Taking Black Horse to court - any advice?

OrdinaryManintheSt

I'm about to take Black Horse Ltd/Charterhouse Trust to court over a vehicle HP agreement. Here's what has happened so far:-

10 May I write to Black Horse Cardiff and Advise them I wish to voluntarily terminate my 5 year HP agreement which has been running for 3 years and I have never missed a payment. I tell them that I have left the car at Evans Halshaw for collection.

BH Cardiff send me the paperwork to complete leaving me with two options - either I pay £75 or deliver the car to a car auction site.

22 May I return their form with a letter telling them that I don’t have to pay anything and therefore I won’t be filling their form in as it stands. They claim that I owe them £209 but never tell me where this figure comes from, and still haven’t told me. They say a default notice will be issued.

They start to call me 6 times a day asking me to ring them.

11 June - I write to advise them that this account is in dispute and to remind them that they cannot harass me further with phone calls and letters until they answer my question as to why they think I owe them any money.

15 June BH Cardiff write to me advising me that I owe them £285 and the phone calls continue.

21 June BH Cardiff send me a letter from their Customer Complaints Department regarding my letter of 11 June stating that they have raised a complaint on my behalf, and say that they are ‘investigating the issues’.

22 June BH Cardiff send me TWO letters telling me they have issued another default notice. The phone calls continue.

25 June I send them another letter reminding them that this account is in dispute and that I have voluntarily terminated this agreement, and that as I am still receiving phone calls and that I shall require compensation of £25 per week for each week that they continue to harass me. I also tell them that I will take them to court if this harassment continues.

29 June I receive another letter from BH Cardiff telling me I am £522 behind with my payments and enclosing an Office of Fair Trading Information Sheet (!).

1 July BH Edinburgh send me a letter to acknowledge my letter of 10 May, but say that I must pay fees of £75.

4 July BH Edinburgh send me a letter demanding a £30 Collection Activity Fee. The same day BH Cardiff Customer Complaints Department send me a letter to say that they have upheld my complaint and that they will waive all fees and charges once they have all the correct paperwork. This was confirmed in an earlier phone call from a Ms Wardle at BH Cardiff. They were hoping this would resolve the issue. I return their enclosed paperwork and write ‘all charges waived’ on it as instructed.

11 July I reply to the Customer Complaints Department pointing out that as I was never liable for their various ‘fees and charges’ they cannot waive them as if to compensate me. I repeat my demand for £50 compensation to make up for all the recorded delivery letters costs and the harassment.

13 July BH Cardiff Customer Service Department write to me and say they are sorry to hear that I am unhappy with their first response, and will contact me as soon as their investigtions have been completed.

26 July BH Cardiff send me another letter to remind me that I am behind with my payments.
They also collect my vehicle form Evans Halshaw the same day!

4 August I write to BH Cardiff to advise them that as their harassment has continued I now require £75 compensation and that I will be instigating court proceedings online on 16 August.

8 August I find out that they have put a derogatory statement on my credit file, effectively making it look like I have defaulted. I write a further letter to BH Cardiff and tell them that when I instigate court proceedings online on 16 August I shall now require £575 compensation, a letter of apology and the derogatory remark completely removed from my credit file.

I await their response.


My question is, do I sue them under the Consumer Credit Act? Do I need to quote the relevent sections?


And lastly, how can a company get away with this treatment of a customer?


Any help you can give will be appreciated.

Common_Sense_2

i would suggest that you follow the fsa procedure, wait for their final response and then go down the fos route. fos will look more favourably than a court.

the_insider

Yeah you need to wait for them to get back to you, it looks like all the collections activity is running in the background of the investigation into the complaint. As they've already admitted that they made a mistake then you surely just have to wait for them to deal with it?
Save your time and money from going to court, it won't work in your favor that you've not waiting for a final response from them.

TakingControl

Just a quick question, you stated you paid 3 years out of a 5 year HP agreement, correct? Its not actually the length of time of the HP but what ever small printed sum is stated in the HP that you have to have paid before you can do a Volunteer termination of the contract.

I did the same 6 years ago and had to pay a £75 admin fee to cancel the agreement etc but didn't have to pay for collection etc.

I hope you made some pictures of the condition of the car and had someone check and sign for it? Most VT will state that it is only possible if the car has been maintained within its service levels and the body and engine condition is 100% with no damage.

Good luck

OrdinaryManintheSt

Common_Sense_2 wrote: »

i would suggest that you follow the fsa procedure, wait for their final response and then go down the fos route. fos will look more favourably than a court.

Thanks for your reply. What is fos?

In the meantime it's still apearing on my credit file and it sounds like this could take months to sort out?

Reesy1981

Financial Ombudsman Service

OrdinaryManintheSt

TakingControl wrote: »

Just a quick question, you stated you paid 3 years out of a 5 year HP agreement, correct? Its not actually the length of time of the HP but what ever small printed sum is stated in the HP that you have to have paid before you can do a Volunteer termination of the contract.

I did the same 6 years ago and had to pay a £75 admin fee to cancel the agreement etc but didn't have to pay for collection etc.

I hope you made some pictures of the condition of the car and had someone check and sign for it? Most VT will state that it is only possible if the car has been maintained within its service levels and the body and engine condition is 100% with no damage.

Good luck

Thanks for your response. They have accepted the car and the voluntary termination of the agreement, so I think I'm ok here. The car has a full service history and I left it at Evans Halshaw who can vouch for the car as they sold it to me originally. I even had the AC repaired a few weeks before I handed it back.

OrdinaryManintheSt

Reesy1981 wrote: »

Financial Ombudsman Service

Ok well, that will be my next move if they don't sort this soon but I'll tell them that the Courts will still be an option for me.

My guess is that most people just let companies like BH get away with this. I'm one of those in the minority that will make as much trouble for them as I can - after all , that's what they're doing to me. I'm sure they don't want this to get into the newspapers or onto the internet. If they do, I'll oblige them.

I also have enough SEO experience to be able to make this sort of article appear on page one of Google when somebody types in 'Black Horse Complaints' for example.

Their record of customer care is poor. I note that in the period 1 July 2010 to 31 December 2010 they had 2,373 complaints and 88% of them were closed within 8 weeks (BH figures). We'll see...

chanz4

A fair distance to be expected to travel to return the car would be the distance between where you live and where you bought the car from originally. Alternatively, some finance companies will offer the facility to pick up the car (your choice), but by doing this they are entitled to make a reasonable charge and this is in your agreement.

~Brock~

Good luck. You're going to need it.

ILW

Is all this over 75 quid?