Barclays Partner Finance unfair treatment

[Daria1994]

Hello everyone,

Any help on this matter will be greatly appreciated. I am 24 years old and never had to deal with something like this before


I have returned my car ASTRA GTC on VT basis at the end of April. Before I did it I made sure I had all the information I needed in case they try to cause a problem. I have taken plenty of pictures of the car, documents, keys etc and had the car professionally valeted. The car was returned in reasonable condition, it had a few minor scratches but no dents etc.

3 days ago I’ve received a letter from Barclays stating that despite their numerous attempts to contact me and try to arrange a payment plan for damages to the car I’ve failed to get in touch with them so they’ve passed this onto debt collection agency Allied International who from now on will be dealing with me and pretty much telling me it’s too late to try and sort something out with them.

This came as a massive surprise as I have not recieved any letters, phone calls or emails from them at all! And I am not the kind of person to ignore these type of things as I deal with a very bad anxiety and money issues and debt collectors are the last things I want to deal with.

I couldn’t call them that day as they were already closed. The next day I’ve recieved a letter from Allied demanding £575.
I have phoned Barclays and explained the situation. They’ve passed me onto their complaints team. The guy on the phone was very rude.
I have asked him about the “numerous occasions they’ve tried to get in touch with me” and his reply to this was that the letter was badly worded and this is not what they meant and that Barclays do not deal with wear and tear payments and as soon as the car get assessed the bill gets passed onto debt collection company... SURELY NOT??
It’s clear that they’ve messed up and now they’re trying to come up with an excuse.
He kept telling me I need to make the payment by the end of the week. I’ve refused as I don’t even have a report of the damages so wouldn’t even know what I am paying for. He told me they never send their customers reports of the damages, just the sum to be paid. what?? I’ve asked for the report to be send to my address and after having to ask for it numerous times he said that he will, but he kept telling me that this is something that they do not practice and continued to tell me that I need to pay by the end of the week.

I have told him that I need to get some advice on this and that I will phone back by the end of the week. He asked me to close the complaint and mark is as resolved which i refused. He told me that If I don’t do it the complaint will go to stage 2 and I might not get the outcome I want. I insisted and kept the complaint open.

I had this conversation yesterday and since then I’ve been bombarded with phone calls and voicemails from both Barclays and Allied.

I am not sure what to do. I feel like I’ve not been treated fairly and been lied to. I shouldn’t be asked to pay if I don’t know what damages they’ve found. And also the fact they’ve passed this onto debt collection agency stresses me out as I’m trying to get a mortgage and it might affect my credit score.

Plus I don’t have the money to pay them right now


i am sorry this is long but if you can please give me a little bit of advice I will be really grateful ...

EDIT : I forgot to mention that I was the 3rd owner of the vehicle - had it for 2,5 years and returned after it's done 78000 miles in total. The car is 6 years old.
Yesterday I've received a note from Royal Mail that I've got a letter, that requires a signature, to be picked up from the office.I am guessing it's the damage report. Problem is, because of my days and hours of work I won't be able to pick it up till Monday. Or Saturday if i get to finish work early..

[Daria1994]

R0b can you please have a look when you can? Thank you!

[Daria1994]

To top things off, yesterday I've received another letter from them stating that my account is in arrears and I owe them £376 for 2 missed payments for April and May..
I've returned the car in April before the payment was due.

[R0b]

Hello

I'll look to respond to your post at some point today however after a quick scan this is typical of Barclays and their aggressive conduct which may amount to harassment in relation to the missed payments that are unjustified.

Try doing a search for Barclays partner finance, there will be recent threads about this.

[Daria1994]

Thank you R0b. Looking forward to hearing back from you, in the meantime I will have a look at other threads regarding Barclays

[R0b]

Right, so I've read your original post and as I suspected, it's not really nay different from the many other posts on here relating to the condition of the car and finance companies trying to recoup damage that they can't prove.

First of all, have you read point 6 of my VT Guidance? It sets out some steps to take when dealing with claims for damage to the vehicle - it's logical and sensible. The fact that Barclays are telling you that they don't send out reports of damage and expect you to simply pay up without knowing what you have allegedly damaged is not only absurd but could amount to an aggressive commercial practice contrary to the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. I'm pretty certain that BPF actually do send the report when requested so the person you had spoken to is clearly telling lies.

Second, you could always make a subject access request for all personal data held about you including any calls that are recorded. BPF are obliged to do that and within 30 days of receiving the request and it's free of charge so there's no cost to you.

Third, you should look at making a formal complaint to BPF about the way in which they have dealt with your situation by demanding money for something which no evidence has been provided and then secondly refusing to supply you with the evidence they're relying on!

I've attached a couple of template letters to assist you, but you'll need to modify them to suit your current situation. Regarding the second template which refers to sections of CONC, in your case you can refer to CONC 7.5.3 and CONC 7.14.1. You can find out what they say by going here to this link https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/CONC/

[Daria1994]

R0b Thank you for taking the time to reply to me. I will have a look at the templates. I like the idea of making a separate complaint about the way they handled the situation. I will keep you posted about the outcome! Hopefully I can get the charge written off!

[R0b]

I forgot to add the templates.. here they are.

[Daria1994]

Just to update you - I've received the report of damages and there are things on it that I've had nothing to do with like poor repair/color match - I have not done any bodywork while having the car at all so this must be from the previous owner.

They have no proof the damages came from me.

I am waiting on the complaint team to contact me as the complaint has been moved onto stage 2 and been told to wait until they get in touch. I am thinking to send them a separate letter disputing the damages though.

Thanks
Daria