3 Months without my car, over R25000.00 costs to me, slow and *********** service from the entire dept...

After an accident, I spent 3 MONTHS without my vehicle due to discovery's incompetence. To call these guys *********** is an gross understatement. It cost me R3500.00 for the excess and further costs in car rentals. I also had to cover additional engine damage costs of R18000.00 to get my vehicle driving again...

After I lost faith in their call centre/claims handlers, drafted a mail to Anton Ossip, CEO at Discovery insure, which I will paste on this forum, that mail was passed on with no response from him and also resolved nothing...

The final response from them was simply, " if you are unhappy with the results, take it up with an ombudsman.."

Mail to Anton with details below, note I was at my end with them. They are ****py at what they do...

Hi Anton,

Hope you are well.

I am absolutely at my wits end regarding Discovery’s service and I am getting in touch with you hoping you can assist. Please do not pass this onto anyone else as it has not worked before and I have now dealt with simply too many people. It’s painful to have to put this all on mail, as it is a lot.. but as I mentioned, I am seriously at my end so please bare with me. Also please note that I have all the mail correspondence as back up for you if needed.

My car was in an accident Friday the 12/01/18, a truck drove into me and damaged the front right fender. I called Discovery and notified the claims dept. The car was still drivable and thus I drove it to my yard where it stood until Monday morning 15/01/18. I called the claims dept again to process a claim, Vulindlela Ntsele was appointed as claims handler and once all the info was processed he suggested we have the car towed, I was concerned it might take longer and that it would be quicker for me to drive it through to the assessor, but he insisted and I agreed.

By Wed afternoon 17/01/18, the car was still standing in my yard. After several mails and attempted calls to Vulindlela which I have record of, I called in and spoke to a different claims handler, she confirmed that there was no towing service allocated to my car and then she got on it, the car was then towed by end of the day, Gardens Towing was appointed. This was naturally upsetting because we lost time on the repairs so I forwarded a letter of complaint to Cleopatra in the complaints dept to which they sent a letter of apology...

The next day, Thursday, my wife got a call from someone in the claims dept and she was asked where the car was currently. I also recieved a mail from Percy Nobela asking the same thing, they did not know where our car was. This was naturally a point of concern to us, but we left it with them as we told them it was towed by their appointed towing service.

I did not hear anything from them regarding the assessment except that there were delays internally. By the end of the following week, Friday afternoon 26/01/18, this is almost 7 working days later - I called in again extremely frustrated hoping to get some feedback from Vulindlela, he then seemingly processed things on his end as the mail and sms notifications to confirm that the assessment was made, came through while on the phone with him.. which made me feel like I need to call to remind him to get things going and time has already been wasted. So at this point two weeks after the accident, my car has now been assessed finally.

That Monday 29/01/18, Vulindlela and myself agreed to have the repairs done close to where I stay, Farber Coachworks in Monatgue Gardens. I called the branch to hear if they do indeed have my car there, they told me it was taken to their Epping branch for repairs. This just fueled my frustration further at that point but regardless, at least the car is being worked on.

On Friday 08/02/18 Precilla at Farber Coachworks notified me that I could collect my car. I was there in the afternoon at around 15:00. I inspected the car and it seemed ok from the outside. I noticed the tint on the driver side window had scratches that was not there before, I pointed this out to Precilla and her team, they were unaware of it. I know it was not there, as I told her, she will notice a large scratch on the tint on the inside of the back at the boot as well as a smaller scratch on the front passenger side, but certainly not on the drivers side. This took a back seat as things then became progressively much worse.

As I drove out, as soon as the car reached a speed of 60km an alarm sounded from the dash board and the oil light flashed. I stopped at the garage that was right next to me luckily and confirmed that the engine had oil inside. I then called Precilla and told her what was happening and she asked me to return, which I did. I was met by three gentleman to have a look at the fault, did not get their names, but Precilla will know better I’m sure. One of them said the oil had gone thick from standing, another said they did not work on the engine and the third advised me to put a pint of oil into the car and that it would be fine. This is exactly what I did and I left for Somerset West. While on the N2 I heard a rattling noise coming from the engine, it was not there before.

