RCI Finance (Nissan) - VT Help

[Claude89]

Hello,

I have put in a VT request in June 2018, which was acknowledged within a couple of days. RCI finance then sent a termination pack which I did not sign as per advice here on the forum. Now it took me a further 4 letters to get the car picked up after threatening legal action. The handler claimed they had not received any of my correspondence, even though everything was signed for (so I let this go).

Finally the car got picked up at the end of July and I thought that would be the end of the matter.

Around mid August I have received a letter claiming excess mileage and damage charges. Which I promptly disputed utilising the templates here from the forum. The issue was that not only the alluded charge in the first place it was that it was completely out of proportion and just plain wrong. The correspondence ping pong is still going on but RCI finance are still unable to provide an exact figure, even after recalculating the charge 3 times. Another further 4 letters have been ignored where requests were made to explain why they believe the charge is enforceable, and their customer service is not of much help either (as expected).

So now I am waiting for the final response from customer service (letter of deadlock) so I can take my complaint to the financial ombudsman. However, in the mean time I have received another threatening letter stating that if I do not pay up within 14 days that the dept will be passed on to a Dept Collection Agent.

Further I have noticed, that despite making requests the account is still marked as active with a balance outstanding on my credit file. To my knowledge it should be marked as an inactive agreement as the contract is terminated. But RCI Financials are refusing to do so.

My wife and I are currently in the process of remortgaging our house and I do not believe I cannot risk a black mark on my credit file. So I am considering the following:

1) Pay up and make sure they are aware I am paying under duress.
2) Take the matter to the financial ombudsman to reclaim funds paid under duress (also stating their poor performance when replying to my communication).
3) Take RCI finance to court to recover cost.
4) Take RCI finance to court for breach of data protection as they refuse to correctly mark the agreement on my credit file.

Now I am wondering whether this is a sensible approach to take, or whether there are any other recommendations. My experience so far is that they are fairly passively aggressive on the phone and tend to simply ignore my communication.

Thanks in advance.

[R0b]

I'm afraid you aren't the only one who is in the same boat. BMW do exactly the same thing and until someone decides to challenge this in court, it is possible and/or likely that they will continue to get away with it.

Without going into too much detail and if you have time on your hands, the thread link below might be of some interest to you for background purposes.

http://legalbeagles.info/forums/foru...excess-mileage

I also read somewhere that someone made a complaint to the FOS recently regarding excess mileages and they may be re-considering that position (where they used to simply find in favour of the lender because it was in the contract). Also, there is now a County Court Judgment which finds in favour of the debtor relating to excess mileage charges. The claim was brought by Mercedes and I believe they may have stopped issuing court claims as it seems to be relatively quiet on that front.

Anyway, if you wish to challenge them then the FOS might be the way to go and I will PM you the transcript of that judgment that you can use as evidence to support your complaint. Although County Court decisions are not legally binding, they are however persuasive and a rare case which has dealt with the issue of excess mileage charges.

Otherwise, it might be a case of looking to take RCI to court for breach of data protection and negligence. To see an example of the sort of letter before action (working draft) click on the link in my signature and its under 5a.