Car crash was not our fault, but Admiral just won’t see sense

My family has had a multi-car policy with Admiral for years. My son, whose car is on the policy, had an accident in November 2020, when another driver crashed into him. We were adamant that he was not at fault. I spent a long time gathering evidence for Admiral, including photographs of the accident scene and the road and trying to trace witnesses.

After two years we finally and very reluctantly agreed to go for some kind of split liability. We had been willing to go to court but were strongly discouraged by Admiral, which said it’s not a good experience and that there was case law setting a precedent.

The other party’s insurance company, Churchill, had other ideas and took my son to court. We attended court on May 24 and the judge ruled in my son’s favour, that he was not responsible in any way for the accident. As you can imagine we were delighted and felt someone had at last listened to common sense.

I wrote to Admiral via email on May 28 asking for a refund of the additional premiums it had charged for my son’s insurance and my insurance, as he is a named driver for my car, for the past four renewals. I asked for a response by June 14 but got no reply or acknowledgment.

I submitted a formal written complaint, but again got no reply or acknowledgment, so I phoned on July 4. Admiral said it had no record of the complaint, so I re-sent it via email and the insurer said it would backdate the complaint start time to June 15. Nearly six weeks on I still have had no reply even though Admiral is supposed to acknowledge within five working days. I phoned again today and there was a “long wait time” so I was promised a call-back, which of course has never happened. I am frustrated beyond words — can you help?

Jill replies

Your son pulled out of a junction, turning left and then pretty much immediately turning right because it was a staggered junction. As he went to turn right the other party came at him at speed on the wrong side of the road as she was overtaking another car.

You said: “She admitted in court that she did not know she shouldn’t have been overtaking at a staggered junction. She then drove off but returned a minute or two later.”

At the first renewal of your multi-car policy after the accident your premium went up about £600. But when the court case result prompted you to ask for a refund, Admiral initially offered you £400 in compensation, and just £11.61 as a refund for the car insurance premium on your son’s car. It provided no detail of how this was calculated, so I asked Admiral to explain.

It admitted that its service had not been up to scratch and that you and your son had a very poor experience for which it apologised and offered another £100 on top of the £400 already paid to you. It also confirmed that the refund of £11.61 was wrong and said: “This oversight was caused solely by human error and should also have been spotted when Ms J originally raised the complaint.”

The £11.61 refund was generated by reinstating your son’s no claims bonus from July 2024, rather than from 2021, the first renewal after the accident. In fact he was entitled to a refund of £254.19 from 2021/22, £61.79 from 2022/23, £16.01 from 2023/24 and £21.48 — including the £11.61 already paid back for 2024/25, coming to a total of £353.47.

Admiral does include non-fault claims when calculating premiums, but this was only applied to cars covered by the multi-car policy for which your son was a named driver, and only in the 2021 and 2022 renewals. Any other increases to your premium were caused by general reasons, including inflation.

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EasyJet won’t accept my doctor’s note

I had a stroke in August and was told I could not fly for a month. I, my wife and a friend had paid for a holiday together, flying out with easyJet on August 27 and returning September 4, but thanks to my illness we could no longer go.

As per the website instructions, I asked my doctor to confirm that we could not fly and he filled out the easyJet form. I then tried and failed to load this onto the easyJet website. Eventually I phoned and spoke twice to help desk personnel who said they could not help and that the only way was via their website. I am 80 years old but not super stupid and I tried my best to fill out the form correctly but was told several times that the website would not accept the problems cited by my doctor. We were not told of any way we could get more help.

The total cost of the flights is £682.90. I know this is a digital airline but there should be some help provided in these circumstances. We have now lost hope of securing any sort of refund. Please can you help?

Jill replies

I forwarded the medical form completed by your doctor to easyJet, and although your friend who booked the holiday never forwarded the flight confirmation details to me, easyJet managed to track you all down on its system.

It told me that it had been unable to refund you because you had not provided the information it needed (not for want of trying), but it now apparently had everything required and has refunded the full £683.

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Going through hoops after buying fake Nike Jordans

I bought a pair of £130 Nike Jordan trainers for my teenage son from jordanxofficial.uk.com using my Sainsbury’s credit card and realised too late that it was a fake website. I tried to cancel the order but I was ignored and a pair of clearly counterfeit shoes were eventually sent to me.

Sainsbury’s refused my Section 75 claim, despite me providing reams of evidence including Trustpilot reviews (and other scam detector sites) showing that the site was not genuine (neither was the trading name that appeared on the credit card statement). The dispatching address on the trainer box was an address in Leeds used by a number of different scams originating in China, and I sent photos of the poor-quality workmanship on the trainers, such as stitching and labelling as set out by a “how to spot fakes” website.

Sainsbury’s refused to accept this evidence. It did say it would try to contact the seller (who ignored our emails) but never told us the result.

Sainsbury’s asked me to commission an independent report as to whether they were fakes (a cost that it would refund if the claim was agreed) but did not suggest any suitable companies for this. I felt I could reasonably refuse because I did not want to spend more money on this and because I genuinely believed I had provided all the evidence needed. I used to work for the Office of Fair Trading (now the Competition and Markets Authority) so I do know my way around Section 75.

Jill replies

Jordanxofficial.uk.com has been closed down now, but even when it was working, it had a convoluted URL, which would have started alarm bells ringing for me. Legitimate websites do not use URLs that include odd letters like “x” in the middle of the company name, nor do they usually end with uk.com.

I sent Sainsbury’s all the evidence you provided plus a bit more that I found and asked it to think again.

After a few days the company told me that it had reinvestigated your complaint and this time had issued you a full refund. However, it added that for Section 75 claims of this nature, customers are usually required to source and provide an independent report showing the “defect” and how it occurred.

I’m not sure why it would think this was necessary: when Sainsbury’s got back in touch with you, it admitted it too had not had a response from Jordanxofficial. This tells you everything you need to know about the supposed retailer.

You also told me that while Nike had confirmed verbally to you that it had nothing to do with Jordanxofficial, it would put nothing in writing. If you find yourself in this situation again, you may have to use a luxury goods authenticator such as CheckCheck or LegitCheck, an online service that studies photos of your trainers or other fashion items to verify whether they are the genuine article.

My M&S gift card was stolen

In July I bought a £40 M&S gift card (using an M&S credit card) as a birthday present for my sister at an M&S store and posted it first class to my sister. Sadly when the birthday card containing the gift card arrived, the envelope had been torn open at the top and the gift card was no longer in the envelope.

I tried to cancel the card through M&S customer service and was initially told that this was not possible. Numerous emails later M&S agreed to “empty” the card back into its own coffers as it had not yet been used, but the retailer refused to reimburse my credit card.

While I appreciate that M&S should not be held personally responsible for the loss of money on a “lost” gift card, they now have a financial gain but I have a financial loss.

I have reported the incident to the Post Office but have had no communication from them.

Jill replies

I asked M&S to either refund the £40 or send you a new gift card. It did the latter, but said that it hadn’t been able to retrieve the money from the lost card and that “in cases where a gift card has been stolen or lost on its journey via post, it is usually the responsibility of the police or delivery service to resolve”.

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