Refused car finance - am I entitled to a reason?

brody77

Hi all,

as per subject, just got refused finance to change to a bigger car, despite having been a customer for 5 years & never missed a payment.

Am I entitled to call the finance company to find out why, or is this just one of those "tough ****" situations?

Thanks in advance

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

Of course you're entitled. They however are not required to tell you why AFAIK.

If you're that worried about it, get a credit report from Experian.

molerat

They should give you a reason. The refusal letter should have an address to write to although the answer may not be very specific.

poppy_f1

chanes are the finance company wont tell you anyway, i'd get a copy of your credit reports and have a look and see if theres anything on there that may shed a light

brody77

Have applied for my credit report anyway, but if the reason is because I moved home 2 months ago, my credit report isn't gonna tell me that?

Suppose I can ring them up and see if they'll tell me anything - haven't had a letter from them, I was going through the car dealer I've used for years.

anewman

Why get car finance when you can buy an entire car for £500 outright and it's yours without paying £500 every month, a big deposit, and sending thousands of pounds the direction of the finance company. They've done you a serious favour IMO. Now get yourself a copy of Autotrader and look in the bargain under £1000 section

If you've just moved in the past 2 months it's probably that you are not on the electoral role - unless there's something more sinister on your credit record you aren't responsible for. Do they still do the thing based on addresses where if someone who lived there prior to you had a poor credit record previously leading to the address being blacklisted?

standupguy

The Finance company do not have to give reasons why a deal would be declined but they will point you towards a credit reference agency.

What is interesting is that you are an existing customer of theirs - if I am reading this correctly - and assuming you have had no late payments it may well be that the decline may have nothing to do with your credit record.

I am assuming this is HP and it may have been declined if the amount of loan requested is well in excess of the actual trade price of the car you want to buy.

It may be worth a phone call to the manager to ask if the issue is with the Financials -that is cost price, deposit and/or term of the agreement - rather than yourself - you may be lucky and get an answer?

Alternatively speak to the dealer salesman - they sometimes know more than they let on initially.

in51der

brody77 wrote: »

Hi all,

as per subject, just got refused finance to change to a bigger car, despite having been a customer for 5 years & never missed a payment.

Am I entitled to call the finance company to find out why, or is this just one of those "tough ****" situations?

Thanks in advance

Unfortunately you are one of many who for no apparent reason are now being refused credit; the only thing I would suggest is to check your credit score with Experian and certainly to try the comparison sites for flexible lenders with good headline rates. Check out AA finance I have heard good things about them.
Best of luck.

brody77

standupguy wrote: »

The Finance company do not have to give reasons why a deal would be declined but they will point you towards a credit reference agency.

What is interesting is that you are an existing customer of theirs - if I am reading this correctly - and assuming you have had no late payments it may well be that the decline may have nothing to do with your credit record.

I am assuming this is HP and it may have been declined if the amount of loan requested is well in excess of the actual trade price of the car you want to buy.

It may be worth a phone call to the manager to ask if the issue is with the Financials -that is cost price, deposit and/or term of the agreement - rather than yourself - you may be lucky and get an answer?

Alternatively speak to the dealer salesman - they sometimes know more than they let on initially.

Yup, been a customer of Arnold Clark, and the same finance company, for 5 years, and never missed a payment.

The deal I was getting there was basically the same monthly cost - maybe £5 dearer just to get a bigger car as I now have a wee one to chauffeur about.

Sales guy just said they wouldn't tell him a thing.

The only thing I can think of is that I recently moved house.

Guess I'll wait and see what my credit report comes back with - I had to send them proof of address etc as I wasn't showing up under my new address (have now sent away the voters roll form)

harveybobbles

Us dealers find out who has been naughty and nice, but we're not meant to to tell the customer we know what's been going on.
It could be the electoral role thing or something simple like the price of the car exceeds the book value.
You can send £2.50 off to the finance company to find out why.
Or if you're doing PX then you may owe more on the old one than what it's worth and the finance company wont do a new deal cos the advance is too large...

brody77

Finance on the clio was 6k and was getting 4k on it, new car (04 mondeo) was 4888.

Not happening now, guess I'll just have to soldier on.
Now need to try and find a car seat to go in a crappy 3 door clio!