BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

[kreig]

Re: BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

A screen grab would be helpful, thank you.

Interesting, sounds as though it’s showing exactly as mine is. My latest missed/late payment entry takes the total up to 4, and this is the first showing as a “C1” entry.

Edit - just looked this up C1 means “Active Account”. C2 means “Closed Account” and C3 means “Account in Default”

Sent, check your inbox. Sounds the same except mines ran on for a while (Without me noticing)

[stuckcluckets]

Re: BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

[MENTION=82745]kreig[/MENTION] and [MENTION=67685]vipvipvip[/MENTION], thanks very much indeed for sending me your screenshots via private message.

Both look very similar to mine. Points to note, both of your reports show that the account entry is not yet in default, even though it should have been after 8 missed/late payment entries. BMW Financial Services seem to have stopped upping the CAIS code number at 6, rather than proceeding through to 8 and submitting a default - I wonder if this might be deliberate, on the basis that they're fully aware that submitting an actual default notice would be a blatant breach of the Data Protection Act?

Furthermore, [MENTION=82745]kreig[/MENTION], your screenshot even features Experian's own definition of voluntary termination...

...and allows you to return the car and owe nothing once you have repaid half the total price.

The above alone says it all for me. It's ironic that the CRAs are accepting these missed/late payment entries to continue, even though they display their very own definition of Voluntary Termination on the very same credit file!

Both of you are far further along in this process than I am. My advice to you would be to speak with the ICO, but raise a slightly different argument to mine - I would question the legality of BMW Financial Services ignoring the standard CAIS code 1 - 8 grading system, and NOT posting an actual default notice. They're both breaking the rules/guidance around submitting data to CRAs, but also ignoring the guidance surrounding when a default notice should be legally issued - either way, they're in breach of the DPA big time. I'm not yet in your same position, as I have not received the full 8 missed/late payment entries, which is why the ICO are currently saying that because an actual default notice has not YET been issued, all seems above board to them. You both are able to argue this in a very different way to me.

[R0b]

Re: BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

Also to add against what you have said Kurt, the reporting of the information must not be unwarranted by reason of prejudice to the rights and freedom or legitimate interests of the individual.

In my view, the reporting of the information is misleading because it gives the impression to third parties that (a) the agreement remains alive and not terminated and (b) can be apparent on first view that the outstanding amount relates to the main price of the agreement i.e. the credit that was advanced to you implying that you failed to make payments under the agreement which is simply not true, and in fact you did meet all of the monthly instalments. All in all, it suggests that your creditworthiness as an individual means your most likely to default on your obligations to repay your debts - which is also untrue for reasons already stated.

If BMW have stopped reporting the CAIS codes at 6 but then continues to report without using that code, then that to me seems like a clear abuse of position. Even more so if the account is being shown as active which indicates that the agreement is live - that in itself is of course not accurate nor true. If the agreement is shown as settled, how can they continue to report missing payments? Again, that would indicate misleading, not accurate and not up to date.

Any one of these payments would have been due following termination of the agreement, by not accurately recording the account as settled at the time of termination, again they are unlawfully and/or unfairly processing your information which is of course having a negative affect.

[kreig]

Re: BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

@kreig and @vipvipvip, thanks very much indeed for sending me your screenshots via private message.

Both look very similar to mine. Points to note, both of your reports show that the account entry is not yet in default, even though it should have been after 8 missed/late payment entries. BMW Financial Services seem to have stopped upping the CAIS code number at 6, rather than proceeding through to 8 and submitting a default - I wonder if this might be deliberate, on the basis that they're fully aware that submitting an actual default notice would be a blatant breach of the Data Protection Act?

Furthermore, @kreig, your screenshot even features Experian's own definition of voluntary termination...


The above alone says it all for me. It's ironic that the CRAs are accepting these missed/late payment entries to continue, even though they display their very own definition of Voluntary Termination on the very same credit file!

Both of you are far further along in this process than I am. My advice to you would be to speak with the ICO, but raise a slightly different argument to mine - I would question the legality of BMW Financial Services ignoring the standard CAIS code 1 - 8 grading system, and NOT posting an actual default notice. They're both breaking the rules/guidance around submitting data to CRAs, but also ignoring the guidance surrounding when a default notice should be legally issued - either way, they're in breach of the DPA big time. I'm not yet in your same position, as I have not received the full 8 missed/late payment entries, which is why the ICO are currently saying that because an actual default notice has not YET been issued, all seems above board to them. You both are able to argue this in a very different way to me.

