Name: Hastings Direct Smart Miles
Rating: 3.29

“Very harsh marking on the SmartMiles box. I drove a return trip at around midnight and my “time of day” score immediately went down to 0 from 100. I was aware that my score would go down but to 0... I think that is a joke and I would not have gone to Hastings if I knew. My sister drives at night with MoreThan and does not get penalised remotely as much as I did.”

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Posted 7 years ago

“An absolute joke just don't do it, in hindsight I would prefer to pay more and go with someone who has a sense of decency. I wish I found these reviews before I purchased a years worth of insurance. I had 2 2mile journeys in the past week and they judged it bad and have cancelled my policy as my driving is under 40 points. On top I am now being charged 210 pound for them to remove the black box and 45 pound cancellation fee... I am pretty sure they will just throw the box away after, if not I will demand to see proof it has been wiped for data security purposes and 45 pound cancellation when they are cancelling. Absolute joke”

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Posted 7 years ago

“Avoid at all costs”

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Posted 7 years ago

“Avoid at all costs!!”

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Posted 7 years ago

“Do not take smart miles! I took put a policy and my box appeared to not work. The speed rating never moved from zero. I was issued my first warning as my drjver score was below 40 (due to speed score of zero) I notified Hastings direct who said they would look into it and get back to me..... they never did. However almost miraculously my speed rating began to move after the call. However subsequently my braking rating froze at zero. I was unable to move this and Hastings direct informed me my insurance was cancelled. I rang up their incredibly poor and incompetent customer service where I was passed around from person to person, none of which could review the score or my claims that the box was frozen. All they could say was that there was no official fault on the box therefore the cancellation is valid. I asked them to explain why I had a score of zero until I rang them up and no one could answer this. They refused to review the data and instead said I had an option to complain but this takes 8 weeks!!! My insurance policy is cancelled in 5 days! The whole process is poor. No one can access the information you need to discuss anything properly and the high and mighty department that review and cancels the policy cannot be contacted apparantly. Not even by their own customer service team. Absolute joke and avoid like the plague.”

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Posted 7 years ago

“Before i start, if there was an option to rate is a 0, i would have. Worst car insurance ever, a complete scam which cost me a lot of money. They tried to cancel my insurance the day after my first day under their insurance, of which I rang up as i drive completely fine and there is no issue with my driving, it was because my score had reached 9 from 100 in the space of 24 hours. When i rang i was greeted be a rude member of staff, who explained to me i had 200 miles to reach the score of 40 otherwise my insurance would be cancelled, to which she proceeded to tell me it was near impossible to raise my score to 40 or above. I then received a letter in the post which told me my insurance was going to be cancelled, i then called up again, once again greeted by a different rude member of staff, who was no help whatsoever. Shortly after that phone call i rang up in anger at how much of a scam this insurance is, and cancelled. A friendly lady then answered the phone and was very helpful, her name was Emily, if you call up i would ask for her, She helped me cancel and get away from you. This cost me just under £300 of my own money for what in effect is a couple of days insurance. DO NOT USE SMART MILES.”

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Posted 7 years ago

“They have given me a score of 37 then sent me a email to give me one weeks notice to improve my driving. I drove to the best of my abilities and to no avail my score continued to stay on 37. They have now cancelled my policy and told me to pay a £45 cancellation fee and a £210 telematics fee. I am so disheartened at the results that they have given me as i hardly ever speed and they have given me a 15 on my breaking score, which horrifies me. I would never recommend this company to anyone and it has put me off getting a black box in the future. I now cannot afford new insurance to put on my car until next summer as I am a student.”

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Posted 7 years ago

“""pathetic what a scam”

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Posted 7 years ago

“""Same as ALL the other reviews, been driving for 6 weeks on this insurance and they are cancelling my cover due to 'time of day' score being 0 leading to overall score being 38. Absolute scam, contacting them is very difficult as well as they are constantly passing you on to another 'advisor'. It;s worth spending that extra few hundred quid going with a renowned company. AVOID AVOID AVOID”

