Finance U Ltd Car Repossession letter received **Round 1 WON... Ding, ding... Round 2 now on**

[nowayjose]

I hope this is the best place to post this, if not please feel free to move it, thanks,

 

We had a car on finance from Corner Park Garage, trading under the name of Finance U Ltd,

this is a local garage which specialises in guaranteed car finance (at a price), with their own 'in house' finance with no credit checks.

 

We have been with this company for quite a few years and the latest car we had was 2 years ago,

when we part-exed our other car we had on finance with them, there was still a balance left on that car, not sure off hand how much.

 

We bought a 54 plate Corsa 1.2 costing £5995 which was £260 per month.

We kept up the payments for over a year but then ran into difficulty keeping up the payments.

 

We were sent a default notice.

 

We contacted the garage and spoke to the owner, to tell them of our situation,

at the time he said that we could reduce our payments to £160 for 4 months.

 

The next month we made the reduced payment and shortly after we had a phone call from Peter 'the bailiff' from Corner Park,

saying that we were behind on the payments and to contact the owner ASAP,

this is what we did and we were told it was a misunderstanding

and to keep with the payment arrangement.

 

The next month the same thing happened,

after contacting the owner we were told that he was unable to keep the arrangement

and we needed to clear the arrears.

 

We told him we were not in a position to do this because my husband was sick, and we would pay what we could.

We carried on paying what we could sometimes it was a bit less than the £160.

 

We then started getting phone calls.

I would let it go straight to the messaging service when I recognised the number.

The messages often went along the lines of 'This is Peter. the bailiff from Corner Park Garage,

I have a warrant here for the Corsa,

ring me to arrange a convenient time to pick the car up'

or it would be a voice text from the owner saying

'Please contact Graham from Corner Park on 01****** with regards to the arrears on your account ASAP'.

 

This went on for around 2-3 weeks.

 

I needed a car for work ( I am a community care worker) so was trying to pay as much as I could on the arrears.

After a particularly scary message one day,

'This is Peter, the bailiff, if you do not contact me today I will report the Corsa as missing to the police', I decided enough was enough.

 

I phone them and told them that I have had enough of their threats and to do what they had to do,

it was only then that they changed their tune and said that they only use these messages to make sure that people contact them.

I still insisted that they come and get the car. Begrudgingly they did.

 

A week or so later we had a letter saying that they will be selling the car and will let us know the final amount owing on the account.

 

We received a letter informing us that the balance outstanding on the agreement

- £11,110 Less proceeds of sale -£4290

Shortfall £6820.

 

Today we received this letter.

 

Dear Mr & Mrs ****

 

Following a review of your account, it has come to my attention that the sum of £6,820 remains outstanding with no instalments currently being received.

 

In order to resolve this matter amicably, I would request that you contact me URGENTLY to agree a monthly repayment schedule for this outstanding balance.

 

Please note that if no contact (or payment) is received from you BY LATEST 10 APRIL 2009

I will have no alternative but to pursue the debt, together with all additional legal expenses, through CARDIFF COUNTY COURT.

 

This is a FINAL WARNINg - no further correspondence will be issued.

 

I trust you will contact me with your repayment proposals by return.

 

Can anyone give me some advice,

as this is an in house finance company,

will they pass it to a DCA or go straight down the court route.

Ususally it says we MAY or we COULD, this seems very direct dont you think.

 

Sorry for the long post, hope someone can help.

 

NWJ xxx;)

Edited August 26, 2009 by nowayjose

[Markiemark1]

Did you sign anything when returning the vehicle? Or write to them prior advising them you wished to voluntarily terminate the agreement.

 

I note they sent a Default Notice, did they terminate the Agreement when they collected the vehicle?

 

Finally, do you still have the agreement?

 

Mark

[nowayjose]

No we didnt sign anything when they took the car, didnt even give them the log book,

2 men came, said who they were and took the car,

 

TBH I was just glad to see the car go quickly before the neighbours noticed.

 

In hindsight it was a stupid thing to do, as far as we know they havent terminated the agreement,

they just sent a letter saying that after they sell the car they will let us know the balance outstanding.

 

Everything else was pretty much done over the phone.