Thank you and thanks, Rob too for his furthering of the point. I will use your template from page 1 and open a complaint with the ICO in the next few days (Get xmas out the way). Hopefully with enough complaints, this will help all of us.

Furthermore, I actually reported mine as an error to Experian. They wrote to BMW who naturally said it was correct, after submitting the argument to Experian they basically told me they cannot amend anything without BMW's permission.

[Dehaw]

Re: BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

I questioned BMW to ask why my credit file shows the amount owing on what was the agreement, I would have thought that since the invoices are not directly related to the credit agreement that this should have a zero balance along with saying the agreement was satisfied. They wrote back and said they have correctly shown what's due on the credit file, to me that makes no sense. They have though provided screenshots of my credit file on their systems where it's marked as either V or VT depending on the company (experien/equifax/call credit).

I have now received 5 emails from Debt Managers asking me to call, only their last email referenced BMW, I will ignore them of course, is anyone else been in touch with these people or any other debt collection agency?

I received the password for the documents but three of the latest agreements that shows the mileage was missing, I am now waiting for those being sent, I've had 5 agreements all in.

[stuckcluckets]

Re: BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

All, happy new year!

Time for an update - had a call from my case officer at the ICO today. They were calling to inform me that despite the further evidence I've sent, their view still remains the same. They believe that (and I quote)...

"The information that BMW Financial Services have submitted about you to CRAs is not a breach of the Data Protection Act, as they have not issued an actual default notice"

Essentially, this whole situation hangs on the default notice point. The 2016 SCOR guidance for the Data Protection Act mentions terms under which a default notice should not be issued, but nothing about when a missed/late payment entry on an account should not be issued. To cut a long story short, the ICO are saying they can do nothing because BMW Financial Services have not issued an actual default - BMW Financial Services are quite clearly aware of this, and as such, are continuing to add missed/late payment entries instead in order to make sure they do not breach the Data Protection Act, thus allowing them to continue their attempts to bully me into paying them. It's clever, I'll give them that, but extremely deceitful.
This theory is further backed up by screenshots sent to me by a couple of you watching/following my thread, whereby BMW Financial Services are behaving in exactly the same way - refusing to issue an actual default notice, but continuing to add entry after entry after entry for missed/late payments.

I asked my case officer the following question on the phone...
"In the event that BMW Financial Services had issued a default notice on my account for the amount that's solely made up of fees/charges, what would the ICO do?"

They answered by saying...
"The ICO would instruct BMW Financial Services to remove/revoke the default notice they had submitted, as it would qualify as ingenuine."

I explained that their answer itself clearly illustrates how BMW Financial Services are 'abusing' the system in order to use CRAs as leverage when chasing people for payments that they have no legal proof are due. My case officer had to take a pause for a while to process this quite valid argument. All they did was repeat their original statement, explaining that there was nothing the ICO could do, since BMW Financial Services have not issued an actual default notice. I attempted to step away from the technicalities surrounding the default, and approach things from another angle; bottom line, BMW Financial Services are submitting information about me into the public domain (via CRAs) that is causing harm to me as an individual, and not proven to be true. They said, despite this potentially being the case, this does not constitute a breach of the Data Protection Act. I asked them to explain this statement - they could not. They advised that my only next course of action in this scenario would be to take BMW Financial Services to court.

I have asked my case officer at the ICO to keep my case open, and send me a detailed summary of their findings in writing, including the following:
- A clear definition of when a default notice SHOULD be filed, and what processes/systems are in place to deal with lenders who are refusing to file default notices when they should be
- A clear summary of the ICO's findings, and how exactly they believe that BMW Financial Services are acting in accordance with the Data Protection Act
- Confirmation of what the ICO would normally do in the event of them finding that a default notice had been incorrectly/unduly submitted to CRAs

I'm absolutely shocked and appalled by all of this. I cannot believe that the ICO are claiming there's nothing they can do, despite how blatantly BMW Financial Services are playing the system.

R0b - any advice at this point would be much appreciated.

[Dehaw]

Re: BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

So the long and short of it is BMW will continue to place a missed payment on your file until you start paying because they also know what they can and can't do in terms of the law and seem to have us over a barrel.

When I opened the zip file containing my documents 3 of the agreements were missing including the one relating to the VT so I've gone back twice now and asked again and they haven't sent them, they sent some other documents that is not the signed document that states what the mileage was so I'll need to go back to them again.

I'm also still being hounded by a debt collection agency called Debt Managers, has anyone else been chased?

