Can lenders take over £3.5k out of our bank with no notice?!!

notfunnymoney

Hi all, my hubby is a self employed Driving Instructor and to get rid of the extautionatly high franchise fees we were paying under a Driving School, we thought it better he went alone a couple of year ago.... just as the recession hit... yes, life's been very hard!!

Anyhoo, he bought his instructing car under a lease agreement with Ford where you pay an up front fee, pay a monthly repayment for 2yrs then as far as we thought, at the end of that 2yrs we either traded it in for a new car (sensible for an instructor!) or pay off the remaining amount due which we knew was around the £3k mark.

Since Sept/Oct we were awaiting a letter that would explain that the lease was coming to the end of its term and now our options were a, b, c etc and what costs would be involved.... nothing came but payments suddenly ceased from our bank account.... now as this was just before xmas and given our mess of a financial state we're in, we just thought, we've got enough on our plates, we'll just cross that bridge when we hear from them....

The next thing we knew was a letter from our bank charging us £10 for an unpaid item fee - ie £3,613.12!!!!! I couldn't believe they'd just, out of nowhere, with no notice tried to take such a massive amount out of our account!!! On top of that then then had the gaul to charge us £25 for unpaid DD and £25+vat for a the letter fee!!:mad:

I have written to them to say that we're disgusted with the way they have dealt with this and demanded we're refunded all our fee's and they explain what they think they were doing - in similar words! I have told them that I'm sure they must be breaking FSA rules (I used to work in the financial industry:embarasse and know a little bit!)... anyway, does anyone know if I'm actually right?!! Can they just suddenly do this with no notice?! And does anyone know where we might stand in keeping the car (as it's essential for my husbands work!!) should we not be able to pay the amount in full?!

Any help/advice/experience would be much appreciated!!

H x

ILW

What did your agreement say?

If it said something like 24 payments of X and a final payment of £3000 then you may have problems. You need to dig out the agreement.

MrRedundant

The agreements are normally worded as above and if you want to change the car or return it you contact them. Yes ideally they should have asked first but not a lot you can do about it.

zppp

notfunnymoney wrote: »

I have written to them to say that we're disgusted with the way they have dealt with this and demanded we're refunded all our fee's and they explain what they think they were doing - in similar words! I have told them that I'm sure they must be breaking FSA rules (I used to work in the financial industry:embarasse and know a little bit!)... anyway, does anyone know if I'm actually right?!! Can they just suddenly do this with no notice?! And does anyone know where we might stand in keeping the car (as it's essential for my husbands work!!) should we not be able to pay the amount in full?!

Loans are not regulated by the FSA but the OFT.

iamana1ias

notfunnymoney wrote: »

I have written to them to say that we're disgusted with the way they have dealt with this and demanded we're refunded all our fee's and they explain what they think they were doing - in similar words! I have told them that I'm sure they must be breaking FSA rules (I used to work in the financial industry:embarasse and know a little bit!)... anyway, does anyone know if I'm actually right?!!

:doh: Why wouldn't you check this out BEFORE mouthing off in a letter? Probably given someone a good chuckle though..........

notfunnymoney wrote: »

And does anyone know where we might stand in keeping the car (as it's essential for my husbands work!!) should we not be able to pay the amount in full?!

Why should you get to keep the car if you can't pay for it? You made a legal agreement to pay under certain terms. Why would you think those terms were flexible?

notfunnymoney

Firstly thanks so much for your supportive words in answer to a post where we're really struggling - last thing I need is more cr*p from someone on here when I'm asking for helpful advice.....

I didn't tell them they were breaking FSA rule but asked weren't they? So ok, they're not cos that's not who regulates them but that wasn't the main reason for my email to them anyway...

Secondly, we're not expecting to keep a car that we won't pay for - it's not like that, the fact is that all our other creditors have agreed to lay off for a while until we get ourselves a bit more sorted and I was just wondering if they might do the same thing - I'm not trying to get out of paying as that's what we owe but just wondered if anyone knew of any agreement we might be able to come to with them.

My main point was, are they allowed to just take a lump sum out of your bank without any prior notice of how much they're taking and what date they'll be taking it cos I'm sure that they're not - regardless of whether we owe it or not!!

