illegal repo what am i owed?

[cyril82]

i wont go into too much detail as this would end up a very long post but i had a vehicle repod unlawfully,then the company wouldn't return all monies paid and lied and altered documents to try and avoid having to pay.

its 4 years on now and i have finally got all of the evidence i need to prove that,

1. i had paid over one third at time of repo and no court order was sought
2. i was not in any arrears at the time of repo
3. the company altered my credit agreement (claiming to have lost real original) to include terms that favoured themselves but that were not included in the original agreement
4. that the company were planning to repo for 3 months prior to date they actually repo'd despite no arrears on the account and were deliberately not attempting to take payment in the hope i would fall behind on payments to allow them to repo, (when i didnt fall behind they just repo'd anyway.)

so i know i'm entitled to all monies paid under the agreement but in light of the above what other compensation could i be entitled to?

i have spoken breifly to one solicitor who said i' entitled to compensation for being without the vehicle from the date of repo but at what level should i ask to be compensated for this?

i'm asking because i'm still undecided whether to employ the solicitor or attempt to handle this myself, the main issue i have is i have no idea what additional compensation to ask for.

any help would be gratefully recived.

[bluebottle]

Re: illegal repo what am i owed?

Hello Cyril 82,

As you probably know, once you have paid a certain number of payments, a finance company cannot legally repossess a vehicle without a court order.

I am a retired policeman and this sort of case is right up my street.

The credit agreement you signed is a legal document as it forms part of a contract between you and the finance company. Do you know if the credit agreement was regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974 et seq? If so, you may have a number of rights against the finance company under the Act.

You have indicated you have evidence that the finance company altered documents in order to repossess the car and avoid having to reimburse any payments you had made and were also attempting to not take payments in order to falsely claim that you had defaulted and, thereby justify repossessing the car.

I would strongly advise you that you speak to Consumer Direct on 0845 4040506 as soon as possible and report this and then report it to the Consumer Credit Licensing Department at the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) as well. You may well be asked to report this matter at your local police station as there appears to be evidence of forgery and fraud.

As regards what compensation you may be entitled to, you will almost certainly be entitled to full reimbursement of the payments you made and any interest the finance company have accrued on it. This is normally 8% per annum compound. Check with a legal professional or the office at your local County Court for current rules regarding this. You may also be entitled to other damages for loss of use of the car, as advised by the legal professional you consulted, and you should ask him/her at what level you should set any civil claim against the finance company. In the case of road traffic collisions, it is normally £10.00 per day. However, I do not know what figure is used to calculate damages for unlawful repossession of a car.

My advice is that there are elements of civil and criminal law in this matter and, at this stage, it is difficult to say how this is going pan out.

Start with Consumer Direct, ideally, tomorrow, as soon as their lines open at 09:00 am, and OFT Consumer Credit Licensing Department. Do make sure you check to see if the credit agreement was regulated under the Consumer Credit Act or Hire Purchase Act before you ring them as they will ask. It is very likely Consumer Direct or OFT will contact you again through your local Trading Standards Department and they may request you notify the police. However, they may notify the police and the police may contact you. This is why it is difficult to say how matters are going to go.

Once you have spoken to Consumer Direct and OFT Consumer Credit Licensing Department, come back onto this thread and let us know what has been said. We can then guide you in the right direction, if necessary.

Regards,

Bluebottle

[cyril82]

Re: illegal repo what am i owed?

thanks alot blue bottle, i think there is alot of sound advice there. for the record, as i did forget to mention in the original post, the agreement was a conditional sale agreement regulated by the consumer credit act 1974.

i am just waiting on some copy bank statements being sent to me as i no longer use the bank account i made payments from since i switched to another bank a few years ago and i lost the originals a while ago.

once i have these i will have the exact figure that i paid to them in writing to show that i am right, however, in response to a subject access request i made recently the finance company have also kindly provided me with a screen shot of my payment history which states that the total i paid was more than they claimed in letters to the FOS and trading standards when i first raised the complaint and it also says next to my payment record "one third paid? YES - so it seems they knew i had paid over one third all along as their computer systems say i had, yet they told trading standards and the fos that i had my sums wrong, i think that is whats commonly knows as a lie.

anyway, thank you for the advice, i will probably wait for the bank statements before contacting anyone but i will be sure to keep this thread updated.

