BackMeUp Reviews 64

Ok I have amended my rating, after countless attempts, and hours listening to Sia hold music (Sia has been ruined for me now) I spoke to an actual human. They have said that they have settled the claim. It's been a couple of days and still nothing in my actual account, but here's hoping...

This company is terrible, they claim to be a digital / online company - until you need to make a claim. Then you have to call a phone number which I swear is a scam. I have been waiting on hold for 3 consecutive days for over an hour. It is a joke. I don't believe they actually have any staff. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY.

Just look at the reviews here on Trustpilot - and BELIEVE THEM - BackMeUp are exactly as bad as described - they are a joke and should be shut down. I am making a formal complaint & will go to the ombudsman (a fat lot of good that will do me as they are also a joke, which is why scammers like BackMeUp get away with it).

If there was an option for zero stars I would've chosen that. Terrible terrible claim experience with this company. They've replaced my broken phone that was brand new (well, 6 weeks old) and had a 10 month manufacturer's warranty remaining with a refurbished one a couple of years old which has no manufacturer's warranty. They will seriously undervalue your items. It's old for new. Beware of this company. I am now going to have to take them to the Financial Ombudsman, once they’ve made me wait 2 whole months to respond in writing to my complaint.

Called up to make a claim and the woman was really friendly and helpful, instructed us to email the claims email. This is where it all goes downhill. Emailed January 3rd and heard nothing back.... Feels like we've been scammed!

(This is through my partner's email)

I’ve been waiting to get my screen fixed they emailed me asking for my account details to put the £95 in my account but still have not received. I emailed aswel asking about it and I’ve had no response.

:/

Great help in setting up insurance on my samsung mobile phone, i was helped along with caring helpfull staff, would use again no problem

Update:

Considering that your engineers have evidence of entry of the secondary device name, wouldn't it have been reasonable to alert me to upload the pictures of the actual device? I already have pictures of a primary device uploaded, under a totally different name, and the new device had a different name.

When I initially made a claim, I received a response referencing my primary device, and I promptly corrected the mix up, because I was 100% certain that I had uploaded the pictures of the lost secondary device, and infact attached the very pictures that I took on the day that I paid for the bolt-on.

You seem to be missing the point that I am a customer of over one year, who has now lost a device and has been denied a claim. This is a double-edged loss and has left me wondering if insuring devices is necessary, considering that claiming for losses is this arduous. Again, I urge you to reconsider your stance.

I have never experienced such an unreasonable response to a customer from a service provider whose primary cashflow is derived from the premiums that policy holders pay. I added a bolt-on and to the best of my knowledge, uploaded the device pictures, showing the IMEI etc, but according to Backmeup, it didn't upload successfully, however my premium was being deducted. When the second device got lost, I put in a claim, only to be uncaringly informed that there were no images of my second device on their platform, rendering my claim invalid. Further investigation by the IT department revealed that there was evidence that I had attempted to upload images and make entries but did not complete it, so I wonder why I wasn't alerted to complete the upload, since I was already paying the extra premium for the bolt on. Why would I pay for a bolt-on for nothing? In my reply, I attached the very pictures that I uploaded when I was setting up the bolt-on. Regardless of whether there was a technical glitch or I didn't complete the upload, a responsible company would have alerted me to complete the process. I wouldly like to hear what the ABI and the Financial ombudsman have to say about such a conduct.

So been with BackMeUp for a year, paying a great monthly insurance price anyway for my two gadgets. However, I was in Australia this year when I broke my phone and I was travelling to Asia a couple weeks after, so trying to get it sorted was stressful. BackMeUp team were very helpful, very efficient with replies and just generally fast and accommodating given the time difference, processing time etc etc.. I was able to fix my phone so quickly, I just took into a store and got the receipt and sent it over, filled out the necessary information and and they covered it! Excellent and helpful!
THANK YOU !

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY

Absolute rubbish insurance company. Used for a couple of years and had two issues. One of which was fine and the claim I just went to make was declined because I didn’t have a picture of the item uploaded to their crappy website! The website is awful to use on mobile and I have loads of pictures of the item before it was damaged! Any excuse not to help a PAYING customer.

Get a grip - probably not going to last much longer as a company with these few bad reviews.

Customer services didn’t care either.

Absolutely shocking company, being a customer for 8 month paying them each month thinking my phone was covered. Turns out the photos they asked me to put on my profile were not good enough, even though there was no suggestion they weren’t from the company. So when my phone smashed I thought thank god I am covered, how wrong I was. Stay away from this company!!!
Make things worse the woman I talked to was so unapologetic and really couldn’t care, basically said tough. Truely awful.

Edit - Further to their reply, the confirm i did receive a call however they left no details on how to get back into contact them, maybe they do not realise people work, it also seems i am not the only one to have this issue, maybe if this company had some sort of warning that stated after uploading pictures that they are not enough they would not get all these bad reviews

i await their call again

There's so much potential with this company. Their premise is great. I was a happy customer for 2 years and when it came to my first and only claim, I was told my product photos weren't good enough. Those photos have been online for 2 years! I have looked back at my documents from two years ago, when I added items via the (now discontinued) app. My emails only say to make sure photos are available and do not specify what they must show. My photo doesn't show the serial number, which is why my claim was rejected.

I used to sing their praises, but to turn around after two years and say 'your device was never going to be accepted' is just hurtful. I asked if there was anything they could do to help me - they said no. But they could, if they wanted to. A person has made the decision that I shouldn't be looked after, which is why I can no longer recommend this company.

2 stars instead of 1 because the people I spoke to whilst dealing with the claim - the telephone operators who do not create the policies and have little to no power - were polite.