Is there anyone kind enough on here who could maybe answer that question for me? If not then please just don't go to the bother of replying with narky comments....

Thanks

H

iamana1ias wrote: »

:doh: Why wouldn't you check this out BEFORE mouthing off in a letter? Probably given someone a good chuckle though..........



Why should you get to keep the car if you can't pay for it? You made a legal agreement to pay under certain terms. Why would you think those terms were flexible?

zppp

notfunnymoney wrote: »

Firstly thanks so much for your supportive words in answer to a post where we're really struggling - last thing I need is more cr*p from someone on here when I'm asking for helpful advice.....

I didn't tell them they were breaking FSA rule but asked weren't they? So ok, they're not cos that's not who regulates them but that wasn't the main reason for my email to them anyway...

Secondly, we're not expecting to keep a car that we won't pay for - it's not like that, the fact is that all our other creditors have agreed to lay off for a while until we get ourselves a bit more sorted and I was just wondering if they might do the same thing - I'm not trying to get out of paying as that's what we owe but just wondered if anyone knew of any agreement we might be able to come to with them.

My main point was, are they allowed to just take a lump sum out of your bank without any prior notice of how much they're taking and what date they'll be taking it cos I'm sure that they're not - regardless of whether we owe it or not!!

Is there anyone kind enough on here who could maybe answer that question for me? If not then please just don't go to the bother of replying with narky comments....

Thanks

H

What are the terms of your agreement? Without this, any advice is a guess.

faithcecilia

I used to work for Ford Dealer Assistance, including supporting Ford Credit IT. Part of this included faxing details when dealers computers failed ( wouldn't believe how often that happened! I am not 100% sure, but a good 90%, that the final payment was shown. However this was a few years ago and there were (and maybe still are) three forms of credit with FC each with different paperwork.

Emmzi

I strongly suspect "notice" will have been given when you took out the original agreement.

As a priority you need to find this and if it is vague tell us exactly what it says.

flimsier

notfunnymoney wrote: »

Hi all, my hubby is a self employed Driving Instructor and to get rid of the extautionatly high franchise fees we were paying under a Driving School, we thought it better he went alone a couple of year ago.... just as the recession hit... yes, life's been very hard!!

Anyhoo, he bought his instructing car under a lease agreement with Ford where you pay an up front fee, pay a monthly repayment for 2yrs then as far as we thought, at the end of that 2yrs we either traded it in for a new car (sensible for an instructor!) or pay off the remaining amount due which we knew was around the £3k mark.

Since Sept/Oct we were awaiting a letter that would explain that the lease was coming to the end of its term and now our options were a, b, c etc and what costs would be involved.... nothing came but payments suddenly ceased from our bank account.... now as this was just before xmas and given our mess of a financial state we're in, we just thought, we've got enough on our plates, we'll just cross that bridge when we hear from them....

The next thing we knew was a letter from our bank charging us £10 for an unpaid item fee - ie £3,613.12!!!!! I couldn't believe they'd just, out of nowhere, with no notice tried to take such a massive amount out of our account!!! On top of that then then had the gaul to charge us £25 for unpaid DD and £25+vat for a the letter fee!!:mad:

I have written to them to say that we're disgusted with the way they have dealt with this and demanded we're refunded all our fee's and they explain what they think they were doing - in similar words! I have told them that I'm sure they must be breaking FSA rules (I used to work in the financial industry:embarasse and know a little bit!)... anyway, does anyone know if I'm actually right?!! Can they just suddenly do this with no notice?! And does anyone know where we might stand in keeping the car (as it's essential for my husbands work!!) should we not be able to pay the amount in full?!

Any help/advice/experience would be much appreciated!!

H x

Sounds like it's an agreement you've forgotten about - you probably needed to contact them to trade in. Why don't you ask them if you can trade in as you made a mistake?

aimingforadebtfreelife

Unfortunately it sounds from prev experience with these sorts of agreements its correct in the way when you look at it more closely. At the end of the day they want you to keep the car as more cost effective and profitable to them. So its worded 24 x payments of £XXX and 1 payment of £XXXX. It will mention about contacting Ford for options if you dont want to pay the final sum. They wont write to you as they want the payment ideally and dont want to put ideas in your head!!