How DriveElectric handles complaints

This procedure explains how our complaints procedure works, and what you can do if you think your complaint has not been satisfactorily resolved.

If you have a complaint about any aspect of our service, or that of our partners, agents or product providers, then we would like to hear from you. You can contact us online, via email, or by telephone.

Customer Experience Team Contact Details 

Telephone: 01628 899727 option 2  

Address: Harleyford Marina, Henley Road, Marlow, Bucks, SL7 2DX  

Email: customerservice@drive-electric.co.uk 

Adviser, Provider or Quality of Goods 

We will need to establish whether or not your complaint relates to the advice given, the advisers service, the service or performance of the product provider, or the quality of the goods. If unclear, this must not delay investigation and we will proceed with our own investigation.  

If the complaint is about another party, we will refer details of the complaint to the third party and confirm this course of action to you in writing. 

Investigation 

The Customer Experience Team will establish the nature of your complaint having due regards to the Financial Conduct Authority’s direction: 

• Deal with complaints promptly and fairly 
• Give complainants clear replies and, where appropriate, fair redress 

Complaints Settled within 3 business days – Informal Complaints Process. 

Complaints that can be settled to your satisfaction within 3 business days can be recorded and communicated via an informal process. 

If a solution to your complaint is proposed and you indicate your acceptance, we will promptly send you a ‘Summary Resolution Communication’, being a written communication from us which:  

1. refers to the fact that you have made a complaint and informs you that we now consider the complaint to have been resolved to your satisfaction; 
2. We will tell you that if you subsequently decide that you are dissatisfied with the resolution of the complaint you may be able to refer the complaint back to us for further consideration or alternatively refer the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service; 

In addition to sending you a Summary Resolution Communication, we may also use other methods to communicate the information where: 

1. We consider that doing so may better meet your needs; or 
2. We have already been using another method to communicate about the complaint. 

Complaints which cannot be resolved within three business days 

Where the Customer Experience team judges that your complaint cannot be resolved within three business days, or they were unable to resolve your complaint in this period, the formal FCA complaints procedure will be followed. This process requires that we: 

• Send you an initial response letter within five days of receiving your complaint, or immediately on realising the informal complaints handling process will not reach a resolution; 
• Provide you with details of our complaints handling procedures; 
• Fully investigate the complaint and, where necessary, make contact with you to seek clarification on any points;  
• Send you a final response letter as soon as possible, but no later than eight weeks after receiving the complaint, detailing how your complaint has been resolved and if any redress will be offered.  

Final response 

Our final response letter will set out clearly our decision and the reasons for it. If any financial redress is offered, a clear method of calculation will be shown, and it will be paid promptly and in full.  

We will include details of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) in our final response. If you are not satisfied with the outcome, you may be eligible to refer your complaint to FOS. You must refer the matter to FOS within six months of the date of this letter or the right to use this service is lost. 

If we cannot resolve the complaint within eight weeks: 

While we would always aim to complete an investigation within eight weeks, if, for any reason, our investigation is not concluded within this period, our Customer Experience team will write to the complainant again.  We will inform the complainant of the reasons for the further delay and advise that if they are not satisfied with our progress then they may be entitled to refer the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.  

Closing a complaint 

Once we have provided the complainant with our final response, the complaint will be closed.  

In the event that the complainant remains dissatisfied with our response, we will refer them to the BVRLA Alternative Dispute Resolution service and the Financial Ombudsman Service where applicable.