Budget Direct Roadside Assistance

They charge for anything over 20k which is fine ..but when they want $450 paid in advance over the phone with no tap and pay ITS A DRAMA . WTH seriously my cards only do tap to pay but it was a huge drama . The service out sources the out source. I got a cheaper quote by just ringing a tow company. I will change my insurance budget is..... budget… Read more

get. Total nickle and dime Is fine but when you outsource to another outsource to another outsource.... yea I'm giving my credit card over the phone . NOT

I rarely leave negative reviews, but my experience with Budget Direct Roadside Assistance was so disappointing that I feel compelled to warn others. I joined Budget Direct Roadside Assistance on 3 September 2025 and maintained my membership for approximately 10 months without making a single call for assistance. When I finally needed help for the… Read more

first time, I expected the service I had been paying for. Instead, I was met with confusion, conflicting information, excessive delays, and ultimately no assistance.

On Tuesday morning, I contacted Budget Direct Roadside Assistance and spent approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes on the phone. The representative I spoke with, [Name Removed], advised that the vehicle details on their system did not match the vehicle covered under my membership.

I was then transferred to a customer service representative, [Name Removed], who reviewed my membership and confirmed that my vehicle details were correct. She verified that the vehicle listed on my policy matched the vehicle requiring assistance.

Importantly, I also have a copy of my official Budget Direct Roadside Assistance Membership Certificate, which clearly identifies the covered vehicle as a 2013 Toyota RAV4 Diesel. There was no ambiguity and no discrepancy in the documentation provided to me by Budget Direct.

After customer service confirmed everything was correct, I was transferred back to the roadside assistance team. Astonishingly, I was once again told that their system showed a different vehicle and that they could not proceed with the assistance request.

I offered to provide my membership certificate and supporting documentation immediately to resolve the issue. However, before any solution was reached, the call was disconnected.

I then called back and waited for over another hour to speak with the roadside assistance team, only to receive exactly the same response. Despite Budget Direct's own documentation and customer service department confirming the correct vehicle details, the roadside assistance department continued to rely on conflicting information within their system and refused to provide the service I had paid for.

By the end of the ordeal, I had spent well over two hours on the phone, been transferred between departments multiple times, repeated the same information over and over, and still received no practical assistance.

What concerns me most is not that a system error may have existed. Mistakes can happen in any organisation. The real issue is that Budget Direct's departments appeared unable to resolve an obvious internal discrepancy, even when presented with their own documentation confirming the correct details. As a customer requiring roadside assistance, I was effectively left stranded because Budget Direct could not reconcile information within its own systems.

Roadside assistance is not a product people buy for convenience. It is a service people rely upon during stressful and often urgent situations. Customers pay year after year with the expectation that when they eventually need help, the provider will be ready to deliver. In my case, after 10 months of paying for membership and making no previous claims or requests, Budget Direct failed at the very moment the service was needed.

My experience left me questioning the reliability of the entire roadside assistance operation. If a customer can hold a valid membership certificate, have customer service confirm the vehicle details are correct, and still be denied assistance because another department's system shows different information, then serious questions need to be asked about the effectiveness of the service.

I cannot recommend Budget Direct Roadside Assistance based on my experience. I paid for peace of mind and support when needed. What I received instead was over two hours of frustration, conflicting information, repeated transfers between departments, and no roadside assistance.

Potential customers should carefully consider whether they are willing to take that risk when choosing a roadside assistance provider.

You pay for No Service – I broke down outside Mudgee and almost no mobile phone signal. Had to join NRMA to get a tow as it turned out they owed money to every tow truck driver in the area.

Very disappointed... broke down on roadside, called the roadside assist number 6 times.... nothing..... walked home, went online to complain on live chat and was given a number to call.... spoke to a lady and explained what happened and said that I… Read more

parked/locked my car up on roadside and went home.... then she informs me that if my car gets damaged it won't be covered because its not parked in its usual place..... woeful.

