Voluntary Termination with GMAC

[coshea01]

Hello, I need some advice please.

I recently VT'd my Corsa that was on finance as the Loan to car value was negative and depreciating by the month. I had passed the 50% payment stage, had the car collected and the damage report from Manheim carried out.

The manheim inspector had noticed on the car that there was a rippling in the paint down the passenger side, but at the time of completing the inspection, he told me not to sign his report and to contest it with GMAC, he was actually a very helpful guy.

Now, in Feb 2015, I had an accident in the car and the paintwork was damaged down the passenger side, and on the rear quarter of he car, this was repaired and re-sprayed by a garage that was arranged by my insurers at the time. I Still have copies of the invoice and a 3 year guarantee on the workmanship carried out on the car from the garage.

So, the case was now passed to Shoosmiths law firm, who act on before of GMAC with regards to the negotiations of the finance settlement. As instructed by the Manheim inspector, I contested the damage report and awaited a response. A month later, Shoosmiths contacted me and said that GMAC had dismissed my appeal against the repair charges and still found me liable for for £500 repair costs on the damage report, and advised me to contact the garage as they may offer to pay for the repairs. I contacted the garage and the guy said that he was disgusted with GMAC for pursuing the repair costs from me/them and that he would need to see the car before they did anything, but at this point, I had not had the car for 3 months. The guy at the garage was becoming irate (with GMAC, not me), and asked for me to email over the damage report that Manheim had provided showing the ripple in the repair work, but expressed that once the paperwork is all signed off, the work is considered as finished and was confused as to why it was only just being questioned now.

I have been given 2 weeks to report back to Shoosmiths on where the garage stand on this matter.

Any advice would be hugely appreciated.

[R0b]

Re: Voluntary Termination with GMAC

Hello

GMAC are well known on here for instructing Shoosmiths straight away to recover any alleged damages, never seen it go any further than that though and some experiences on here tend to drop off after a while. Your case slightly different though but its really all smoke.

At the end of the day, you've had an accident, your insurers have made arrangements to have the car repaired to their nominated garage (presumably without any input from you) its been repaired, signed off and that's that. The repair was out of your hands and I also presume your not a professional in that area so you would assume the work has been carried out to a satisfactory quality.

If GMAC are disputing the quality of the finish then I would argue that it is up to them to pursue any damages against the insurer or the garage. You've said the work came with a three year guarantee which so there is still time for them to go back to the garage/insurer on this. Of course they won't cause if 3 months has already passed the car has probably been sold already.

What exactly did you say in your response to Shoosmiths and what was their response to that? I wouldn't be surprised if it is a standard template letter from them. Anyway, I would suggest you make a formal complaint to GMAC direct, you need to set it out quite clearly and if they don't uphold our complaint (which is likely) then you can go to the Ombudsman and I would expect them to have common sense to come to the conclusion that it is up to GMAC to pursue the garage/insurer, not you.

Happy to look over anything before you send it off.

[coshea01]

Re: Voluntary Termination with GMAC

Thank you for your quick reply.

The contact with Shoosmiths was a phonecall and they were persistent on the fact that it was against my name, that I was liable, and that it was up to me to get the garage to cover part or the cost in full.

Would you possibly be able to assist with the complaint letter?

Also, I assume that shoosmiths will be chasing me for payment at some point over the next 2 weeks,when this happens should I tell them that I will be filling a complaint direct to GMAC?

Thanks again.

[R0b]

Re: Voluntary Termination with GMAC

Shoosmiths have a debt collection department filled with low-level employees and their sole aim is to obtain payment for which they will receive a commission in doing so. They're instructed to collect the debt so they;re not likely to roll over and accept what your saying, but at the same time I think it would be very risky to issue a court claim against you in these circumstances, not that it generally gets to that stage, they'll probably pass it back to GMAC eventually.

I would suggest writing two letters, one to GMAC which will be your formal complaint and a letter to Shoosmiths.

You should consider putting in your complaint to GMAC the following:
- brief background to your claim e.g. you initiated the VT process car collected and now they are chasing you for payment of £500 for an alleged 'ripple' to the car's paintwork.
- briefly explain the car had an accident, you claimed on your insurance and it was the insurers who instructed the garage to repair it and you had no input over who carried out the work.
- Car was signed off as being satisfactory but nonetheless came with a 3 year guarantee.
- GMAC should not be pursuing you but instead the garage/insurer as you did what was necessary to ensure the car returned back to a reasonable condition
- As this is a formal complaint they should instruct Shoosmiths to cease all further correspondence until this has been investigated and your rights have been exhausted. This is in accordance with CONC Chapter 7.14 and If they don't then you would consider commencing proceedings for harassment and/or report them to the FCA.

The letter to Shoosmiths should be much shorter and something like:
- You have initiated a formal complaint to GMAC and whilst such investigations are ongoing they should cease further contact until that process has fully ended. You might want to enclose a copy of the letter to GMAC. Though it's not necessary to write to Shoosmiths, it's always worth putting them on notice so there's no excuse for them to say they were never made aware of your ongoing complaint.

The above is just an example based on experience but you may have to adapt the above to suit your problem. Have a go at drafting something and post it up when your ready (leave personal info out) and I'll take another look.

[coshea01]

Re: Voluntary Termination with GMAC

This is the letter I have written for GMAC, any advice would be appreciated, thanks again.

