Insurance problems with chill.ie, Illegal or Legal?

mjr217

So I went onto chill.ie yesterday and got a quote for my first car on my own policy for €2033 as a provisional driver, I'm paying the insurance monthly and have already paid the deposit of €645. The start date of my insurance is the 3rd and i wanted it confirmed so I called chill.ie as soon as I had paid it and the guy on the phone told me I was insured and I would get my insurance disk sent out to me on tuesday. Today I got a call by a guy from chill.ie telling me he wanted to confirm my policy and after getting my details told me that the quote I got online was wrong and that I would have to pay €2700 instead of €2033. I was very annoyed over this and asked to speak to his manager. I have to wait till Tuesday as it is a bank hoiday weekend.

I was just wondering if this is even legal what they are trying to do, trying to charge me more after I was told i was insured.

And has anyone else had any similar problems?

P_1

Do you have a breakdown of the online quote?

If so get them to provide you with a written breakdown of the new quote

mjr217

All I have is a payment confirmation email, and they recorded my call where they told me I was insured?

CianRyan

Don't take my word for it but AFAIK, they have to offer you what they quoted you.

mjr217

Yeah thats what i'm thinking, its like if you go to buy an item in a shop which was priced wrong and its cheaper they have to sell it to you at that price otherwise is false advertising.

P_1

CianRyan wrote: »

Don't take my word for it but AFAIK, they have to offer you what they quoted you.

It sounds to me that something that the OP confirmed on the phone was different to what they entered on the website. It could well be their occupation (the insurance software is weird when it comes to inputting that), or even the model of the car.

Technoprisoner

mjr217 wrote: »

Yeah thats what i'm thinking, its like if you go to buy an item in a shop which was priced wrong and its cheaper they have to sell it to you at that price otherwise is false advertising.

that is false.....the shop do not have to sell it to you at the wrong price

CraigSmith_IO

No doubt there's something in their small print T&C's that will allow them to do so.

mjr217

yeah well the car is fine its an 00 hyundai accent, its not a sports model or anything, technoprisoner yes they do...if their is a price tag on a lets say a barbecue for €200 where all the other barbecue's are €300, if its advertised as €200 euro they have to sell it to you. That happened with my dad in Woodies.

Doom

As soon as money is taken the contract is enforceable by you for that price. ...tell them you will be taking this up with insurance ombudsman.

CraigSmith_IO

mjr217 wrote: »

yeah well the car is fine its an 00 hyundai accent, its not a sports model or anything, technoprisoner yes they do...if their is a price tag on a lets say a barbecue for €200 where all the other barbecue's are €300, if its advertised as €200 euro they have to sell it to you. That happened with my dad in Woodies.

From the NCA website...

"If a shop incorrectly labels something with the wrong price, and it is lower than the price charged at the till, you do not have an automatic right to buy the goods at the marked price. As long as the seller tells you before your money is taken that the higher price applies, you can decide not to buy it."

mjr217

Good it seems to be in my favour so

P_1

mjr217 wrote: »

yeah well the car is fine its an 00 hyundai accent, its not a sports model or anything, technoprisoner yes they do...if their is a price tag on a lets say a barbecue for €200 where all the other barbecue's are €300, if its advertised as €200 euro they have to sell it to you. That happened with my dad in Woodies.

Just on that point, they don't. It's something called 'invitation to treat'. Working in retail would be so much easier for all if Joe Public was to understand that concept.

djimi

mjr217 wrote: »

yeah well the car is fine its an 00 hyundai accent, its not a sports model or anything, technoprisoner yes they do...if their is a price tag on a lets say a barbecue for €200 where all the other barbecue's are €300, if its advertised as €200 euro they have to sell it to you. That happened with my dad in Woodies.

A shop in under no obligation to sell an item at the advertised price if that price is incorrect, however it is my understanding that once the sale has been agreed and has gone through at the advertised price then the shop cannot turn around to the customer and demand more money for the item to make up for the mistake.