My Ford Territory was jumpstarted by Budget Direct roadside assistance staff and the Interior Command Centre (ICC) stopped working. Budget Direct was contacted and they asked me to get a diagnostic report. I got the report from Ford service centre… Read more

that stated the issue is likely to have been caused by a jump start to the battery. Budget Direct is not taking any responsibility. Although I was still insured for roadside assistance, they refused to come and help because I had an unresolved pending issue. I was left stranded. So I have no faith in their intention to help customers and provide service with a duty of care.

Just had my car towed and the service was great. The tow truck person was really friendly, gave me an accurate ETA and was efficient. I did have to wait initially for about 20 minutes on the phone to get connected which wasn't too bad. Show reply

The process to put the claim in was simple and straightforward was easily done through a link as I previously had roadside assists so I was able to just continue through the link and pay immediately without talking to anybody the problem I do have with the roadside assist would be the 42 to hours did I had to wait before using roadside assist I… Read more

think it should be from the time you paid not from 42 hours as the claim is there to help you in a knees of unexpected car emergency it should be immediate that becomes unfair we time period comes with the other one finishes and the new one starts time period should just roll over as usual the likelihood of something happening during the period where your changing over and purchasing another year of roadside assist and something happening a very likely that's just how it works unfortunately and then people are left where they're in a situation where they need help and they can't receive it as the 42 hours is in place

From start to finish I’ve had an incredible experience. Paul James Hinkley was an absolute delight too chat to and sort out my roadside assistance, he brought light to a downer of a tyre puncture situation, he was also helpful and professional - please give that man a promotion and a bonus! I had a stand out experience with Paul. Then Nick the tow… Read more ·  1

truck guy is a gem of a human, he communicates well, is professional and super fast - please give this man more jobs, I also had a standout experience with him too. Thank you to everyone, I appreciate this painless and great experience all round.

I called because I needed a battery jump start. I was on hold for a long time, then I was told the wait for assistance. Told service would be in 60-90 minutes. After 120 minutes, (2 hours), tried to call again to find out status. Very long hold, then told to wait longer whilst situation was being investigated. Waited 20 minutes on phone only to… Read more

find I had been cut off. Tried calling again. Another long hold, Finally, I received a call that they were en route and would arrive in 10 more minutes. Altogether it cost me about 3 hours from the time I first called, and was in llmbo about the status of the request for the final 1.5 hours. Parked on a local city street in inner suburb. Very, very bad service and very very bad phone behavior. I will not chose Budget Roadside Assist again at renewal time.

This is an update. I received a "Summary Resolution, email from them, claiming hey had tried to call me numerous times unsuccessfully, and that they now "assume this matter has been resolved ... (to my) ... satisfaction."

My phone and emails show no contact attempts by them. Add dishonesty to the above review.

Usually I don't write bad reviews so easily. However, this time I do want to warn other buyers. As they say claims in advertisements are always misleading "Insurance solved with budget direct" Useless and nothing resolved on time for me. I was stranded in the city last night my car's tyre gone flat, called budget direct roadside assistance. They… Read more

said they can only tow the car and don't fix the tyres. Fair enough, left the car at a fuel station overnight, came back again next morning and it is painstaking 2 hours wait already. I called up the help line again and the lady said another 90 minutes. We have tow trucks roaming everywhere in Sydney that can arrive within 30 mins, but not with Budget direct. It is road side standing for budget direct customers not roadside assistance.

Couldn't get roadside assistance due to car not being able to go into neutral. Trust me avoid. They don't tell you about the costs of extraction!. To me I consider this policy misleading and deceptive conduct.

Long wait times-unreliable On the phone I was told 1-1.5 hours before they get to help. First time they arrived 3.5 hours later and now I have been waiting for 4 hours already and they haven't shown up(when called they told me the driver is not answering their phone). I had to call someone else to come and help me as they are unreliable Show details

I called to have someone come and fix my flat battery at 8.50 am and was told that someone would be there in about 1 hour or at worst 1.5 hours.When the time got to 11.00 am I decided to ring again to find out why I was still waiting and how much… Read more

longer because I was already 2 hours late for work.After being on hold while I walked my dog for about just over an hour someone finally got to my call.I told the lady from Budget roadside assistance how long I have been waiting and she didn't seem at all bothered until I told her I was upset and that I wouldn't be renewing my membership next year and that I was disgusted in the service she said I do apologise and will pass on the complaint.She said do you still want someone to tend to your car and I said no I have arranged a new battery by myself,as I presumed that is what the problem was and it was when the battery guy came out . The battery was installed within the hour which should of been the time frame with Budget Direct.Im not happy and as I said I will not be renewing my membership with this company.

