A little while back I posted a rant about Protect Your Bubble, a mobile phone insurance mafia with whom I took out iPhone insurance. Things went horribly wrong when I tried to claim on my stolen phone – like many others who are inundating the web with their frustration, I got nowhere fast with the company for months on end and it was quite clear that Protect Your Bubble are utter scam merchants.
The team at Protect Your Bubble are very quick to quash bad reviews, and their profile on Trust Pilot (a site which has been repeatedly proven to host fake positive reviews) looks incredibly suspicious to me. Given the sheer amount of bad press, I find it a little eyebrow-raising that around 8,000 people would anonymously log onto a review site just to post a single 5 star review of the company, all of which use very similar language. If it’s an SEO attempt to push bad reviews down, which is common, I fear their panicked recovery mission is failing because the bad reviews are now spreading like wildfire. Good.
Anyway, I threw that post up just through frustration and didn’t expect much more to come of it. I was dead wrong.
Since that post went up, I’ve been inundated with emails and comments from Protect Your Bubble customers who are experiencing the same dreadful treatment by this scam insurance company, I just wanted to do a follow up – I never finished my own story, which went from bad to worse before finally resolving months later, but what I will do is post the Protect Your Bubble contact email addresses here for people stopping by since they like making it difficult for people to get in touch; I can’t guarantee this info will get you out of your nightmare, but I sincerely hope it helps:
Helen Day
Customer Retention Manager
Protect your bubble
Direct Line: 01753 493 336
Mobile: 07834 335 694
Email: helen.day@assurant.com
Helen Day seems to be the head honcho when it comes to resolving complaints/trying to stop people publicly bitching. She’s sweet and will try and convince you she’s on your side, and will say whatever it takes to bring you back on board. I personally think she’s all talk and no action, but probably she’s just stuck between a rock and a hard place. While that doesn’t help anyone, either way she’s a nice person and would be better suited in a legitimate company.
aisha.raza@assurant.com
Aisha Raza (signs off as Ash)
An totally incompetent muppet which will wear your patience thin, but if you hassle her enough (and you will have to) things start to move. Sloooowly.
Best of luck. Keep on at them. The do have the power to give compensation too, so shoot for that. The threat of bad PR works a treat also.
And please, please, please tell them Zeke (rhymes with ‘geek’) says hi! They luuurve me.
LASTLY
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Since getting out of their nightmare contract, I did a great deal of shopping around for a new insurance provider. I figured out the safest option (by far) is to go via your handset provider rather than an online company, but you’ll pay through the nose for it. I eventually plumped for Gadget Cover - I was a bit nervous given my experience above but it turns out they’re not only cheap but I even made an iPad claim with them last month and it couldn’t have gone smoother. That’s just one dude’s recommendation of course so do shop around and hunt out reviews, but so far so good!
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I think that customer service does not exist at PYB. I lost my phone on public transport two weeks ago. I submitted the claim with all the documents twice because apparently the attachments were "corrupted" in the first email. However, I forwarded the first email and they were able to open it the second time. WHAT? After two weeks I had to chase them with phone and email to tell me that my claim was denied. I am so pissed off that I pray to meet them in the street to show them the same protection they gave me. If anyone can help me, I will thank them forever. Thanks in advance! Thanks to the admin for making the blog too. Max out.
max99000 That's pretty appalling, although I've stopped being surprised at how much of a scam company Protect Your Bubble are. Not much more I can say other than what I wrote on these pages, but I hope I've helped in some small way (along with the other commenters). The only thing to do is persevere - you'll get there eventually if you give them hell, but christ it's a long road.
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zekeiddon I got a letter today saying: "We are sorry to hear that you wanted to cancel your insurance policy with Protect Your Bubble." This is unacceptable. How can they even send this to me without me telling them to cancel my policy? I don't know what to do Zeke. You got any advice? I tried contacting Helen and Ash, but Helen is on maternity leave apparently and Ash didn't reply.
Apparently Protect your bubble working with the guide lines: we’ll take your money, if everything is ok we’ll keep the money if something happened we’ll make sure you’ll get nothing! My two bikes: cannondale quick4 and specialized sirrius sport have been stolen from our private access garden. The bikes have been stored in the wooden bike shed locked with two good quality disc padlocks. Thieves have access to the bikes by ripping of steel hasps from the wooden construction of the shed. Protect your bubble declined my claim because my padlocks are not 5 lever padlocks. My padlocks are 7 level security and have NOT been opened or damaged during the burglary. Protect your bubble use NOT valid reason to decline my claim. I’ll see solicitor to help me challenge them. I’m out of pocket £1200 and out of the road for more than 3 months. Bad experience.
TomaszSzott This is the first time I've heard from someone who has taken out insurance with them other than to cover their mobile. I'm really sorry to hear it's just as shambolic.It seems that declining insurance claims for spurious and usually outrageous reasons seems to be Protect Your Bubble's MO. I sincerely hope you get it sorted dude, and I hope you were being serious about hiring a solicitor because they are bordering on illegal. Nail them to the wall.
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WEBMASTER NOTE: Reposting a comment here from Sean - it seemed to get stuck in our spam filter, probably due to length. I'll respond but anyone else is welcome to contact him with any advice you can offer!
"I have read with interest your blogs re the troubles you have been having making a claim with Protect Your Bubble.
On 22nd Dec I was unfortunate enough to loose my iPhone. Having consulted the Terms & conditions of my gadget policy I followed the necessary steps of immediately informing my network provider (t-mobile) to blacklist the phone and the police to gain a loss reference number.
It happens to be case that my local police (South Wales) do not now provide loss reference numbers but they did direct me to the Lost and Found Recording Service Letter which I forwarded onto PYB.
When PYB contacted about further information they require from T-mobile they provided me with an email template to send to T-mobile although it appears that is no way of contacting T-mobile via email, something I informed PYB of, but did get T-mobile to email the proof of blacklisting and purchase to PYB.
Having heard nothing from PYB for over 2 weeks I then recieved a letter in the post saying my claim had not been accepted, referring to clause 6 of a “policy” requiring claimants to report theft/loss on immobilise.com within 48 hours of discovery. Neither the gadget insurance terms and conditions nor the summary include this clause (6) and there is no mention of immobilise.com.
I was only informed of immobilse.com 4 days following submitting my claim where I was told to “Please also follow the instructions for the website immobilise.com and submit the immobilisation report to us in pdf format”, an instruction I carried out. Why would PYB inform me 4 days after my claim was submitted to register with immobilise.com if I was suppose to do it within 48 hours?
Bottom line, I have not had my claim accepted but for no valid reason. I just wanted to share my experiences with others and add weight to ever growing list of people dissatisfied with the service PYB provide. I have contacted PYB and am awaiting them to phone me back to discuss this with a company ‘manager’ whilst at the same time I have filled a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman and Financial Services Authority.
Any assistance on how to conduct further correspondence would be much appreciated. I can be contacted at seangolledge [at] hotmail.com "
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Also CC in: matt.reid@protectyourbubble.com, chris.winstanley@assurant.com. They do not work for PYB any more
Thanks for the info mate, I've removed those addresses from the post.
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[...] So it would seem that they are all to willing to take your money for your policy, but when you need the damn thing replaced, God help you. I'm seeing a trend here that the bigger companies, the ones that advertise on TV and such, tend to have the worst customer service, the worst ethics, and the worst attitude to their image, and their PR involves quashing bad mouthing and posting fake reviews, just like this company has apparently done. [...]