[kreig]

Re: BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

All, happy new year!

Time for an update - had a call from my case officer at the ICO today. They were calling to inform me that despite the further evidence I've sent, their view still remains the same. They believe that (and I quote)...

"The information that BMW Financial Services have submitted about you to CRAs is not a breach of the Data Protection Act, as they have not issued an actual default notice"

Essentially, this whole situation hangs on the default notice point. The 2016 SCOR guidance for the Data Protection Act mentions terms under which a default notice should not be issued, but nothing about when a missed/late payment entry on an account should not be issued. To cut a long story short, the ICO are saying they can do nothing because BMW Financial Services have not issued an actual default - BMW Financial Services are quite clearly aware of this, and as such, are continuing to add missed/late payment entries instead in order to make sure they do not breach the Data Protection Act, thus allowing them to continue their attempts to bully me into paying them. It's clever, I'll give them that, but extremely deceitful.
This theory is further backed up by screenshots sent to me by a couple of you watching/following my thread, whereby BMW Financial Services are behaving in exactly the same way - refusing to issue an actual default notice, but continuing to add entry after entry after entry for missed/late payments.

I asked my case officer the following question on the phone...
"In the event that BMW Financial Services had issued a default notice on my account for the amount that's solely made up of fees/charges, what would the ICO do?"

They answered by saying...
"The ICO would instruct BMW Financial Services to remove/revoke the default notice they had submitted, as it would qualify as ingenuine."

I explained that their answer itself clearly illustrates how BMW Financial Services are 'abusing' the system in order to use CRAs as leverage when chasing people for payments that they have no legal proof are due. My case officer had to take a pause for a while to process this quite valid argument. All they did was repeat their original statement, explaining that there was nothing the ICO could do, since BMW Financial Services have not issued an actual default notice. I attempted to step away from the technicalities surrounding the default, and approach things from another angle; bottom line, BMW Financial Services are submitting information about me into the public domain (via CRAs) that is causing harm to me as an individual, and not proven to be true. They said, despite this potentially being the case, this does not constitute a breach of the Data Protection Act. I asked them to explain this statement - they could not. They advised that my only next course of action in this scenario would be to take BMW Financial Services to court.

I have asked my case officer at the ICO to keep my case open, and send me a detailed summary of their findings in writing, including the following:
- A clear definition of when a default notice SHOULD be filed, and what processes/systems are in place to deal with lenders who are refusing to file default notices when they should be
- A clear summary of the ICO's findings, and how exactly they believe that BMW Financial Services are acting in accordance with the Data Protection Act
- Confirmation of what the ICO would normally do in the event of them finding that a default notice had been incorrectly/unduly submitted to CRAs

I'm absolutely shocked and appalled by all of this. I cannot believe that the ICO are claiming there's nothing they can do, despite how blatantly BMW Financial Services are playing the system.

R0b - any advice at this point would be much appreciated.

Wow is all I have to say about that, great work but a massive shame that they are allowing them to get away with it. It's definetly still a DPA breech as the missed payment has nothing to do with the credit agreement that they are reporting on.

I suppose the only way to progress this further would be to take BMW to court yourself?

Because of how small the amount I owe is, I'd be tempted to pay it but frankly there is no benifit for me to do that now. The missed payments will stay regardless.

[stuckcluckets]

Re: BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

So the long and short of it is BMW will continue to place a missed payment on your file until you start paying because they also know what they can and can't do in terms of the law and seem to have us over a barrel.

When I opened the zip file containing my documents 3 of the agreements were missing including the one relating to the VT so I've gone back twice now and asked again and they haven't sent them, they sent some other documents that is not the signed document that states what the mileage was so I'll need to go back to them again.

I'm also still being hounded by a debt collection agency called Debt Managers, has anyone else been chased?

I haven't been hassled by any debt collection agencies yet, but I'm expecting it soon enough.

Wow is all I have to say about that, great work but a massive shame that they are allowing them to get away with it. It's definetly still a DPA breech as the missed payment has nothing to do with the credit agreement that they are reporting on.

I suppose the only way to progress this further would be to take BMW to court yourself?

Because of how small the amount I owe is, I'd be tempted to pay it but frankly there is no benifit for me to do that now. The missed payments will stay regardless.

It's astounding, to be honest. It looks as though the only possible next step would be to take BMW Financial Services to court myself, yes, but understandably I'm not happy about the thought of having to do so.