I used them 3 yrs ago, and never used them..waste of money. I decided to get it again as my car is getting older..so i signed up, should have read the t&C before hand, as its changed to include such wording "if the car has any pre-existing conditions an extra non-refundable fee of 110$ will be charged and anytime if its determined to have a… Read more

pre-existing condition and needs towing"..SERIOUSLY? If I wanted health insurance for my car, thats what i would look for! I just need an occasional tow maybe or dead battery help, i really look after my car, its in beautiful shape..but engines are complex and who can know whats going to malfunction?? How does anyone determine if a car has a "preexisting condition" anyway? Diagnostics are the hardest part, and almost NOBODY gets it right the first time!! Its a process of elimination, (do these pple know anything about cars )?? Is this all just a money grab for cars over 10 yrs? They should just not take any over 10 yrs if what they want is perfection..i mean GOOD LORD. Im thinking I might back out?

If I could give no stars I would … You buy roadside assistance for safety, piece of mind and general help when your car has been compromised. When I locked my keys in my car . I was told by the mechanic and Budget Direct I would need to pay more money when the mechanic turned up to get the keys out of the car …..$50. Extra. It is my experience… Read more

that other providers do not charge a fee to policy holders because that is what the policy is for .

Do use this company .

I cancelled my policy and went withNRMA

Who do cover no further charges if you lock your keys in your car once your policy has been paid for the year .

Beware

Car broke down at 8:45 am. Checked in with roadside assist and was advised to confirm with my mechanic about towing. Did that, and called back to confirm the tow at 9am. The phone operator said that the request was submitted and the truck should arrive within 2 hours, and they'll call me when it's nearby. 2 hours later - no truck. I figure some… Read more

amount of delay is probably normal, no problem, work was nearby anyway. Some hours of work later and still no word at all, so I call again. Turns out that when I gave the details in the morning and the operator said 'the truck is on its way', what they meant was that they didn't submit the request, didn't log my call back at all, and just wrote the mechanic's address into the system and left it at that.

This meant I was met with initially quite an angry operator when I called in the afternoon, wondering why I was only just calling back after so many hours. This moved into confusion and apologies when they realised that I had, in fact, called back immediately in the morning, and the operator at that time just hadn't bothered to actually submit or record anything except an address. They said that they'd sorted it out (for real this time), have expedited it as much as possible, and it should arrive within 2 hours at most.

2 hours later - still no truck. I call back again and am told there are delays, it should be there within an hour. The next hour goes by and still no truck. By this point I've given up and have sorted to get picked up by a family member and deal with the car later. It was another half an hour after that when I actually received a call from the tow company, at which point they'd been screwed over too because the job had to be canceled.

I had called in the morning before 9am, and the tow wasn't close to being ready until after 7pm. I'm just glad it happened near work and I had people who could help me out. I'd have been stuffed if I had actually needed to rely on Budget Direct.

Terrible service and subcontract to other companies. I had ultratune turn up after 3 phone calls and long delays. Made 3 phone calls to finally get to speak to someone!. Then operator stated you are not even in queue , I will put you in now. Stated that I will have to pay $40 or $200 if I want someone there in 10 minutes! Keys accidently locked in… Read more

car. Their rebate only $125 and I had to pay $40 to cover fee of $165, This was on top of the actual Roadside assistance cover that I already pay for. Contacted Budget Direct and no reply. This is an emergency service that we pay for so should be getting excellent assistance and not being charged extra fees!!!

Absolute terrible roadside assistance from budget direct. Always take forever to attend (multiple family members have experienced this). They don’t have adequate tools for the job onboard & are rude. Leaving & never coming back.