What happened to your father in Woodies was almost certainly a case of the store offering the item at the lower price as a goodwill gesture; this is not uncommon, but it does not mean that they were under any legal obligation to sell at the lower price.

If the OP can prove that all of the details in the original quote were correct (and that the conditions outlined in the assumptions sections were all met; this could possibly catch someone out) then I suspect that the broker will have to honor the original price. However, I suspect that it may well be the case that either something declared in the original quote was incorrect, or that something declared subsequently does not match up with something that was declared in the original quote.

None of the above is intended to constitute legal advice...

Mr.Fred

mjr217 wrote: »

Good it seems to be in my favour so

I'm not sure how you got that impression from the posts.

You must have put in some incorrect details for them to have changed it.

Either way I'd say the higher quote will stand, they'll have something in their T&C's stating that all online quotes have to assessed/verified by the insurance broker.

Solair

mjr217 wrote: »

yeah well the car is fine its an 00 hyundai accent, its not a sports model or anything, technoprisoner yes they do...if their is a price tag on a lets say a barbecue for €200 where all the other barbecue's are €300, if its advertised as €200 euro they have to sell it to you. That happened with my dad in Woodies.

No they don't. The price tag is an "invitation to treat". They've no legal obligation to sell you anything at the advertised price as no contract exists until you have handed money over.

If the OP paid a deposit, a contract exists.

Woodies did that as a store policy or just to be nice. They'd no legal obligation to do so. Pricing errors happen and unless you've paid a deposit you've no legal relationship with the seller in contract law.

For insurance it's possibly different if you entered a payment agreement or a contract of some sort by phone.

The financial services regulations would also be much stricter about things like this than general contract law that covers normal transactions in shops etc

tallaghtmick

Technoprisoner wrote: »

that is false.....the shop do not have to sell it to you at the wrong price

They just get heavily fined:pac:

Solair

tallaghtmick wrote: »

They just get heavily fined:pac:

Actually, no a shop wouldn't get heavily fined.

If they were doing it regularly in advertising you could complain to the advertising standards authority.

Otherwise it's just a pricing error. These things happen!

blade1

tallaghtmick wrote: »

They just get heavily fined:pac:

If its a genuine mistake they don't have to.
Remember the whole iphone for €50 a few months ago?

tallaghtmick

Solair wrote: »

Actually, no a shop wouldn't get heavily fined.

If they were doing it regularly in advertising you could complain to the advertising standards authority.

Otherwise it's just a pricing error. These things happen!

Im not sure of your background but I managed in Dunnes and if a price tag was incorrect you would be fined heavily(Regional Managers and EPOS Managers would be a cnut about it),also I worked for 123 and if we quoted on a change or car for lets say 100 less than it should be we had to honour it.

djimi

tallaghtmick wrote: »

Im not sure of your background but I managed in Dunnes and if a price tag was incorrect you would be fined heavily(Regional Managers and EPOS Managers would be a cnut about it),also I worked for 123 and if we quoted on a change or car for lets say 100 less than it should be we had to honour it.

Both sound like internal policies. Legally speaking, you will not get fined for an incorrect price tag (unless you are found to be doing it deliberately and/or repeatedly), and you do not have to honor an incorrect price/quote.

tallaghtmick

djimi wrote: »

Both sound like internal policies. Legally speaking, you will not get fined for an incorrect price tag (unless you are found to be doing it deliberately and/or repeatedly), and you do not have to honor an incorrect price/quote.

Its not internal, I doubt Dunnes would fine themselves :pac: If they where reported for it they would be investigated and fined. It has been a while since I worked there but I'm pretty sure I was told a shop got shut for a day because of serious breaches, they must have been treating the 16 year old EPOS kid badly

sidcon

You can be fined for just one wrong label price, http://www.thejournal.ie/tesco-fined-for-misleading-pricing-247857-Oct2011/

Doom

mjr217 wrote: »

yeah well the car is fine its an 00 hyundai accent, its not a sports model or anything, technoprisoner yes they do...if their is a price tag on a lets say a barbecue for €200 where all the other barbecue's are €300, if its advertised as €200 euro they have to sell it to you. That happened with my dad in Woodies.