[labman]

Re: illegal repo what am i owed?

One very small error. The OFT will not comment on individual cases and are not allowed to give advice on issues regarding Consumer Credit Licences. You would need to complain to them and see what happens. This is obviously a lengthier process, and often, with issues relating to CCL's, they send an acknowledgement e-mail of your complaint, and tell you that unfortunately you may never know the outcome, but they will pursue as thy see fit.

This is all they will tell you over the phone. :beagle:

[bluebottle]

Re: illegal repo what am i owed?

Hi Cyril and Labman,

Thanks for the correction, Labman. As with most government agencies, you never do seem hear anything after you inform them of some business's wrongdoing.

Okay, Cyril. You spoke to Trading Standards previously about this matter. Once you have all the necessary documentation together, I would go back to Trading Standards and let them look through it. You are quite correct in saying that the finance company have lied to you, the FOS and Trading Standards and they will not like that. I can't say exactly what will happen to the finance company and its management, as that is something only an investigation by Trading Standards and/or the police, if they become involved, can determine.

At this stage, I would wait for the rest of the documentation to arrive, then go back to Trading Standards and let them decide what is going to be the best course of action to take in this matter.

Bluebottle

[cyril82]

Re: illegal repo what am i owed?

i think i willdo just that, i will wait for the bank docs just to have everything in place, then i will probably speak with a solicitor again, get their views and an estimation of possible costs if i can and then telephone trading standards and see what they make of it.

that way i think i will be better placed to make a final decision on how to proceed with this one.

either way i will keep this thread updated, and thanks for the help and advice so far.

[cyril82]

Re: illegal repo what am i owed?

ok, an interesting development i have recntly received some documents from an insurance compny that the finance company told me they had arranged a GAP policy with on my behalf.

i had disputed the existance of this policy as while i dont deny i asked for it i never recieved any policy documents and the finance company have repeatedly failed to provide documents proving its existance despite numerous requests under the terms of the data protection act and even in the face of possible legal action, over a period of three years.

it was only the threat of reporting them to the ICO that prompted them to send me some form of documents but still no actual policy document.

now, i found their reluctance to send me these documents very strange as they are reliant on this policy being in place for their argument to stand up as the claim that this GAP payment and charges meant i didn't pay over one third.

so i decided to send a SAR to the insurance company and i got a reply last week.

i was showing my partner the documents which the insurance company sent to me last night and she said that the screenshot of my account was the exact same computer system her company use and she was able to segragate what looked to me like one big jumble of words into legible sections as they would appear on the screen if you were on the actual system.

what transpired is that everytime payment is mentioned there is a ".00" which my partner says means no payment made, in total there are the following referances to payment,

1. below my personal details there are payment dates for first payment, last payment etc and all have the date showing as "00/00/0000"
2. further down there is a section which states the amount of the policy then it says ".00" after it which i beleive means the amount was not paid,
3. then there is the acceptance heading which has a date of 00/00/0000. now neither myself of my partner are in insurance but i believe that this may mean that a policy has to be "accepted" i.e the insurance company agree to insure the person and that this would only happen once the insurance company offered the insurance and payment was made, and that because payment appears not to have been made the policy was never activated or "accepted"
4. when the policy was cancelled there is a record of this, but it reads cancelled, then the date of cancellation is displayed, then it reads "payment recieved .00" "refund .00" which i think means nothing was refunded because nothing was paid.

this is getting very complex now as it appears that the insurance company are not prepared to go on record against the finance company as they tried to imply that they had provided a policy, yet they provided no policy document bearing their own name, but did send me a policy "shedule" bearing the finance company's logo along with a covering letter supposedly sent out at he time telling me that the policy had been set up, which i didn't recieve at the time, but again, beaing the finance company's logo not their own.

does anyone know what details an insurance policy document must contain? as the so called policy document i have just looks like a set of terms and conditions..

[charitynjw]

Re: illegal repo what am i owed?

I do know that if you have SAR'ed for the info, it must be sent in an intelligible form.

Using coded entries is not intelligible - ask them for a complete explanation!

[bluebottle]

Re: illegal repo what am i owed?