I called them at around 4:15 PM for a flat tyre replacement. I was given an ETA of "any time as soon as our call ends" to "60-90 minutes in worst case" as the location is in Brisbane metro area and close to city. I patiently waited till 90 minutes, no one came or called me. I called back to check the status, they said the contractor is stuck… Read more

somewhere due to roadwork and will be another 30 minutes away. I waited and called back in like 45 minutes, this time they said the contractor had to urgently head home due to family emergency and they will assign a new contractor and send then "urgently". The new contractor came after another hour, and took 45 minutes to change the flat tyre seemingly lacking expertise.

Hence, in total, I was left stuck in a shopping center's parking lot for almost 4 hours on a quiet Sunday evening. I’m not sure if this is typical for Budget Direct or roadside assistance services in general, as this was my first experience. However, the initial expectations were clearly inaccurate, and the excuses provided for the contractor's delay didn't seem legit.

I called them at 1:55pm, they were nice but because it was my first time having a broken down car and calling this company, I had absolutely no clue what i was doing. It came as quite a surprise to me when the person i was on the phone with told me I had to find a mechanical company nearby and ask if i could get my car towed there, then call them… Read more

back. As a 17 year old who was already stressed out over my broken down car it should not be my job to find a destination for the tow truck. This has already become more time wasted before the tow truck would arrive, and i had to ring them back a second time to get someone help me find a place because I had no clue what to do. They were good on the phone and very polite but they could definitely do a little more than tell me what to do instead of doing it themselves. Also, I was given very misleading information as to when the tow truck will arrive. I was stuck in that car park for 6 and a half hours before the tow truck arrived, and was told I couldn't leave. I rang budget direct multiple times throughout those hours asking for more updates on when the truck would arrive and each time they said that there was a delay and the truck should be there in approximately 2 hours. Then it was 80 minutes, then it was another 60 minutes, and it went on and on until he finally arrived at 6:30pm. This is obviously not the tow truck drivers fault, he was very nice and upbeat. I understand if there can be minor delays and that there can be like a 1-2 hour waits sometimes but I was stuck in the same place for half a day, unable to leave because I was constantly being told that the tow truck driver will arrive shortly. It was only when the actual truck driver rang me just before 6pm and told me that he was 30 minutes out was the only time that they were correct on time of arrival. This is extremely frustrating as I missed all my plans I had in the afternoon that day. I understand that sometimes a delay can happen but this is absolutely outrageous.

Beware. I had Budget Direct Roadside Assistance come out to replace my car battery, and was told that the battery would have a 24 month warranty. The battery died well within the warranty period...it failed a battery test by two different technicians. However Budget Direct Roadside Assistance refused to come out to even check the battery, much… Read more

less replace it, because I no longer had an active Roadside Assistance policy. And were requesting $90 for a call out just to look at it.

Subsequent conversations with Budget Direct failed to resolve the issue although I gave them ample opportunity to do the right thing.

Refusing to honor a warranty without paying for a call out fee, which was never communicated to me, is considered deceptive conduct and in breach of Australian Consumer Law. In effect the warranty is not worth the paper it is written on and Budget Direct and Statewide (the company they outsource the actual work to) clearly don't stand by the quality of their work or their products.

Extremely poor customer service for someone who had been a policy holder for many years, and I am happily following up with Dept of Fair Trading NSW.

I called Budget Direct Roadside Assistance, for help yesterday for a flat tyre. During the call I mentioned that it looked like it may have been slashed. They said that if it was "malicious intent" then they couldn't help. The call centre operator (Brayden) was extremely rude and unhelpful and provided me with no options. I was stranded, an hour… Read more

from home, on the side of the road with a flat tyre and a policy I took out for peace of mind not worth a thing to me in that moment. I read my policy and cannot see it noted anywhere that if the tyre is deliberately slashed, that it is not covered. It shouldn't matter how the tyre goes flat, just that it is, and I needed assistance. I am concerned for all the people who take out this policy, thinking that they will be supported in desperate situations, only for it to end very differently.

One star is a compliment. I would never recommend Budget Roadside Assistance to anyone.

I added Budget road side assist for piece of mind, thankfully never had to use it in 5 years. Today that changed my car wouldn't start from what seems to be a flat battery. I called budget road side assist, automated service put me on hold for an hour then the call cut out. 1 star rating is a compliment, after I sort it out myself I will call budget and request a refund.