Collection charges after VT - Santander harassing me

[amj]

Hi,
This is my first post here though I have been going through previous posts on Voluntary Termination which have been extremely helpful.

Santander Consumer Finance is the PCP provider and are harassing me over 70£ collection charges even after 2 letters, 1 email and 3 calls.

Initial VT letter:

• I sent my VT letter (template from this website) in first week of June – only 2 months left to contract expiry – so have already paid more than 50%.
• Santander called me up and said I need to go and drop the car in Bristol or Colchester (I am based our of London). I said I cannot drop the car so far away and asked for collection from my residence.
• Santander said they would charge 70£ for collection as per my PCP contract.
• I responded and said that I won’t be paying this and they said you can discuss with the agent collecting the car.
• I also sent a formal letter (template form this site) stating that they can’t charge me collection charge under CCA 1974.

Day of collection: (mid June)

• I had taken all timestamped pictures. Car was in great shape as good as new.
• The car was collected on the 14 the day – all went well. Report was provided to me which stated that condition was good, nothing to report.
• Agent said that there is a collection charge and I said I had told Santander that I won’t be paying it. The agent didn’t say anything else.

Subsequent letters: (end of July)

• Santander sent a letter to me stating that my account is in arrears and I need to pay Collection charge of 70£ to close this.
• I responded by email stating that I won’t be paying this (template from this website).
• (I also got another letter stating that I have outstanding amount of 1000£ - which got resolved as they confirmed that they sent that in error – distressing letter to say the least!)

Today – 09 August

• Today I got a call from Santander and they said I need to pay 70£. Had a lengthy discussion with both sides not budging.
• Santander’s view – It is in my PCP contract that I need to drop the car to where they ask me to and if I take ‘collection service’, then I need to pay 70£. No negotiations.
• To which I said, their PCP contract contravenes the CCA 1974 as I don’t have any further liability once I do VT with all other conditions satisfied (such as 50% already paid).
• They said it is in line with CCA1974 and I still owe them the charge for the ‘collection service’

Bottom-line – Santander is harassing me over this 70£ even after 2 letters and 3 calls. Can anyone tell me if they can charge me because they had this clause in the contract? Are they right?

I have mortgage application which is progressing so I don’t want any problems with my credit file – for non-payment or arrears. So concerned about this if this drags on and on. Would appreciate any guidance from this forum.
As a outcome of all this I have decided to close all my other Santander current accounts – had enough with them!!

Regards
AMJ

[Kati]

Re: Collection charges after VT - Santander harassing me

tagging [MENTION=71570]R0b[/MENTION] xx

[R0b]

Re: Collection charges after VT - Santander harassing me

Hello,

Its a tit for tat situation, obviously the CCA does say your only liable for XYZ but anything outside of that is considered void and unenforceable irrespective of what the contract says. Where there is a conflict with the legislation and the contract you signed then the provisions under the legislation will prevail.

I had a Santander agreement and they did the same with me, you would be wise to check your credit report as they marked my account with a default which resulted in me issuing a court claim against them and they eventually agreed to remove the default notices and pay me a sum of money as compensation.

If you are in the same boat, you might want to consider that option or just simply pay them the £70 to get rid of the hassle.

[amj]

Re: Collection charges after VT - Santander harassing me

Hi Rob,
Thank you for the quick response.
Looks like they won't go away then and I will have to face the music. As a matter of principle I don't want to make the payment, but the pending mortgage application is making me think again.

Could you let me know what the process is for making a court claim, in case things get to that stage? Also from your experience, how long do they wait for me to pay up before they mark my credit file? If there is a sufficient time between now and then?

AMJ

[R0b]

Re: Collection charges after VT - Santander harassing me

Well you don;t need to initiate a court claim unless they have actually marked the account on your credit report as having defaulted but even before that you have to send a letter before action. So the first thing you need to do is check your credit file. The default showed on my Noddle report so your best off starting with that one and its free (www.noddle.co.uk) but you might be best to check other credit reference agencies too like Experian - they offer a 30 day trial which you can cancel if you first set up an account with them, otherwise they charge you £15 per month. If you have already exhausted your free 30 day trial with Experian then you can obtain your credit report and score from them for free through Money Saving Expert's Credit Club (http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/creditclub) which should tell you if there are any defaults.

Whilst the default itself may not prevent your mortgage application there is a real risk it can and/or scupper your chances of obtaining favourable rates.

If you can find no default then it would be a case of sitting back and waiting for them to respond to you and/or see whether or not they will apply a default in the future and in which case you can cross that bridge when you get to it. If the mortgage application has already carried out a credit check and found nothing then I am not sure that they will pick up on it unless you have to reapply, but I'm not well versed in mortgages so I couldn't say for certain.

I can only offer the options but it is up to you whichever one you want to take.

[amj]

Re: Collection charges after VT - Santander harassing me

Thanks Rob for the detailed response.
I am thinking of not giving up and write back to them (as they left a voice mail and email this afternoon asking em to contact them again).
My credit checks for the Mortgage has been done, I am only waiting for final approval letter. So I am less worried about this impacting me in the short term.

If what they are doing is not as per the law, then I presume they are doing this to most people in the hope that a few of them will just pay up. Seems like a mini money making scheme in the background and needs to be highlighted.

AMJ

[R0b]

Re: Collection charges after VT - Santander harassing me

Its a grey area in the sense that there is no official case law that is binding on this issue and therefore people have to interpret the legislation and we all know there's more than one way of interpreting something. However, I think it is pretty clear in the CCA that liability is limited to certain categories which is set out in section 100 but lenders will of course interpret the legislation which favours them.

So if your awaiting the final approval letter, I would doubt any default is going to have an impact but it may have an impact if it came to re-mortgaging or obtaining further credit etc. Check out your credit reports and keep an eye on it, mine didn't show up until about a month or two later after I received the letters. You would also be wise to take a screenshot of your current credit rating (if no default by Santander is on there) and then take another one if one is applied, the likelihood is that your rating will go down and that is evidence of damage.

[amj]

Re: Collection charges after VT - Santander harassing me

Rob, thanks once again. I have written to them once again stating the same CCA 1974 rules and also pointed out a flaw in their contract. When I went through my contract in detail I came across the following flaw and included that in my argument.

Clause 8 – YOUR RIGHT TO TERMINATE.
In Clause 8.2 it states that “If you require us to collect the goods from you we may make a charge not exceeding the amount shown in Clause 9.6.4 below as a contribution to our collection costs. “.

There is no “clause 9.6.4” in my contract. It should have been clause 9.5.4 as that is where they talk about collection charges. Hence I am assuming this would make their contract inconsistent and unenforceable. Would that be the case?

[R0b]

Re: Collection charges after VT - Santander harassing me

Yes it has that mistake in also.. too bad! From a contractual perspective, the contract references a specific clause and if its not there then it can't be enforced.