Thread: Need help- desperately!

Please please, somebody help!

I have posted before about this and have just recieved a telephone call which has made it all worse tenfold!

Basically my husband and I bought a car from a local garage which Welcome finance financed.
We took out the car HP on 21/02/06 for 36 months.
The monthly payments were £225.92.
The last payment was to be made on 21/02/09- 3 days ago.
During the course of the agreement, my husband and I missed a couple of payments and had payments returned at the bank.
We knew they charged £5 per telephone call and letter sent out in the event of missed payments, so we knew there would be a balance in charges to pay and thought it would be altogether a few hundred pounds.
I called welcome and asked for a closing balance and was shocked when they gave me a figure over 2K!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!
I demanded answers and was told we owed £1243 in missed payments (what the hell?????? we didn't miss that many!) £842.51 in charges, plus a default amount of a few hundred and plus interest!!!!!!!!!!

I told them we were close to the end and how could we possibly owe this amount?
I have asked for statements on numerous occasions because we never recieved any statements in the whole 3 years of the agreement!
The statements never came.
Also, the so called missed payments- why were we never informed of them?
To my knowledge, we have always later paid any missed payments.

I cancelled the weekly direct debit because they refused to send out a statement of account and I was not going to continue on paying them without knowing what we genuinely owe- charges and 'dreamed up' sums aside.

Well tonight I had a phone call and I got into a heated debate with them.
They told me they can reposess the car (despite us already doubly paying them the car's value) and that they can take legal action against us unless we pay.
I argued that their charges were unfair and I would be taking them to court to prove this.
He said they can charge us what they like because we signed the contract and we can't just decide we don't want to pay them.
I told him they hadn't sent out a statement in 3 years and that in doing this they had breached consumer law.
He argued that some companies don't have to send out statements and also that the law only came into practice that says you DO have to send out statements 6 months ago.
Well I thought it was 2006 that law came into practice???????
I also told him I'd requested the info 3 times and they hadn't given me it.
I told them it seemed they didn't want me to see till the last minute- now, when I thought it was all paid off!!!!!!!!!!
He talked over me and told me I have to carry on paying for the car or it would be reposessed.

Apparently a statement of account is on it's way.

I don't know what the hell to do.
I have reported them to trading standards and told himt his. I also told him it was ridiculous that we'd already paid over 7K for the car (worth 3995) and now face paying nearly another 3k!
He said they may negotiate with me to drop some of the charges but only if I make a settlement for the rest of the balance.
I can't- I don't have the money!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am sure we have been diddled and also sure I have a claim for mis-sold PPI whilst we're on the subject of claims.
So this company in fact owe me, but are trying to screw a further 3K out of us.

Please help me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!

Oh and also, he says their charges are not unfair and different to bank charges because you don't sign a contract to pay bank charges and we have signed a legal contract here to be subject to pay their charges.

First of all they cannot reposes the car without a court order.
Have you got a record of all the payments you have made to them, bank statements etc. to check against their records.
Read through their terms and condotions regarding late payments and fees to see if they have been applied correctly.
depending on negotiatons, and you are sure about what you want to do, but plaese try and settle first, you can wait for them to take you to court or apply to repoosess car and then put your case to the judge and if you have the facts and have been reasonable he wiil makr a an order or judgement accordingly.