Welcome Car Finance - Central Recoveries just took my car - aided by police! **WON £8K**

[seylectric]

No, I haven't moved.

We are 99.9% certain that a court order does NOT exist,

the problem to date is that Welcome are refusing to answer all enquiries

so unless they tell us there was/wasn't or name the court it was issued

at if there was one it's a matter of trying to find out for sure.

 

I guess they are calling my bluff knowing that it will cost me a fair sum to take them to court,

and they probably assume that if I couldn't afford the repayments then I can't afford to pursue the matter.

[Oh Boy!]

Ok then you need to tell them that you have 1 million plus CAG members in all places.

 

With out being blatantly obvious will you do the following only if you wish to, I am going to help you FREE of course and try to resolve this matter.

 

You are not obliged to do any of the following

 

GET me the REGISTERATION MARK OF YOUR VEHICLE,

 

THE ADDRESS IT WAS TAKEN FROM,

 

THE LOCATION OF WELCOME, FROM THOSE DETAILS I WILL BE ABLE TO ASCERTAIN IMMEDIATLY WHERE THE VEHICLE WAS TAKEN TO BY WHOM (AGENTS) AND IF THERE EXISISTED A COURT ORDER.

 

PM EVERYTHING TO ME.

 

Then you need to tell what the solicitor has done so far what he/she is wanting to do next, after we establish the exisitence or the non-exsistence of the court, i suggest a nice STATUTORY DEMAND, this is pre-bankruptcy, send it to Welcome!, it will be very welcoming. The idea of the Stat Demand is to establish a Debt without having to go through the rubbish of proving it.

 

Thats subject to all my investigations being complete.!

[seylectric]

Thanks, PM sent.

[Coasters]

Wishing you the best of luck

[noomill060]

Any news, seylectric?

[seylectric]

Nothing as yet, I have not had the chance to contact the solicitors but will be doing so early next week to see if they have received any reply. If not I will be instructing her to press ahead with court proceedings.

 

I will update the thread with any new developments as and when they happen. Thanks for your support folks, much appreciated.

[RJDrep]

Hi all, hope it is ok for me to add my own thoughts and comments to this.

 

I strongly suspect you may be wasting your time with the police - they will have been called 'to prevent any breach of the peace'.

Bear in mind the vehicle is always still the property of the finance company even if over 1/3rd has been paid and in this sense the police most likely would not have questioned whether the account was over 1/3rd paid or under 1/3rd etc. as long as the repo agent/bailiff had their authority to come and collect the vehicle.

 

All the police would have been interested in was that the vehicle belonged to a finance company (ie someone else) and that the guys in front of them had the authority to 'collect' it.

 

The police will get out of this by saying that they attended to make sure there was no breach of the peace and ended up having to warn you that you would be arrested as you were refusing to leave the vehicle (still the finance company's property so you are refusing to leave their property as such and therefore a potential breach of the peace!)

 

A bit unfair but i suspect the police will walk away from this one unscathed.

 

On a brighter not, Welcome are known for 'chancing' things a bit and i have known them to send their '3 in the morning guys' around to snatch a vehicle from private land.

 

This is in cases (in Scotland) where there is actually a court order in place, the sheriff officer's have failed to get the car and ultimately the people they will thereafter send round (3 in the morning guys) do not have the authority to effect the warrant to uplift the vehicle and therefore are breaching consumer laws, rights & legislation etc. etc., but still hey as long as they her their car!!!!

 

In otherwords i doubt there is a court order in this case!

 

If they have uplifted your vehicle without a court order, the vehicle being over 1/3rd paid you will be entitled to the car back and all money paid so far ( and i HAVE seen this happen quite a few times!!!)

 

One more thing, i can guarantee you that no theft has taken place and it will never be treated as anything other than a civil matter.

 

The reason for this is that for a theft to have taken place the vehicle would have to be your property and it isn't, its still the finance company's, so all they have done is take their own property back (not theft) the comeback you have though is that they have breached consumer/civil laws, rights regulations etc. in doing it without a court order on an account that is well over 1/3rd paid entitling the customer to all their money back plus their car back!!!