***************************************

Dear Sir/Madame,


I am writing to initiate a complaint regarding the handling of the Voluntary Termination of a leased vehicle. Account number *****.

I initiated the Voluntary Termination process and had the car collected on 25/04/17, where the car was inspected by Manheim and a damage report completed. The Damage report listed the following defects on the car:

- A dent on the bonnet incurring a fee of £48
- A ‘Rippled finish’ on the quarter panel incurring a fee of £294
- A ‘Rippled finish’ on the rear door incurring a fee of £213.50
In total, the damage report was £555.50.

In February 2015, the car was involved in an accident and I claimed on my insurance to have the repair work carried out. The repair work was organised by the insurers and therefore it was the insurers who chose which garage was to repair the car, and instructed them to do so, I had no input in this decision whatsoever.

When the car had been repaired, the car was signed off by the Quality Control Manager, and a 3 year Guarantee was issued against “faulty material and/or defective workmanship”, to quote the guarantee document that I have. I do not work or have any knowledge of this profession, so I would deem a signature/guarantee from a senior member of the Quality control team as confirmation that the work has been carried out, to the best of my knowledge, to a satisfactory standard at the very minimum.

Taking the above into consideration, I strongly disagree with the decision to pursue me for the costs as I did what was necessary to return to the car to a reasonable condition and believe that you should be pursuing the garage and/or the Insurance company, as between them, they were in full control of the standard of repair.



As this is a formal complaint, I presume that you will be instructing Shoosmiths to cease all further correspondence until this investigation and my rights have been exhausted. This is in accordance with CONC Chapter 7.14 and if this request is not met, then I will consider commencing proceedings for harassment and report them to the FCA.


I look forward to your response.

Regards,

[coshea01]

Re: Voluntary Termination with GMAC

Hello, I sent the above letter to Gmac ands Shoosmiths and have had a response.

************************************************** **********************************************

Dear Sir,

We are writing to your following our previous correspondence dated 12th July.

We acknowledge that following your recent request to voluntarily terminate your agreement, your vehicle was inspected by a gmac agent prior to collection. The inspection identified certain damage to the vehicle and we understand that you feel that you should not be liable for certain charges resulting from that damage.

we have listed the damages below:

Bonnet: £48.00
Quarter Panel: £294.00
Rear Door: £213.50
Total: £555.50

Please allow us to explain that all vehicle collections are completed in the same manner and that as part of the termination process, when the vehicle is collected it is inspected for damage prior to being sold at auction. In determining what amounts to damage, we choose to abide by a strict code of conduct in accordance with the guidance set out by the british vehicle rental and leasing association because it gives us an independent view of what is "fair & reasonable condition".

We understand that you explained in Feb 15 your vehicle was involved in an accident, unfortunately we have no control or jurisdiction over your insurance company, we can only confirm that the vehicle has not been put back into a condition as when you were provided the vehicle deemed as vauxhall standard. this is explained in your signed conditional sales agreement section 20.1, 20.2, 28.2. We have enclosed a copy.

We have now concluded our investigations in to your concerns. we would like to draw your attention to your signed letter dated the 6th April.
**(This was a letter i sent to Gmac asking to invoke my statutory right under section 99 of the consumer act, and asking for the car to be collected). **
By signing this document, you have agreed to the terms and conditions conditions of the voluntary termination process. under the consumer credit act, we are entitled to recover amounts realting to damage to the vehicle where you have failed to take reasonable care of the vehicle.

however, there is no legal requirement that repairs are then carried out to rectify the damage, as the monies claimed for the damage are intended to compensate us for the deterioration in value of the vehicle.

After your vehicle was assessed, damage was identified and the sum of £555.50 became payable. we can confirm that the sum is not a standard charge but the total cost of damages to the vehicle after the inspection was completed. In accordance with the termination process the account is then referred to a third party agent to collect the sums due should there be charges listed following the inspection.

We can also confirm that the vehicle sold for less than its valuation because of its condition.

For the reasons detailed above, we believe the charges have been incurred correct. we would also like to explain that as part of your voluntary termination there is a remaining finance liability on the agreement of £42.64, bringing the total remaining costs to complete your VT to £598.14.

we will now close your complaint. your complaint is not upheld. In conclusion, we empathise with the unfortunate circumstances of your complaint but we feel that we have acted equitably. we would like to thank you for giving us this opportunity to investigate your concerns and respond accordingly.

For the purposes of complaint management and to comply with financial conduct authority guidelines, we respectfully advise this letter constitutes our final response to your complaint. should you remain dissatisfied you have the right to refer your complaint to the financial ombudsman service, but you must do within 6 months of this letter. if you do not refer your complaint in time, the ombudsman will not have our permission to consider your complaint and so will only be able to do so in very limited circumstances.

*********************************


Is anyone able to assist please? thanks in advance.

[R0b]

Re: Voluntary Termination with GMAC

Hello,

You can always try your hand with the FOS and take your complaint further. Your situation is obviously different and providing you still have all of the paperwork and guarantee, you can explain that you did everything that was required of you to do i.e. get it repaired but it was also signed of with a 3 year guarantee, you had no control over the insurance company who dictated where the vehicle should be repaired therefore it is unreasonable to for you to be held liable for those damages. Equally, why did the lender not take the vehicle back to the garage who repaired it to have the work done since it was still under guarantee? (you could pose that question on your complaint).

Otherwise, you either pay up or sit still and see what happens.