This may of interest to forum members:
This story came from our DemandARefund.com site - We’ve had people request over $230k worth of refunds for crappy insurance and warranties sold with cars, credit cards and loans. From the article:
One victim was Queensland woman Lynette Watkin, who was slugged with an additional $2670 in junk insurance — $1375 worth of gap insurance and a $1295 extended warranty — when she purchased a Toyota Corolla Sedan from her local dealership.
Ms Watkin, who runs a cleaning chemical manufacturing business on the Gold Coast, said she had no idea the two policies had been included in her paperwork for the $38,000 car.
“It was never mentioned to us by Toyota,” she said. “I didn’t ask for the extra insurance [policies], I don’t need them and don’t want them. It was just sneakily added on.”
Ms Watkin initially went to the Toyota dealershi
p to attempt to get a refund but was told to contact the complaints line. She says she never heard back.
It was only after contacting Consumer Action for help that she found the details for Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Company, Toyota Insurance’s underwriter, who agreed to refund the money.
Ms Watkin has now received the full $2670 refund plus $640 in interest. “If it hadn’t been drawn to my attention this would have been ongoing,” she said.
Keen to hear if anyone has had similar experiences to Lynette!
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Another catch (which unfortunately I bought into) is if you do decide to take the extended warranty - in my case an extra three years on top of the manufacturer’s three year warranty - you could be tied to the dealership you bought the car from. In my case I moved house and the original dealership is a long way away but there is another dealership just 1km away. I wanted to take my car there for servicing but found I couldn’t because the extended warranty had nothing to do with the manufacturer but was directly sold by the dealership and only valid there! Of course I did not know this at the time of purchase nor did it occur to me to ask.
I will be more astute in the future!
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Hi Karen,
Let me prefice by saying that I’m not a lawyer, so this can’t be taken as legal advice, but…
You may be able to get your money back under the Australian Consumer Law. Even if it didn’t occur to you at the time of purchase, if their marketing of the product led you to believe you’d be able to take it to any dealership, that may be a sufficient argument under the ACL.
It can’t hurt to write a letter to the dealership asking for your money back - you can try our template letter to get you started:
-JB
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Thanks Jonathon. It is probably too late for me given I bought the car 41/2 years ago so am already 18 months into the extended warranty. But it may be useful information for others. The real joke is that I knew I was moving and could have bought from the other dealership had I known at the time.
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