Unfair recharges on lease, "substandard repair"

sfax

I recently got a bill for about £700 worth of recharges on a 2-year lease - car was a £23k Insignia. The car was immaculate and was polished and the woman picking it up commented on how it good it looked.

Nothing was picked up on the driveway inspection other than the odd stone chip.

After about 3 weeks I got a letter through with the £700 worth of recharges. They included a "substandard repair" to two of the panels.

The car was knocked in a car park - 2 inch tiny dent but across two panels - and I paid £500+ for a very good repair and to the naked eye, it looked perfect.

They enclosed some photos which were tiny and didn't even provide any context to show it was the same car, or what was actually substandard about the repair.

I had already stopped the direct debit so I wrote them a letter and copied it by email asking for full resolution photos that provided context. I said that if these were provided and I could see what they meant by "substandard" I would be happy to pay.

A week or so later I got another letter saying that there would be no charges and there was nothing pay and suggesting that the letter I had been sent was in error.

The "in error" was nonsense because there had been a repair to the exact area they were claiming was substandard, as well as a very small speck of rust above the windscreen. There was no doubt the recharges were for my car.

What I think happened is that they were unwilling to challenge it and the car had already been sold for a good price (refer to immaculate condition above).

Moral of the story here is to challenge the evidence because I think they are flying a kite hoping people just cough up or forget to cancel the direct debit.

There are a few similar threads about this but they are closed so I'm writing my experience in a new thread in the hope it might help someone with someone with a similar experience.