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Posted 7 years ago

“As with many others on here, my son is currently having the same issue, he's been told he was speeding (53 in a 40) we've told them it's a 60 road but they won't have It, the location they've said for the speed is inaccurate, they want to charge him an absolute fortune for cancelling the insurance with a month left to run on the policy, which is more than the last payment, his overall driving score is 38 and was told this needs to improve, all 4 categories improved but his overall average did not, when they were asked why their reply, Ajd we quote the scores have not gone up enough, so we asked but how much more does it need to go up for average to improve and they replied "more", they didn't even know how they work out their average score. So with the proof we offered them that their system was recording inaccurately their response was "once we've issued cancellation notice, we will not revoke this decision even if/when we're proved wrong as its against company policy" well we believe this is a rip off to youngsters and it needs to be taken further, we've requested all telephone logs and have to wait 8 weeks and go through the correct complaints procedure before being able to take further action, i.e ombudsman/court of which will be out intention, so if any of you feel as strongly our have similar experiences and would like to offer assistance or evidence please contact me on 07739407681 Or email me kirkleynick@hotmail.com”

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Posted 7 years ago

“I changed my car to same group I was told could not do (could not give me a reason) went on comparison site they came up best so I had to take out new policy and cancel existing one They are now charging me £100 for this and I have lodged a complaint guess what they say it could take up to 8 Weeks to sort out . To add insult to injury I have received a letter asking for no claims bonus within 7 days or they will charge me £396 extra even though I was with them before. HAVE A GUESS IF I WILL RENEW MY POLICY?”

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Posted 7 years ago

“At first I got a quote of £128.40 per month online, then it said the website was down when I clicked to purchase that quote.. how convenient. I rang them up and they tried to charge me £200 until I said that it was disgusting and a scam. Soon after the guy on the phone suggested me starting my insurance a few days later and bingo.. guess what the quote was £128.40. Easy enough to get set up with them, very easy to install their black box but don't expect any support from them with anything. Three months after me driving my car some idiot pulled out of a lay by on a national speed limit and slammed into the side of my car and caved in the passenger door and broke my rear wheel axel - complete loss/write off. They rang me up and the only thing they said was to go through the third party's insurance phone line, not very helpful. I wasn't asking for compensation from them but a bit of advice and guidance (As a young driver) in what to do after a crash would have been appreciated. When I sent a complaint the only thing they said was that they followed the right procedure and it's not down to them to come to inspect my car. I was left 8 weeks without knowing what's happening with my car as the other driver was foreign, had a fake number and ignored all letters sent to him. Other than this using their black box is annoying - they say they don't have a curfew but I got home at 10:30pm once and my rating for Time of Day dropped from 100 to 50.. disgusting. I have sent emails asking why this has dropped so much and they have ignored me. I'm now in the process of getting a new car and can't wait to see what admin fees they'll try and charge me..”

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Posted 7 years ago

“The acceleration data being recorded is just not right. Even when accelerating VERY slowly and risking annoying other drivers in the process, my score is staying below 50. It seems this is a real scam because the braking score is high and I know I have had to brake sharply a couple of times in traffic.”

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Posted 7 years ago

“crappest insurance company going. Long story short i got the policy in March this year on a fiat 500, thought it was insanely cheap considering im 19 its harder to get insurance for a good price. I changed my vehicle two months after to a vauxhall corsa, went up by £690 over monthly instalments. So my payments went up from £110, to £145. I changed my address and job title online, it said i was due a refund of almost £1000. But then i received an email saying my payments had gone up. They changed my details WITHOUT my permission which is illegal. from £145, it went to: £164 £175 £194 £203 £240 £303 £404!!!!! which is ridiculous. I made two changes that was suppose to be refunded but yet payments went up to this stupid amount, making just 8 months insurance cover £3232!!!!!!!!!!! I could get a BMW 3.0 Sport for that price!!! bloody scams. along with this, i didn't receive the black box as they lost it in transit, and cancelled my policy because it was apparently my fault that the box didn't come. So i had no insurance for almost a month, as well as loosing my previous job because of this. So as a result of all this crap, when my insurance was reinstated finally after ringing 34430505 times and having my phone bill go up by £200+!!!! A month later, i rang and asked about cancellation fees as obviously i could not afford £404 i'm a 19 year old girl and have only just got out of education!!! I was told there's a cancellation fee of £45, and a non refundable box fee, which i was fine with, but then received a letter stating i owe £1700 for ' on cover insurance fees!!!!!!' However, ive rang and rang to try and get them to sort out this fake scamming figure. And i spoke to a lovely lady called ' DENNELVA'. She is the ONLY person who has helped me, kept her promise, and made me calm. To this point i was going to sue and take the company to court. Really really need to stop scamming younger people, just because we are young and haven't been driving for long does not give them the right to put prices up, scam us and steal our only bit of money. There's older people out there that are worse drivers, and cause more accidents if you look at the ratio between young driver incidents, and elderly people, it will roughly be the same! so why don't their insurance costs get put up as much as ours?”