Later that evening at around 22:30 I drove back to Cape Town from Somerset West, I had to stop on Mew Way bridge on the N2 to drop someone off, at this point the shut down completely and would not restart at all. It was dead. The person I was dropping off there told me he had better stay with me as that area was extremely dangerous. I called my wife at home and told her we broke down- as wives do she got very worried and called the police to come assist while I phoned Discovery again. There was a police van with us in minutes, they were amazing actually. The officer confirmed that there was a hijacking and stabbing incident there just 20mins before we broke down.

My wife had to come out there with our child as it was an emergency but we ended up waiting on that bridge for an hour +. The tow truck that arrived looked like it needed to be towed itself.. It was in a very poor state, one head light missing and the necessary hook needed to tow my vehicle was not in my car anymore as it must still be with the previous company and these guys also did not have a hook, which they should have, so this delayed us even longer. I still do not know where the hook is, it was reported to Levi from the service/assessment team, more on that later…

Please try and see where I’m coming from right now, regardless of the police van being present, being stranded on one of the most dangerous spots on the N2 on a Friday evening, with my wife and child.. It is infuriating to say the least!

We got home very late and the towing service wanted to bill me, took me a while to ask them to take it up with Discovery, would have been great if they would know that I am not liable at that point.

The next morning, Saturday, I am without a car again and thus contact Discovery to attempt to get a rental, again. I was told that they could not help, as that dept was closed until Monday - I then insisted that I cannot go without a car and eventually suggested they put the car on my credit card and that they can reimburse me to which they agreed, still speaking to Vulindlela.

That Monday, 12/02/18, I attempted to get this situation across to someone more senior in order to get serious assistance. I spoke at length with Cleopatra and well as Roland and eventually Zotani… Not a single person could really assist, long story short here, they all tell you they will come back to you but never do and everyone is on a different page. It really was upsetting when Zotani, who I was told was senior and could assist just never bothered to call me back, after he assured me that will take care of it.

The next day, still no indication of what is happening with my broken down car, still in my yard... I spoke to my broker and he mailed you a the initial complaint I sent to Cleopatra regarding the delay in towing the vehicle, so it was a little outdated at that point but as I noticed, that led to an in-house Quality Assurance Manager named Levi being appointed to my claim by Ganyane Metsing.

I met with Levi on Thursday 15/02/18 and gave him all the above mentioned details which he wrote down, he also seemed very concerned and taken back by how things had gone and was adamant to resolve the matter. At this point I am very relieved as now I do not have to deal with endless call centres and clearly that system failed me completely so it’s refreshing to speak to someone face to face.

Everything I discussed with him is pretty much still unresolved - We discussed the pressing issues below:

The rental I took on the Saturday, that was and is still on my name and account, that needs to go over to Discovery and I need to be refunded. Not Done.

Since I drive a VW Caddi, a small minibus, I asked him to if he could organize a replacement similar to my car. It was ok using the smaller Avis car before, but by now I needed to get a similar car to mine as it was starting to really affect me at work and costing me money. It is now almost 6 weeks since the accident! I made that very clear. Not Done. - I really need this done asap by tomorrow morning.

My towing hook is still missing and the scratches on the driver side tinting is unresolved.

The repairs on my car is now a major back and forth as well of course. The guys at Farber had my vehicle assessed and the report came back today via Levi -The assessor noted the cam-belt was worn down completely and that the battery needed to be recharged and their feedback is simply that the damages is caused by wear and tear. The assessor did not mention anything relating to the oil problem at all and did not start the engine at all... so they would not know the full extent of the damage.

The short of it is basically that the engine problem is now my responsibility which I absolutely refuse to accept for a variety of reasons that we can get into if needed. My car has a full service history with RSM and was recently (Dec) serviced by Tavcor in George and I can get reports from these guys if it comes to that. But the biggest issue for me is that I notified the team at Farber regarding the oil alarm and light and they assured my that I could drive the car and that the problem would be resolved, which ended in me breaking down on the N2 and being stuck on very ***** Mew Way bridge with my family for most of a Friday evening… I think that is the just of it...