 

I have got the original agreement, but will have to dig it out.,

 

Hope this answers your questions,

 

thanks

NWJx

[Markiemark1]

Sorry, one last question - had you paid more than 1/3 of the total amount payable?

[nowayjose]

No markie we didnt

[Markiemark1]

OK, so on the face of it they haven't illegally repossessed it as there was a Notice of Default, and there was less than 1/3 paid.

 

Onto the next plan of attack then,

when you find the agreement can you pm me the figures on the document,

and also how much you actually paid and when, and the date that you handed the car back.

 

 

It might be beneficial to insist that you voluntarily terminated the agreement by handing the car back and thus the liability is calculated differently. But let's make sure of that first.

 

If you could also put a copy of the agreement on (personals deleted) then I'll take a look and see if it's enforceable.

 

Mark

[nowayjose]

Ok Markie,will do so as soon as I can,

[postggj]

hope you dont mind me butting in

 

this depends on what agreement was signed,

was it hp, conditional sale, was it by bill of sale,

 

the default notice,

 

i dont see many that are correct so are crap,

crap default notice = all you will be liable for are the arrears up to the default.

 

i could go on and on so the best thing to do is the following.

 

post your agreement and the default notice onto this thread,

google photo bucket and upload with out thumbnails.

deleate all personel details but leave in the figures and ill tell you whats what

[nowayjose]

Hi will dig it out, not sure if Ive got the default notice though, I think I remember something about Bill of Sale, because I was wondering what that was when I read it.

[Markiemark1]

Potentially even better!!! Bill of Sales have to be registered at (I think) the High Court. And I bet this one isn't!!!!!

 

That will render the agreement invalid!!

 

Mark

[postggj]

you are correct

bills of sale have to be registered in the high court

[nowayjose]

These are all the documents I can find can someone please have a look:-

 

 

 

 

 

I would be grateful postggj or markiemark or if anyone else can advise me on what to do next, it looks like its a bill of sale agreement, but I dont know what that means or how it affects me.... Unfortunately I cant find the original default notice...

NWJx

[postggj]

evening

got you message,

 

on this one now, you need to send the finance co an sar,

this will cost you ten quid and be sent recorded delievery

 

you need to be requesting a copy of the default notice and a copy of the signed, executed, and registered bill of sale with the court stamp

iclude that bit in the letter below

 

i can assur you that they wont like that

 

 

DATA PROTECTION ACT 1998

FULL SUBJECT ACCESS REQUEST

 

 

Dear Sir/Madam

Your name: xxxxxx

Account No/ No’s

 

 

 

I understand that you currently hold details of my personal and financial information within your internal record systems with regard to personal loan accounts And or credit cards

 

Please supply me with a complete list of transaction and charges relating to my history with your organization, INCLUDING Loans and or credit cards, payment protection insurance and other products. Alternatively a complete set of statements and agreements for the accounts or associated accounts is acceptable. I would be grateful if you would provide the following for ALL accounts or associated accounts I have held with your organization:

-Full copies of all contracts which you believe exist or have existed between myself and your organization, including true copies of any documents you hold in support of the same.

 

- A complete list of all transactions or statements relating to ALL of my Loan Accounts and or credit card with your organization.

 

-Copies of all documents which include any of my personal information including copies of any contacts or invoices, emails or computer records containing my personal information, or any records which pertain to this information.

 

-Full copies or transcripts of any correspondence in postal, email or any other format which you have entered into with any individual, organization or third party which contains my personal or financial, or which pertains to me.

 

- Where any previous information or records held have been deleted or disposed of, the methods used to do so, including dates, certificates or references confirming details of destruction. Where you are unable to provide such certificates, please provide a declaration, signed by an authorised officer of your company, confirming the dates and methods of destruction of this data.

 

-Full hard copy print outs of my personal or financial information, held in a digital, magnetic or any other format which is held in any archives, backups or other storage devices / locations.

 

I enclose a cheque in the sum of £10 to cover your fee.

 

IF YOU UNABLE TO DEAL WITH THIS REQUEST, YOU SHOULD IMMEDIATELY FORWARD IT TO THE PERSON WITHIN YOUR ORGANISATION RESPONSIBLE FOR DATA PROTECTION.

 

I look forward to hearing from you in the first instance of receipt.