In your case, you could try and campaign to have the missed/late payment entries removed by BMW Financial Services - send them a "without prejudice" letter (as earlier recommended by R0b), stating that you will offer to pay the outstanding balance on the proviso that BMW Financial Services remove all the missed/late payment entries. You could argue that your position/view/stance has not changed, and that you are in no way admitting liability for any alleged charges, but you are instead making them a conditional offer due to lack of evidence on both sides relating to whether or not the alleged charges are due. They'd be daft not to accept such an offer.

[Dehaw]

Re: BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

It sounds to me that the only way for anyone to get over this and have a clear credit file without debt collection agencies chasing is to take BMW to court to find out what the final result would be, do you think this is something we could do as a group as I'd be happy to help pay for this at least then if the court finds in favour of BMWFS and explains a good reason why then it would set the precedent and then we can offer to pay the thing off at £10 a week?

You've done a fantastic job KurtKrisco and by doing so have saved the rest of us the bother as I can't see us getting a different result and this is why BMWFS seem to be somewhat smug with their responses because they know they are acting within the law but making sure we aren't getting away with paying the mileage fees.

I've yet to receive the actual contract I signed so I'll await that then submit a complaint to BMW direct as the franchise seems to do what they can to get the car sold, like most salespeople but it's causing major problems to people financially.

Although my fees are £4.4K I'm loathed to give them anything for the mileage for a few different reasons, I'd even go to the point of transferring my rental properties over to someone else or sell them and then declare myself bankrupt, which probably seems overkill but it would not affect me in Australia and in effect would wipe my slate clean as I don't intend on coming back, certainly not in the next 10-20 years anyway.

That being said all BMW ever recite to me is the CCA section 100/2 saying that they have a right to invoice it where is my argument is CCA section 100/1, I think those are the right sections so we are essentially at a stalemate.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga...39/section/100

[stuckcluckets]

Re: BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

It sounds to me that the only way for anyone to get over this and have a clear credit file without debt collection agencies chasing is to take BMW to court to find out what the final result would be, do you think this is something we could do as a group as I'd be happy to help pay for this at least then if the court finds in favour of BMWFS and explains a good reason why then it would set the precedent and then we can offer to pay the thing off at £10 a week?

You've done a fantastic job KurtKrisco and by doing so have saved the rest of us the bother as I can't see us getting a different result and this is why BMWFS seem to be somewhat smug with their responses because they know they are acting within the law but making sure we aren't getting away with paying the mileage fees.

I've yet to receive the actual contract I signed so I'll await that then submit a complaint to BMW direct as the franchise seems to do what they can to get the car sold, like most salespeople but it's causing major problems to people financially.

Although my fees are £4.4K I'm loathed to give them anything for the mileage for a few different reasons, I'd even go to the point of transferring my rental properties over to someone else or sell them and then declare myself bankrupt, which probably seems overkill but it would not affect me in Australia and in effect would wipe my slate clean as I don't intend on coming back, certainly not in the next 10-20 years anyway.

That being said all BMW ever recite to me is the CCA section 100/2 saying that they have a right to invoice it where is my argument is CCA section 100/1, I think those are the right sections so we are essentially at a stalemate.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga...39/section/100

Thank you for your compliments and support, I appreciate it. You’re probably able to tell by now that my daily/professional life involves regular negotiation with businesses, but never have I encountered an organisation as deceitful as BMW Financial Services. That being said, I’m not going to be backing down any time soon.

I have a couple more steps I’d like to take before I go down the legal/court route. I’m currently preparing an additional letter to send to my case officer at the ICO. I’d like some official answers surrounding their vague and somewhat contradictory final response to my complaint, and I want their answers in writing, signed. Secondly, I’m actually going to have a crack at speaking with BMW direct themselves. Sounds like a long shot, but before I owned the car for which I am fighting BMW Financial Services, I owned another vehicle from BMW. I had major issues with it and was struggling to get anywhere with my local dealership, or BMW Financial Services. I took my complaint to BMW direct and they jumped on BMW Financial Services from a great height. Before long I had an offer on the table from BMW Financial Services to clear my existing finance agreement completely, coupled with a hefty deposit contribution towards a new/replacement vehicle. I agree, this was partly a sales ploy from BMW direct, however, the point is that BMW direct seem to have a lot of power over BMW Financial Services (understandably). I wonder if they might exercise that power quite swiftly when faced with the threat of my reporting BMW Financial Services’ deceit to the press/media?

With regards to the group court summons idea, I’m not sure how the legalities of this would work, and whether or not it’d even work in our favour. I’d be interested to hear R0b’s view on this idea.