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Posted 7 years ago

“utterly incompetent and indifferent customer service! One of the guys on the phone service haggles like a south asian street trader and it took 3x 40 minute phone calls to get sense from then when changing car shortly before annual renewal! They forgot to arrange black box fitting to new car (their euphemism - issues connecting with the engineers) then demanded it be fitted at a time that meant changing other plans. No acknowledgement of complaint letters. Overall I'd recommend people stay away rather than use them”

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Posted 7 years ago

“Steer well clear!”

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Posted 7 years ago

“They're dickheads !!!!!”

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(Car Insurance) - Posted 8 years ago

“It is the worst insurance imaginable. It seems to punish me solely just for driving. Firstly, they lowered my score because I drove after 10PM, I don't know if this is standard policy across insurance policies or something but it is vastly unfair for people like me whose lifestyle largely involves driving later at night. I altered this after the most condescending and unhelpful call for all time from someone clearly blinding off a script with no idea what they were doing. After this, my score failed to increase after I went to great inconvenient measures to assure this. Not only this but they continued to penalise me due to my breaking. My breaking is fine, I assure you. I live on a council estate and am required to slow down by cars pulling out unannounced and by speed bumps which are on literally every street in the area. I altered all of my routes and driving style to make my driving coincide with their unrealistic, preposterous and insulting driving standards and not only did my score not increase, it fell. It seems as if they are using the scoring system to permanently keep you as close to having your policy cancelled as possible in order to scare you into just not driving or being incredibly paranoid and driving as 'safe' (by ridiculous standards) as is possible. I would literally rather sell a kidney than renew my policy with them. I cannot stress this enough. I'd cancel it now but they charge hundreds for policy cancellations, another harshly anti-customer practice no doubt intended to keep this company from being revealed as the most anti-consumer driving insurance policy imaginable. LOOK LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE”

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Posted 8 years ago

“It is the worst insurance imaginable. It seems to punish me solely just for driving. Firstly, they lowered my score because I drove after 10PM, I don't know if this is standard policy across insurance policies or something but it is vastly unfair for people like me whose lifestyle largely involves driving later at night. I altered this after the most condescending and unhelpful call for all time from someone clearly blinding off a script with no idea what they were doing. After this, my score failed to increase after I went to great inconvenient measures to assure this. Not only this but they continued to penalise me due to my breaking. My breaking is fine, I assure you. I live on a council estate and am required to slow down by cars pulling out unannounced and by speed bumps which are on literally every street in the area. I altered all of my routes and driving style to make my driving coincide with their unrealistic, preposterous and insulting driving standards and not only did my score not increase, it fell. It seems as if they are using the scoring system to permanently keep you as close to having your policy cancelled as possible in order to scare you into just not driving or being incredibly paranoid and driving as 'safe' (by ridiculous standards) as is possible. I would literally rather sell a kidney than renew my policy with them. I cannot stress this enough. I'd cancel it now but they charge hundreds for policy cancellations, another harshly anti-customer practice no doubt intended to keep this company from being revealed as the most anti-consumer driving insurance policy imaginable. LOOK LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE”

Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

“If I could give these a score of -100 I would. Nothing but grief for the 6 weeks I was with them. I must of phoned over 20 times. My previous insurer with a fitted box rated me at 9/10 driver. However according to Hastings direct SMARTMILES I'm a 39/100. I have never sped whilst driving- but they continuiously told me that I was going 40mph in a 30zone- on a road I drive up and down every day that quite often has a speed van sitting at the top. My 4 average scores never changed from word go- but my overall score fluctuated between 38-45/100. Very convient that when FORCED to cancel my policy my score was 39- I only needed 40 to not be cancelled. The grief this insurance have caused! I will never ever recommend this company in my life- they wanted £300 for me to cancel, when my fiance told them to swivel after 2 hours of arguing with a very rude manager. I got the price down to £25- so glad I cancelled. Don't get with Hastings direct SMARTMILES!”

Helpful Report

Posted 8 years ago

Shipping & Delivery
Delivery Methods	Courier
On-time Delivery	Greater than 72%
Customer Service
Communication Channels	Telephone, Email, Live Chat
Queries Resolved In	Under An Hour

Hastings Direct Smart Miles Reviews