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I'm new to this so bare with me!
I purchased my car through credit4cars end of 2013. I had to go to Leeds to pick it up, I'd never even seen any pictures of it so was hoping for at least a test drive on the day.
Arrived to the 'meeting point', (which was a rented office), to be met by a fella with the car on the back of his trailor. He told me he was there to take my deposit, sign all the necessary paperwork then give me the keys. I asked for a test drive, which was refused because he apparently wasn't insured or authorised by C4C to do it & when I said I wouldn't be happy taking the vehicle he told me I would have to pay his delivery fee PLUS a return fee, there & then for him having to take the car back to wherever it came from? As I'd travelled some 150 miles by train to collect the car (at my own expense), and had no money to get the train home, I had no option but to take it. I did however, point out the state it was in & spoke to C4C about it before I drove it away. It looked like it had been stored under a tree for some time & all the windows were clogged up with moss, there was damp inside the car on the floor & upholstery & cigarette butts everywhere. The car was in a right state. C4C told me to pay for a proffessional valet & they would reimburse me - which never happened!
Driving home I found that the air con didn't work & it had an awful droning sound coming from the engine if I went over 60mph. I told C4C about this when I got home & they said it had gone through an MOT & was fine when it left the compound so at MY own expense I had to get a mechanic to look it over. It was found to have extremely worn brakes, bad tyres, a break in the air con pipe & the bearings had gone on the drivers front side. Although I had the work done & sent them reciepts - NO PAYMENT was ever reimbursed.
I tried ringing them every day for about 3 weeks with no answer or told 'someone would call me back', it never happened. At the time the first payment came out of my bank I was told by C4C I'd past the 14 day period 'of no return', so I was stuck with the car!
Fast forward to March 2016 - with only couple of previously late payments on my file, I got contacted by Shoosmiths to tell me they had taken over the accounts for C4C as they had gone into administration. I told them about the issues I'd had with C4C from the beginning & they said a 'complaint handler' from Avelo would call me to discuss the issues. I got a call a few days later from a really rude girl called 'Gemma' from Avelo who was extremely horrible & unhelpful on the phone & wasn't interested in my complaints at all, she just kept harping on about the account being in arrears - slightly! I gave up with her & went back to Shoosmiths.
(In between all this I'd gone to a new dealership to look at cars & they offerred to do a vehicle check on mine for me to see if there were any issues, including a credit check for myself. The car came back as having a STOLEN tag attached to it that was put on it 6 months BEFORE i purchased it & there was NO Finance registered on the car at all - no HP marker, NOTHING! After a lot of investigation, I found out the cars original insurers BEFORE me, had paid out to its owner at the time for the THEFT of the car & it was listed as NEVER RECOVERED. After weeks & weeks of investigations & phone calls, all at my own expense, it turns out the car was NEVER reported as stolen & that the owner had made a fraudelant claim on his insurance for a car he'd sold on to a dealer in Liverpool - apparently it's a common criminal activity? Anyhoo, both Shoosmiths AND Avelo knew of the problems i'd had but failed to do anything. It was the Insurers who paid out on the claim that removed the stolen tag for me - it had nothing to do with Shoosmiths or Avelo).
Back to the phone calls with the rude girl at Avelo - I got an apology from Shoosmiths about her, not Avelo! Now I'd sorted out all the issues with the stolen tag etc, Shoosmiths decided to come down heavy on me over the arrears on the account!! They kept threatening this immobiliser thingy that they said C4C had fitted on the vehicle at the beginning, but there isn't nor has there ever been one on it! Then they threatened to come & pick the vehicle up - leaving me with no transport & NOTHING to show for the car I'd been paying for for well over 2 years!! I took advice from The Financial Ombudsman who assured me that I OWN vehicle as I'd paid well over a 3rd of the finance on it and that they'd have to apply to the courts to get a court order to collect it anyway - which they haven't done. They'd also need to prove THEY own the vehicle via the finance agreement but - there's no finance registered on the vehicle or myself! Anyway, to bring you all up to date - The cars resale value was £500 and Avelo tried to get a further £2500 off me for it - via the original contract! Seeings as they had NO HP registered on the car, I sold it to a mechanic for spares! I used the money as a deposit on a new vehicle! I've literally heard nothing from Shoosmiths or Avelo for a few weeks now, no letters, no phone calls, no emails - nothing! In my opinion, they realised they were acting illegally & knew the car had a minimal resale value so it would have cost them a lot more to A, Persue it through the courts & B, arrange to have it picked up! There are NO defaults or CC Judgements about it on my credit file - which of course there won't be because THEY NEVER registered the sale with the proper authorities (hence no HP marker), or myself. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who's had this & it'd be interesting to find out how many others there are. I'd especially like to know how many, if any, have had their vehicles checked for finance markers - i.e HP? It would usually show up if for example, you tried to trade it in or even tried to get a loan against it?