Lastly, you mention BMW Financial Services banging on about their right to “invoice” you for excess mileage charges. Do you have an original letter from them using the term “invoice” specifically? If so, this would be extremely important evidentially.

[R0b]

Re: BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

Evening,

Please do not think I am ignoring you, I've been away for the new year and not long returned. It's disappointing news but will post my thoughts tomorrow once I've had sufficient sleep.

[Dehaw]

Re: BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

Thank you for your compliments and support, I appreciate it. You’re probably able to tell by now that my daily/professional life involves regular negotiation with businesses, but never have I encountered an organisation as deceitful as BMW Financial Services. That being said, I’m not going to be backing down any time soon.

I have a couple more steps I’d like to take before I go down the legal/court route. I’m currently preparing an additional letter to send to my case officer at the ICO. I’d like some official answers surrounding their vague and somewhat contradictory final response to my complaint, and I want their answers in writing, signed. Secondly, I’m actually going to have a crack at speaking with BMW direct themselves. Sounds like a long shot, but before I owned the car for which I am fighting BMW Financial Services, I owned another vehicle from BMW. I had major issues with it and was struggling to get anywhere with my local dealership, or BMW Financial Services. I took my complaint to BMW direct and they jumped on BMW Financial Services from a great height. Before long I had an offer on the table from BMW Financial Services to clear my existing finance agreement completely, coupled with a hefty deposit contribution towards a new/replacement vehicle. I agree, this was partly a sales ploy from BMW direct, however, the point is that BMW direct seem to have a lot of power over BMW Financial Services (understandably). I wonder if they might exercise that power quite swiftly when faced with the threat of my reporting BMW Financial Services’ deceit to the press/media?

I think this might be a good idea, of course when I suggested to BMWFS about the dealership they said to me that its a separate matter and would need to take it up with them, we've had 4 cars previous to the last one and all were paid without an issue and to be honest hadn't we been granted our Australian visa I'd still have the car but circumstances change.

Who did you write to specifically, I think I'd probably get a better response writing to them directly rather than trying to deal with the dealership or the FS side of things and I believe my case is of good standing to have this written off, but that's just opinion.

Lastly, you mention BMW Financial Services banging on about their right to “invoice” you for excess mileage charges. Do you have an original letter from them using the term “invoice” specifically? If so, this would be extremely important evidentially.

I have an email from the girl I've been in conversion with that stated these are invoices, I have kept all the emails as I was probing her about why the invoices have been attached to the agreement, which is separate and why on my credit file it says it's VT'd but still showing each month as a payment made, I'd suggested that it should be closed and the invoices dealt with separately.

Here is what she said:

Just to clarify, although agreement xxxxxxxx was voluntary terminated and the invoices raised for excess mileage and damage were for this terminated agreement, the excess mileage and damage was accrued/occurred up until the point of termination. We are therefore able to invoice for these under the rules of the Consumer Credit Act. We have correctly reported any unpaid balance on this agreement to the Credit Reference Agencies. As our stance on this isn’t going to change, I would advise you to contact either the BVRLA or the Financial Ombudsman Service who will be able to investigate further on your behalf.

I'd happily create a letter with all this information to BMW head office to see what they say.

[kreig]

Re: BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

I haven't been hassled by any debt collection agencies yet, but I'm expecting it soon enough.



It's astounding, to be honest. It looks as though the only possible next step would be to take BMW Financial Services to court myself, yes, but understandably I'm not happy about the thought of having to do so.

In your case, you could try and campaign to have the missed/late payment entries removed by BMW Financial Services - send them a "without prejudice" letter (as earlier recommended by R0b), stating that you will offer to pay the outstanding balance on the proviso that BMW Financial Services remove all the missed/late payment entries. You could argue that your position/view/stance has not changed, and that you are in no way admitting liability for any alleged charges, but you are instead making them a conditional offer due to lack of evidence on both sides relating to whether or not the alleged charges are due. They'd be daft not to accept such an offer.

Yeh think I might just try that once the ombudsman comes back to me.

not sure they look at this from a business prospective. My ombudsman claim must of cost them more than I owe so they could of dropped it at that point.

[Dehaw]

Re: BMW Financial Services - Voluntary Termination/Excess Mileage

I realise this is Australian Law but could this be the same result for the UK?

There's a lot of issues with BMWFS too although albeit a separate company the fact is it seems to be the same problems the world over.

https://books.google.com.au/books?id...ileage&f=false

So according to this outcome the customer initially won then BMW appealed only to have the appeal upheld?