Horrific Service

I had the unfortunate experience of needing to place a claim for my car after the inclement weather we had experienced in Cape Town over the last couple of weeks.

The first consultant I had spoken to, while friendly and seemingly competent, did not call me back to let me know whether my claim he’d been logged after the call dropped. I then needed to call back and chat to a different consultant (I think) to complete the claim.

When my car was collected on the evening I had made the claim, I was informed that the gears on my car had started working, but when consulting with the towing company, was told that I should let the car go for assessment anyway as I would not be able to send it again after if it started giving problems again. I took the advice and sent the car.

A day or 2 later I received and email stating that my claim was withdrawn because there was in fact no damage and the claim was within my excess amount. I was not told where my car was, nor what was needed to get it back.

I had to follow up with Discovery at least twice to find out next steps. Eventually, I called in to track down my car and was told by the agent that I would need to collect it at Auction Nation (yard). She needed to step away and call me back to give me the location of the car.

After I had got off the call with the agent, I received an email from a different agent informing me that my car would be collected by Compass and delivered to me. Compass contacted me to ask me what was happening because they too were unclear about next steps.

Eventually Compass confirmed that they’d be delivering my car by the next morning, which also didn’t happen. The car was delivered to me in the evening.

The next morning I took pictures of my car as I was preparing to have it sold. I noticed a white mark on my front bumper which I thought might have been dirt, so I didn’t inspect further.

When I passed the car in my parking lot a few days later, I decided to take a second look at the bumper and noticed that it was in fact damaged. I reviewed the assessment sheet to compare old damage and confirmed that the bumper was in fact damaged during the time it was with Discovery or Compass.

I sent an email to Discovery showing pictures of the damage and asked them to refer to the assessment to confirm that the damage was not there prior to the car being collected from me. Discovery then responded by acknowledging that the car was damaged after they'd had it collected, and asked Compass to advise. Compass then responded saying that the damage was there when they collected the car from Auction Nation. It's been 3 days without further correspondence from Discovery.

In addition, I had sent an official complaint to Discovery 4 days ago and received an automated response that my complaint would be dealt with in 24 business hours - I have yet to hear from them, even after sending an additional follow-up email.

It's the absolute WORST to be treated this way after being a member of Discovery (multiple products) for years - and so commences my research to move my entire portfolio to a different institution.