back to article Can't read my, can't read my... broker face: Premium Credit back online a week after cyber attack

UK-based insurance services firm Premium Credit has hauled itself back online following a malware-based attack that struck the business more than a week ago. Premium Credit underwrites insurance premiums for a network of brokers, business and personal customers and has 400 staffers across the UK and Ireland. In a statement on …

  1. 0laf
    Trollface

    Sounds like a bad case of ransomware but they at least had backups that were safe to restore when they got their patching etc up to date.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not treated as a default ?? Yea right.

    "He said it has told customers that any payment that was delayed due to the outage will not be treated as a deafult so no default charge will be levied."

    So the most recent review on trustpilot (dated 17 Sept) says:

    "Received a letter today giving me 2 days to pay before I get a default and they cancel my policy. Tried ringing - there office is closed due to 'unforseen circumstances', cant pay on line as their website is down so looks like im going to get hit with a default sum and then they will cancel my insurance for non payment..... Great Service"

    So, as per, CorporateSpeak bears no connection whatsoever with what's actually being done to "valued customers"

    1. TonyJ

      Re: Not treated as a default ?? Yea right.

      "..."Received a letter today giving me 2 days to pay before I get a default and they cancel my policy. Tried ringing - there office is closed due to 'unforseen circumstances', cant pay on line as their website is down so looks like im going to get hit with a default sum and then they will cancel my insurance for non payment..... Great Service"..."

      I suspect that the FCA would frown mightily on that. Not to mention the small claims courts.

      I had an issue with Alliance & Leicester about 10 years ago -their fault when the refused a payment due to insufficent funds (funds were available but they managed to claim otherwise) when I was working in Brussels. I couldn't take a mobile phone on site due to security and because of the hours I worked, I was unable to call them. Due to travelling they weren't available when I was in the UK.

      They refused to deal with the issue over their own secure messaging system as it was (to quote them) not considered internally secure as it relied on email...

      When it got to the point that they tried to slap an arbitrary £150 fine and escalated the threats, I complained to the FSA as they were called then.

      I must admit I didn't have great hopes, but I was pleasantly surprised.

      A&L did push everything out to the very last second, ensuring that they responded on the very last day that they could to everything but in the end the FSA slapped them with a (undisclosed amount to me) fine, ordered them to send a written apology, fix any harm they may have done to my credit rating and compensate me to the tune of £300 with a threat of further fines and compensation if they hadn't done everything required within something like 10 working days.

      1. druck Silver badge
        Thumb Down

        Re: Not treated as a default ?? Yea right.

        Even before this they were incompetent and unpleasant. Twice I was unfortunate enough to take out house insurance and found they were handling the payment by monthly installments. Each time they sent me letters saying I was in default, threatened to cancel the insurance and recover the fees using bailiffs - and this was before the first direct debit payment was due to be taken. In each case it was sorted out quickly on the phone - well quickly if you don't include the hold time - by very helpful call centre people. But the automated nastygrams were completely unnecessary, and left a very bad feeling about the company.

  3. Steve Knox
    Coat

    Were they insured?

    Hope their premiums don't go up too much...

  4. 0laf

    Any complaint to the financial ombudsman costs the subject of the complaint £500 whatever the outcome. So it's worth doing.

    I had a similar story with the ombudsman. I got nearly £8k back from a bank in excess charges, but at the last minute.

  5. Anonymous Cowtard

    deafult

    I make no apologies for being a spelling Nazi when professional journalists display poor spelling skills.

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