is providing me with the quote. I know many people who do the same as their reputation utterly precedes them.

Its not about the £4 waver, it’s the made up claims of damage that is the issue! Hopefully it won’t be long before insurers realise that it is damaging to their own business to deal with such cowboys.

Generally the other persons insurer will offer you a vehicle and to arrange the repairs on your vehicle. Be wary when you read your insurance premium if it states 'Courtesy car' or replacement vehicle. Many people also forget that the garage has a courtesy car and will let you use it. People do not realise the full of extent of the charges these companies charge, further ABI rates are added after.

If I was involved in an accident I would rather walk than use Drive Assist, They are shoddy, shady and shocking.

I have been reading this thread with interest as I had a car accident around three weeks ago. I am insured with what I thought were a large insurer and as somebody has pointed out already I sadly didn't check the small print carefully and therefore had a drive assist hire vehicle rather than a courtesy car. My insurance company, who told me that 'they try not to deal with drive assist but they are a necessary evil' told me that Drive assist and companies like them are fast becoming standard as part of many insurerance packages, apparently they are seen as more cost effective. I wondered whether anybody was seriously looking at Drive assist's hire rates as the car they supplied me with I could have got from Enterprise at least £20.00 a day cheaper.

I paid the ten pound waiver (they ask you to pay this in the event they cannot recover costs from the third party) I wasn't told about the £4.00 a day excess cover at the time, I have since complained about this and made sure I copied a number of people into that email in order to cover myself.

My insurer has since settled on my vehicle and the third party has admitted liability, therefore drive assist came to collect the car today. I made sure, having read many posts, that I cleaned the vehicle inside and out, it was spotless! I also made sure that I took dated photographs a few minutes before they were due to arrive. Being extra careful I asked a friend to come and witness for me. When their driver and colleague arrived they checked the vehicle, very throughly I might add and said, 'that's lovely, everything is in order' I gave the keys and thought phew! Later today I received an email containing a fault report stating two new forms of damage, rang them and ranted, said I had a witness I'd taken photo's they said, we are letting the damage go, rather than charge me any excess. I cannot help wonder that if I hadn't had had a witness whether they would 'let them go that easily' I should also mention that neither my friend, the photo's or I saw these so called chips.

Moral of the story for me is that I will endeavour to seek out car insurance that offers a true courtesy car in the future, thankfully my policy finishes in June. Not at all sure how this company thinks its operating, but certainly looks fairly dodgy to me preying on those who are already suffering from the events of accidents and the like, fairly disgusting!

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