Review of Lifestyle Services Group Mobile Phone Insurance

I have had an "added value account" with Lloyds TSB for 3 years, which includes mobile phone insurance provided by LSG.

I lost my phone (Sony Ericsson Xperia X10i) during a weekend of studying away in London. I noticed it missing at 8.30 am on a Sunday morning and had to wait until I returned home on the Monday to make the required phone calls. After being passed round several police stations in London, I was finally advised to use the one closest to where I discovered the loss. They told me that they were too busy to deal with lost property and would phone me when they were free. Because this happened a couple of hours after the 24 hour deadline (8.30am on a Monday morning!), LSG refused to pay out.

I complained and sent full details of why I was unable to make the deadline and they must have agreed to process the claim because I had the £50 excess deducted from my account via the original cheque that I had sent with my claim form. No notification was given (by phone, email, post, etc) so I had to wait and see. A few days later, the phone turned up and seemed OK, with the exception of a few cosmetic issues.

After a day, I noticed that the camera (a vital part of the phone for me as I use it in my job) wasn't working and a few other functions didn't work either. I contacted LSG who told me that they'd send me a Special Delivery envelope to return the phone and that I would receive priority treatment and have a replacement phone within 3 days. I sent the phone off as soon as I received the envelope, on the 11th July.

8 days later (6 business days), I had given them enough "benefit of the doubt" and phoned to find out what was going on. Firstly I was told that I had spoken to one of their staff on the 14th July, which was a blatant lie. When pressed about this, they admitted that they could not substantiate that claim. At that point, I had been put on a waiting list for a phone because they had none of that model in stock. At no point in the 5 days after that had they contacted me to let me know what was going on and that I wasn't going to be receiving a phone within the stated 3 days.

When I asked how long I could expect to wait for new stock, they said that I could be waiting for up to A YEAR!!! They then offered me a choice of 3 replacement phones. One had a different operating system and so useless for all the apps and setup that was compatible with my old phone, and the other 2 were of much lower specification. I was even offered an Xperia Play, which is fine if you want to play games on your phone but less than great if you need to take pictures with it. When I mentioned that it was a lower specification, I was told that "it was released after the X10, so it should be better". Misinformed, patronising rubbish!

I have now been told to wait a further 2 days until an arbitrary limit has been reached so that I can ask for a cash settlement if no stock is forthcoming. I asked to speak to a manager but apparently that wasn't possible and messages from a supervisor were relayed to me by the staff member.

So in summary, LSG have:

- taken money for a product that I have yet to receive in full working condition
- tried to fob me off me with misinformation
- failed to keep me informed about any aspect of my claim so as to be helpful in any way

Needless to say, once I have resolved this claim I will be taking my business elsewhere and if I do not get a satisfactory response from Lloyds as to why they believe this to be acceptable practice, I will be taking my personal and business accounts elsewhere too.