Thanks for taking the time to read ALL this! :judgey:
I purchased my car through credit4cars end of 2013. I had to go to Leeds to pick it up, I'd never even seen any pictures of it so was hoping for at least a test drive on the day.
Arrived to the 'meeting point', (which was a rented office), to be met by a fella with the car on the back of his trailor. He told me he was there to take my deposit, sign all the necessary paperwork then give me the keys. I asked for a test drive, which was refused because he apparently wasn't insured or authorised by C4C to do it & when I said I wouldn't be happy taking the vehicle he told me I would have to pay his delivery fee PLUS a return fee, there & then for him having to take the car back to wherever it came from? As I'd travelled some 150 miles by train to collect the car (at my own expense), and had no money to get the train home, I had no option but to take it. I did however, point out the state it was in & spoke to C4C about it before I drove it away. It looked like it had been stored under a tree for some time & all the windows were clogged up with moss, there was damp inside the car on the floor & upholstery & cigarette butts everywhere. The car was in a right state. C4C told me to pay for a proffessional valet & they would reimburse me - which never happened!
Driving home I found that the air con didn't work & it had an awful droning sound coming from the engine if I went over 60mph. I told C4C about this when I got home & they said it had gone through an MOT & was fine when it left the compound so at MY own expense I had to get a mechanic to look it over. It was found to have extremely worn brakes, bad tyres, a break in the air con pipe & the bearings had gone on the drivers front side. Although I had the work done & sent them reciepts - NO PAYMENT was ever reimbursed.
I tried ringing them every day for about 3 weeks with no answer or told 'someone would call me back', it never happened. At the time the first payment came out of my bank I was told by C4C I'd past the 14 day period 'of no return', so I was stuck with the car!
Fast forward to March 2016 - with only couple of previously late payments on my file, I got contacted by Shoosmiths to tell me they had taken over the accounts for C4C as they had gone into administration. I told them about the issues I'd had with C4C from the beginning & they said a 'complaint handler' from Avelo would call me to discuss the issues. I got a call a few days later from a really rude girl called 'Gemma' from Avelo who was extremely horrible & unhelpful on the phone & wasn't interested in my complaints at all, she just kept harping on about the account being in arrears - slightly! I gave up with her & went back to Shoosmiths.
(In between all this I'd gone to a new dealership to look at cars & they offerred to do a vehicle check on mine for me to see if there were any issues, including a credit check for myself. The car came back as having a STOLEN tag attached to it that was put on it 6 months BEFORE i purchased it & there was NO Finance registered on the car at all - no HP marker, NOTHING! After a lot of investigation, I found out the cars original insurers BEFORE me, had paid out to its owner at the time for the THEFT of the car & it was listed as NEVER RECOVERED. After weeks & weeks of investigations & phone calls, all at my own expense, it turns out the car was NEVER reported as stolen & that the owner had made a fraudelant claim on his insurance for a car he'd sold on to a dealer in Liverpool - apparently it's a common criminal activity? Anyhoo, both Shoosmiths AND Avelo knew of the problems i'd had but failed to do anything. It was the Insurers who paid out on the claim that removed the stolen tag for me - it had nothing to do with Shoosmiths or Avelo).
Back to the phone calls with the rude girl at Avelo - I got an apology from Shoosmiths about her, not Avelo! Now I'd sorted out all the issues with the stolen tag etc, Shoosmiths decided to come down heavy on me over the arrears on the account!! They kept threatening this immobiliser thingy that they said C4C had fitted on the vehicle at the beginning, but there isn't nor has there ever been one on it! Then they threatened to come & pick the vehicle up - leaving me with no transport & NOTHING to show for the car I'd been paying for for well over 2 years!! I took advice from The Financial Ombudsman who assured me that I OWN vehicle as I'd paid well over a 3rd of the finance on it and that they'd have to apply to the courts to get a court order to collect it anyway - which they haven't done. They'd also need to prove THEY own the vehicle via the finance agreement but - there's no finance registered on the vehicle or myself! Anyway, to bring you all up to date - The cars resale value was £500 and Avelo tried to get a further £2500 off me for it - via the original contract! Seeings as they had NO HP registered on the car, I sold it to a mechanic for spares! I used the money as a deposit on a new vehicle! I've literally heard nothing from Shoosmiths or Avelo for a few weeks now, no letters, no phone calls, no emails - nothing! In my opinion, they realised they were acting illegally & knew the car had a minimal resale value so it would have cost them a lot more to A, Persue it through the courts & B, arrange to have it picked up! There are NO defaults or CC Judgements about it on my credit file - which of course there won't be because THEY NEVER registered the sale with the proper authorities (hence no HP marker), or myself. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who's had this & it'd be interesting to find out how many others there are. I'd especially like to know how many, if any, have had their vehicles checked for finance markers - i.e HP? It would usually show up if for example, you tried to trade it in or even tried to get a loan against it?
Thanks for taking the time to read ALL this! :judgey:
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