Vehicle Finance problem

[Broomfield]

Morning all, I hope I am posting in the correct place.

Here is my problem, I have a Hire Purchase agreement with Bank of Scotland Vehicle Finance. I signed it two years ago in May 2008. About a year ago I changed bank accounts and requested a new direct debit mandate from them, it took ages to sort out, I kept asking for a new mandate they kept insisting they had sent it but I did not receive it. In the end I tippexed the old details off the original mandate which I had previously signed (and kept a copy of) and sent that off with my new bank details. At last they stared taking payments from the new account.

I then went to close the old account as I had kept it open purely to pay the Direct Debit to the Bank of Scotland. It was then I realized there had been two missed payments. I subsequently sent a cheque to cover these payments.

A few months later I started to receive ‘phone calls regarding arrears, I requested a statement of account to be sent as I could not understand why I had any missing payments. Suffice to say no statement was received and the ‘phone calls continued.

Following the advice on this excellent site I asked for all further communications to be in writing, the ‘phone calls continued however and each time I requested a statement and requested that they write to me instead of harassing me by ‘phone (by this time at work).

This was two weeks ago, I heard nothing from them until Saturday morning when I received a letter from them terminating the agreement! It referred to me ignoring a default notice (I have never received one). It also asks me to return the goods to them as “they are no longer in my possession with their consent” This letter is the only correspondence I have received from them. It is also the only time they have mentioned a figure for the supposed arrears. They refused to tell me this figure when they called as I was unwilling to give out security details on the ‘phone whilst at work.

I have requested a copy of my agreement from them and a copy of the statement and copies of all other correspondence they are claiming has been sent and I will scan and post the relevant ones up when I can.

The direct debits are still being paid and have been since May last year.

Sorry for rambling on with the background but I thought it might be of some use in answering this question; Can they do this? I am sitting wondering if they will be sending the “boys round” to collect my car, if they do what are my rights or what action should I take now?

Thanks in advance

G

[buzby]

Incompetence with a capital 'I'.

 

Normally, CAG suggests you keep everything in writing, but BoS it particularly bad at this (as you;ve discovered) so a phone call - record it if you can - with customer services to see what all this incomprehensible bumph is all about.

 

Often it is a case of left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing, but provided you approach them early enough before the file is erroneously hived off to the collections division, you might be able to sort this quickly.

[Broomfield]

Thanks for the reply Buzby, I took your advice and called them, turns out I did not owe them anything, they claimed I was missing two payments but it turned out that because I had changed bank accounts the first two payments they took out ended up in limbo as the mandate had the wrong reference number on it. Partly my fault I suppose because I used the old one (with an out of date reference) out of frustration of the banks inability to send me a new mandate.

They have now refunded all the charges applied to the account and re-instated the agreement. I have to now write to them to make sure they take off any adverse references from my credit file.

[buzby]

Great news. I had an almost identical experience - only they transposed the account digits. Strange they weren't interested in discovering why nearly £1000 was sloshing around with no customer to attribute it to.

 

It is always a good idea to confirm with them (remind?) that if they've placed any erroneous info on your credit file, so remove it and advise you. This way it saves you forking out to check they've done it, and can hit them where it hurts if they don't, later. (Assuming you keep hold of the correspondence!).