 

I think you will come out of this one with a big smile on your face - please take a photo afterwards and post it here!

[seylectric]

....the police most likely would not have questioned whether the account was over 1/3rd paid or under 1/3rd etc. as long as the repo agent/bailiff had their authority to come and collect the vehicle.

 

All the police would have been interested in was that the vehicle belonged to a finance company (ie someone else) and that the guys in front of them had the authority to 'collect' it.

 

 

I know what you're say trying to say but that's the whole point surely

- the police did NOT ensure that the 'guys in front of them' had the authority to collect it.

They couldn't have done, it's impossible, because that authority - i.e. a court order - did not exist!

 

I agree that chasing the police over this is a tricky one and probably more hassle than it's worth which is why I have gone down the easier

, probably cheaper and probably more productive route of chasing Welcome.

 

 

I fail to see though how quietly sitting in the car for the sole purpose of preventing the collection agents to illegally take it consitutes a breach of the peace!

 

If they (Welcome) were not legally permitted to take the vehicle

- and we have claified that fact long ago

- I still maintain that technically they have taken it without consent which is theft whichever way you look at it.

 

 

THe police should have made sure they had the required documentation,

they failed to do that and if there is a case against the police it is surely on that basis;

why they were called out is completely irrelevant.

[seylectric]

RESULT!

 

My solicitor received a phone call from the finance co. in which they said that they "accepted they had made a mistake" and would settle in full.

 

She received a cheque from them a week ago which cleared a couple of days ago,

and she has sent me a cheque for the balance minus her fees.

The total recovered was just under £8,000.

 

Thanks to everybody for their help, advice and contributions to this thread.

[noomill060]

Fantastic news!

 

Well done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[rambo]

What a fantastic result!

I have been following this case for the last 8 months.

It just shows you that, we, the little people, CAN beat the big people.

They knew they were wrong all along, they were hoping they could wear you down.

Next step, sue the police for helping the bailiffs.

[seylectric]

I suspect that their plan was to assume that if I couldn't afford the repayments then I couldn't afford to fight the case,

and from their point of view it's probably not a bad plan as in a lot of cases that would probably be true.

 

Add that to the point blank refusal to confirm whether or not they ever had a court order or to tell me where, if it existed,

it would have been issued from and you are effectively forced to make a decision whether or not to potential throw good money after bad in fighting the case

, without ever being 100% sure that no court order existed. I believe that this "call our bluff" attitude was probably intended to be their ace.

 

Frankly I am disgusted that I was fobbed off and had to take any action at all.

Although it's a good result I'm self-employed and the aggravation it caused me at the time plus the essential car hire fees (almost £400)

plus the solicitor's fees (again almost £400) should have been paid too.

 

 

On the other hand it's a settlement reached wthout having to go to court, and thus has been settle a lot earlier

and at a lot less (initial) expense than might have been the case if I had needed to pursue it through the courts.

 

I haven't finished with them yet though

- I want the file on my credit records amending and unbelievably I am still getting letters from their Nottingham office asking me to repay them

- I received one on the 6th November (ironically the same day that my solicitor received their settlement cheque), which reads,

 

"We refer to the Notice of Default issued from this office on 30th March 2007.

 

In order to protect our interests your hire purchase agreement has now been terminated and the full balance of the account is now payable.

Depending on what you have paid this means we may either repossess the above vehicle

or apply for a court order without further notice (etc. etc. blah blah blah).

Absolutely staggering!

 

 

I have since received a further reminder too.

My initial thoughts are to let them waste some more money and take it to court then put in a counterclaim, but we'll see.

 

Re. the police, I should have a strong case against them now that I have won my case against Welcome

but I will make a decision on that in due course.

 

You couldn't make it up!

[Saffronflowers]

Fantastic news - well done for stikcing with it. Feels good doesn't it!

 

SFx

[deebee1]

can someone please advice me on how i can get my money back form the bailiffs. i paid alot of money to get my car released twice and they have charged me over the odds...