Phone lines immediately divert to another team (a home insurance team) who eventually figure out you called to speak to backmeup (after a few minutes asking for your home insurance policy details) then simply take details for a call back. Their "Live chat is available 9-5 Monday to Friday" but shows up as unavailable at 9.10 on a Friday. This is an "App" based "community" platform that shut down their online community, then discontinued their app, then put their prices up. Clearly ageas are trying to run this thing on a shoe string and customer service is their last priority. Will evaluate end-to-end claims experience when I finally get through to them but don't have high hopes. Would advise you to go elsewhere, the positive reviews on here seem to be early adopters and more recent reviews illustrate things are going downhill.

I have had this insurance since September 2017 and needed to claim for front and back screen repair for my s8 . Contacted back me up on Thursday, by Friday it was approved but had to ring back Monday to get the payment authorised by the manager for me to get the cash in my bank account to be able to book it in repair, awaiting money in my account so will update when money arrives but overall a good process. Havent had to claim yet for theft or abroad so can't comment on that.

Good service but reinstating is a nightmare.

I had to reinstate after my card was put on hold for fraud and a payment didn't go through because of this.

It was very difficult to restart the insurance as you have to reapply with new photos of your items.

Bought on 25th of June 2018 had no issues signing up. Just reassurance for me.

Excellent customer service, excellent service as an insurance company. Always fast response and super helpful. Often waiting a while trying to phone them and listening to Cheap Thrills by Sia play and restart constantly gets a bit old but that’s my only complaint. The app is old and rubbish and the menu could be improved but as an insurer, they can’t be faulted.

Really easy to set up. Very impressed with that part.

Waited 42 min on the phone: No one picks up!!!!!

Update: After sending a complaint email about the time I spent waiting, I received a phone call the day after and that person helped me with my request.

I thought the staff were very polite and sounded helpful.
Every step of the way involves chasing the company for documentation or, when finally the claim is approved, payment.
A lot of hassle. It would be better to find insurance with a company that just replaces the phone like for like.
These guys give you money for the cheapest price they can find the phone online so I don't know why I even got a quote as they ignored it.
My claim was approved pending agreement from the supervisor. 48 hours later I rang back and it was still awaiting approval from the boss.
It then took 3 days for payment so in all about 11 days to get a new phone. In fact it took so long I bought a phone before the payment came in from back me up.
So, staff very friendly, actual process is very tedious.
Also wait time on their phone line is ridiculous. Expect to be waiting over an hour to talk to someone.

EDIT- In reply to Woodie (see below), please do check phone records and you'll see I phoned nearly every day to find out what was happening. Things only moved forwards after I phoned. Things should move quicker and you should be contacting customers to advise whether documentation sent is sufficient. Maybe you do, but to me I never got a reply within 24 hours of sending the documents, so if that's normal, it's too long.
A phone is now such a vital part of most people's day to day life that this process is just too long.
You will see from your records that I was waiting ages on some calls, and you really must pay more for hold music. One song by Sia on repeat drives people crazy.

I wish I didn't resort to a cheaper insurance like Back Me Up because you get what you pay for. I told them my phone screen smashed, they had no urgency in the matter and it took nearly 2 weeks to get my phone replaced, responses were slow and unsympathetic.

They said the phone needed to be replaced, but BMU would only get me the absolute cheapest replacement phone on the internet. The amount they were offering was so low that I'd never be able to get a good quality replacement with it, and BMU knows these cheap replacements are slow and very old.

Low and behold, I purchase the replacement phone that they instructed me to buy from Envirophone and it's just awful. I'm in a worse position I was in before I got this new phone and now they're telling me it's out their hands and Envirophone should deal with it. Once you've paid your fees they don't actually care about you as a customer.

It would have been easier and quicker to simply go and buy a replacement directly from a reseller. I gained absolutely nothing from using this service. The amount they gave me towards a replacement was LESS than the amount I've paid to them in total since using their service, including the £50 excess fee. This expenditure was completely and utterly a waste of my time. Not impressed at all, anyone would be better off paying a bit extra with another insurance company and knowing you'll get a decent replacement and not a dirt cheap one that saves the company money but leaves you with a worse situation than what you found yourself in.

I have my laptop and camera insured with them but what's the point anymore? If my macbook breaks they'll just find me the cheapest replacement out there that clearly isn't good quality with slow old software.

At the moment, I'm sending the replacement phone back to Envirophone with no solution from BMU - I don't want to purchase the cheapest phone on that website again it's it been proven they aren't reliable and come with faulty software. Now what do I do? I will I could put my trust in this company.

Very bad experience all around.

Firstly, the outcome of my claim. I claimed for a phone which had stopped working due to a drop, with no visible signs of damage. The phone stopped working around 9 hours after the drop, and I had a written report from a mobile phone repair shop to suggest that the motherboard on the phone was broken and it was irreparable. After describing my claim and sending in the evidence, BackMeUp asked for a picture of my phone (which looked undamaged - it had been dropped with a case on) and, on receiving it, said I wasn't covered and they wouldn't pay out. Their reasons for this were the fact that the phone had only stopped working 9 hours after the original drop, suggesting A MECHANICAL FAULT (!) and that the phone looked undamaged.

I stressed that the phone had a case on, negating physical damage, and that mechanical damage would be extremely coincidental considering that the phone had been dropped onto a hard surface that same day. When I asked if they would cover if the phone had, for example, a smashed screen, they confirmed that they would, but a written report from a mobile phone repair professional was not enough proof apparently. Extremely frustrating.

Secondly, the service. Long wait times and multiple promised returned calls that never happened ("the advisor you spoke to will call you tomorrow" - didn't happen; "I'll diarise a call for tomorrow morning" - didn't happen).

In summary, BackMeUp do not offer the service that they claim to. They market themselves as consumer-friendly, but are anything but. I would not recommend them in the slightest.