 

Yours faithfully

 

include those bits about the default notice and bill of sale

 

print, never sign your name

[nowayjose]

Thank you Postggj

 

Will do that first thing in the morning, Just say, hypothetically (sp?) they dont have the stamped bill of sale from the high court, what will that mean to me??

 

NWJ;)

[janmal2000]

hi, i dont mean to jump and hijack this thread but i also had this EXACT same problem with finance4u / corner park 7 years ago which developed eventually to the debt being secured on my home (was this allowed or not?). now they are chasing repayment. i really hope you get yours solved BEFORE it gets that far for you. Finance4u are glorified money sharks.

 

i started my own thread (of which i am DESPERATE for help) link below.

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/mortgages-secured-loans/184337-urgent-please-defaulted-loan.html

[postggj]

i dont want to get your hopes up but lets wait for all the info to be produced first

 

then attack in force

[nowayjose]

OMG, Janmal,

 

Ive just read your thread and I can only sympathise with you,

 

Finance U Ltd are a bunch of lying, cheating bully boys, they left so many messages on my house phone which could have been heard by anyone,

definately breaking the data protection act, threatening us with bailiffs, threatening to report the car to the police as stolen,

saying they were coming out to collect the car and then not turning up.

 

Till in the end I couldnt handle the stress of it.

 

I ve got a bad feeling that they will ignore any SAR request and carry on with the court process.

 

How do you know that the owner knew the judge??

 

Im sorry I cant help you,

I hope someone on here can give you some good advice,

surely you cant lose your house on an unsecured debt..

. thats just not right,

 

I dont know how these people sleep at night,

Best wishes

 

NWJxxxx

Edited September 2, 2009 by nowayjose

[janmal2000]

NWJ,

thanks for that. i cant believe i found someone going thro exactly the same thing i did. will keep checking on how u get on. GL.x

 

i had the car for weeks rather than months (and they put it up in the showroom for sale for MORE than what it was up for sale when I got it!!!)

 

i have spoken to a few people and they have all said that when things go bad for people, this company is the crap. they are horrendous at hounding and harrasing people - very nasty piece of work indeed' aka ****.

 

fingers crossed we both get results with all the help from people on here. this site is a godsend xx

[nowayjose]

Hope everything works out for you, Its a pity you didnt know this site existed years ago,

perhaps you wouldnt have to put up with all this worry now,

 

Ive bumped your thread and hopefully someone can give you advice, perhaps it shouldnt be in the secured loan section,

 

you probably wont get many answers there,

 

Im not sure how you can get a thread moved, perhaps contact a member of the site team to help you.

 

I wonder how many more people have been stung by Corner Park over the years cant just be us eh??

 

Keep in touch

 

NWJxxxx

[nowayjose]

Well today I have received all the information Corner Park hold on us as I requested in my letter.

 

It includes payment records, phone call made, although not all, the agreements I posted earlier, default notices, and also a stamped bill of sale agreement, which I have never seen before. It was stamped with the words Supreme Court of England and Wales, Central Office Bills of Sale on the 2 Feb 2007 with a serial number 0002506.

Well it appears to all be in order, is there anyway I can check through the courts if it has definately been registered..??...

I would be grateful if someone can get back to me as soon as possible.

 

NWJxx:mad:

 

 

They have also recently sent letters to our employers asking weather we are still employed by them... Both these are previous employers so my husbands previous employer has come back with 'terminated employment' and my previous employer hasnt replied yet... Why would they do this???

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[postggj]

next thing

 

in your sar did you get a default notice,

 

please post minus personel details if you have it

[nowayjose]

Thanks for getting back to me.... according to their records (diary entries for agreements) the last default notice they sent us was on the 15/6/07 but in the SAR request the last DN was the 29/1/08, in total I have copies of 6 DN but none recent and all before Jan 08.

 

Do you still want me to upload them??

[postggj]

its the default notice just before they started litigation

[postggj]

make that the default notice just before they took they car

[nowayjose]

As I said in my earlier post, the last default notice we received on this account was in Jan 08, after that everything was done via telephone, ie text messages, which are shown on their records in their diary entries, a total of 13 text messages demanding payment, without all the threatening phone calls. On the 7th of January they came to get the car and on the 9th Jan they sent us a letter saying that the car would be sold and we will be liable for any shortfall.