Hello again Cyril,

Thank you for getting back to us. Okay. Going by what is in your most recent post, on the face of it, it appears you have been the victim of a scam that is not uncommon. I have come across not dissimilar cases, when I was in the police force, where creditors have not recorded payments made by debtors in order to justify repossession and then pocket the payments made.

Thank goodness you have a partner who is so on the ball.

Where do the finance company and insurance company in this matter stand, given what has been discovered? Well and truly in the brown and smelly stuff.

You will need to go back to back to Consumer Direct first thing Monday morning as soon as their telephone lines open and update them on what you have discovered. Do not be at all surprised if you get a call from Trading Standards and/or your local police. What the finance company has engaged in is False Accounting, which is an arrestable offence under Section 17, Theft Act 1968, in respect of the records which have come into your possession and Fraud by False Misrepresentation, also an arrestable offence, under Section 2, Fraud Act 2006. The finance company and its management can be dealt with under Section 18, Theft Act 1968 (Liability of Company Directors, Officers, etc., for offences by company) in respect of the False Accounting and Section 12, Fraud Act 2006, in respect of the payments you made. There may also be liability under Section 1, Criminal Law Act 1977 (as amended by Section 5, Criminal Attempts Act 1981) for conspiracy to defraud and this may also apply to the insurance company involved. However, this will be for Trading Standards and/or the police to determine after you refer the matter to them.

By all means go back to the solicitor with regard to any civil damages you may be due, but, if I were you, I would hold fire until Trading Standards and/or the police have had time to look at this matter in more detail.

Let us know how you get on.

Bluebottle

[cyril82]

Re: illegal repo what am i owed?

thanks for the replies.

as this was a single premium policy intended to last four years i was thinking of writing to the insurance company asking for a refund for the time i wasnt on cover, i.e the date the finance company repo'd and cancelled the policy, in the hope that they would reply saying that i wasnt entitled to a refund because no payment was made.

do you think thats worth a try or would they be likely to see straight through it and just send me the few quid in the hope i'd go away and stop asking questions?

[bluebottle]

Re: illegal repo what am i owed?

Hello again, Cyril, and thank you for getting back to us.

As explained in my previous post, on the face of it, you are probably looking at Fraud on the part of both the finance company and the insurance company.

You would, in all probability, achieve far more by not contacting the insurance company, but letting law enforcement agencies deal with this.

You now have proof that the finance company did not log your payments and as long as you have proof that they accepted the payments, you have a case to take to Trading Standards and/or the police. Do you have or can you obtain copies of bank statements that show the finance company took the payments from you? If this was done by Direct Debit, this will show on the bank statement. If you paid by cheque, check with your bank to see if the cheques were ever presented for payment. Either way, it's still fraud.

A number of finance companies have had their licences under the Consumer Credit Act revoked, refused or renewal refused. Could you let me have the name of both the finance company and the insurance company by Private Message and I will check this out with the OFT to see if either or both of them are on the Enforcement Action List.

Regards,

Bluebottle

[cyril82]

Re: illegal repo what am i owed?

i have pm'd you the details, i have had a little dig around myself to see if the fsa had imposed any fines or anything but they both looked squeeky clean, let me know if you can find anything.

[bluebottle]

Re: illegal repo what am i owed?

Hello Cyril,

I've checked OFT's enforcement files and although they go back to 2008, neither the finance company or insurance company are showing on them as having come to notice. This usually means they haven't been reported or caught yet.

Make sure you check old bank statements to confirm whether the finance company took the payments from you. See my earlier posts.

Once I have had an opportunity to look at the scanned documents you mention, I should be able to give you pointers as to what is going to be your best course of action in this matter.

Bluebottle

[cyril82]

Re: illegal repo what am i owed?

they did take the insurance payment, they have written to me on several occasions stating that they did so as they were reliant on the first pament i made being "resolicited Gap insurance" in order for me to be below one third paid.

what they basically say is that the first payment made on my finance arrangement became gap insurance once i agreed to it.

[cyril82]

Re: illegal repo what am i owed?

just scanning docs now, there is definately no policy document here in what the insurance company sent in response to my SAR just a policy schedule, a sheet with general terms and conditions and a key facts sheet.

looks really dodgy