Well.. I will say, the (few) times we spoke to a Motability employee, they were always incredibly helpful and accommodating, yes. Lets get that out of the way, especially compared to “the usual experience” of calling customer services (waiting 45 minutes to talk to an indian guy that i, as a non-native english speaker, can’t understand even if my life depended on it).
That being said, you did miss a few things here. First, it’s not a company as such. Motability has a pool of money, that pool gets filled by the contributions of disabled people who “donate” their benefits to the charity. Now you have multiple options. You can use those contributions to ensure that all the needs of disabled people are met in regards to cars and car adaptations, or you can chose what Motability is doing. Having an office in the poshest part of London, a stone throw away from Westminster, while paying their staff twice as much as other companies do (a call centre representative earns around £27.000 a year), and make disabled people pay for necessary adaptations to the car. While having around 2.5 billion pounds in reserve.
Make no mistake, i’m not complaining about people earning a good living wage, especially if they do a good job for it (which they do, as i said) – most people here, me included, complain about the fact that Motability “lives” like a maggot in bacon, while the people who fund that “lifestyle” are struggling to even get a car that suits their needs, let alone pay for the adaptations. While, let me reiterate, having 2.5 billion pounds in reserve, for “bad days”. I have trouble imagining worse days than the last year to this point, yet the only ones suffering are disabled people who, for example, need an affordable big car for a wheelchair/scooter.
In short, they’re not just “paying a pound more”, they’re paying almost 50% over what other companies are paying, for call centre representatives alone. Who work here:
500 meters away from the Shard and the London Bridge.
Now explain that to people who fall off the scheme because there’s nothing available to them (even less so now), i don’t know about you, but i am struggling to see the justification here. Yeah, having nice and competent caller support is nice, but dwelling in a luxurious office paid for by disabled benefits, while barely moving a finger.. I don’t know jim.
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19, VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23
Current: Hyundai Ioniq 6 Ultimate
Next: we'll see what's available in 2028.