A Price tag is an invitation to purchase, if price is wrong, the company can change it. Larger companies will sell at the wrong price...as long as its not a huge loss.
I have seen Vodafone do this with mistakes on their website.

Solair

In contract law it's still an 'invitation to treat' and nothing more.

Pricing errors are different from running a campaign with deliberately false and misleading pricing.

That's under consumer protection law, it's nothing to do with contracts and courts definitely allow for errors. They're quite reasonable and not total ogres !

tallaghtmick

Anways back on topic, best thing to do is get the call listened to, I'm sure there's a grace period you can leave no problems and have your deposit returned, Threaten to leave and go to 123 or something as they are direct competitors

djimi

sidcon wrote: »

You can be fined for just one wrong label price, http://www.thejournal.ie/tesco-fined-for-misleading-pricing-247857-Oct2011/

That wasnt for just one label out of place though; by the looks of that the NCA went after Tescos and found them in breach in a number of brances. If that had been one label out of place in one store then it would not have made it that far.

Stoolbend

I thought this was motors?

dh0011

OP i am sure you would be ableto cancel this insurance without penalty.
For people getting high quotes
first ireland
liberty
and
brittoninsurance
give good quotes

pred racer

Not sure about the legalities, but any time this has happened to me, I have always managed to pay the original price quoted (just car insurance btw)

Just tell them you only took out the policy on the basis of the original quote and that its not your fault they fcucked it up;)

Chris_Heilong

Tell them you expect the original quote to be honored as you have handed over cash, unless you have given different information which would change details of said policy. Ask for a copy of the recording, both the original and the time the guy said it would cost more, you can use these when presenting to ombudsman.

d9oiu2wk07blr5

There are three parts to a consumer contract. First, the insurance company quoted you €2,033 for a motor policy which was an "offer". Second, you then took out an insurance policy based on the price that you were being quoted online, which was the "acceptance" phase and that's when it became a legal contract. Finally, the "consideration" part of that consumer contract was when you paid over the deposit of €645 which I presume has already been deducted from your bank a/c and shows up on your statement.

I presume that all the info that you inputted on to the proposal form was correct?

They may refer to their T&C's, and on that score you should familiarize yourself on what may constitute an unfair term in a consumer contract.

There's such a thing as Directive 93/13/EEC on an unfair term in a consumer contract and Article 3 defines an unfair term as;

1. A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer.

2. A term shall always be regarded as not individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term, particularly in the context of a pre-formulated standard contract.

The fact that certain aspects of a term or one specific term have been individually negotiated shall not exclude the application of this Article to the rest of a contract if an overall assessment of the contract indicates that it is nevertheless a pre-formulated standard contract.

Where any seller or supplier claims that a standard term has been individually negotiated, the burden of proof in this respect shall be incumbent on him.

Unfair terms within the meaning of article 3 includes;

a. Inappropriately excluding or limiting the legal rights of the consumer vis-à-vis the seller or supplier or another party in the event of total or partial non-performance or inadequate performance by the seller or supplier of any of the contractual obligations, including the option of offsetting a debt owed to the seller or supplier against any claim which the consumer may have against him;

b. Making an agreement binding on the consumer whereas provision of services by the seller or supplier is subject to a condition whose realization depends on his own will alone;

c. Permitting the seller or supplier to retain sums paid by the consumer where the latter decides not to conclude or perform the contract, without providing for the consumer to receive compensation of an equivalent amount from the seller or supplier where the latter is the party cancelling the contract;

d. Requiring any consumer who fails to fulfil his obligation to pay a disproportionately high sum in compensation;

e. Irrevocably binding the consumer to terms with which he had no real opportunity of becoming acquainted before the conclusion of the contract;

f. Obliging the consumer to fulfil all his obligations where the seller or supplier does not perform his.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31993L0013:en:HTML