Tricked by Credit Hire firm 2 months hire @ £30K!

uk1

Eddy,

It was good things worked out in the end. You were given a rough ride here by some. Your situation was complex and it is great it had a fortunate outcome. In fact better than I'd hoped in my post #63! No payments is even better than part payment!

You can now put it all behind you.

all the best.

EddySub19

Thank you UK1 for your kind words. I often find there's too many sceptics, pessimists and miserable gits pouring scorn in life. Also never understood this joy some people revel in worrying others. This wasn't just witnessed by me in the forum but out in the real world too. I had a 'friend' who works as a solicitor scaring the cr** out of me adamant that I would have to pay and there was no way out. This fear mongering is often unproductive as someone being stupidly optimistic about a potential outcome. Personally I've never felt joy scaring people and always try to bring hope for those stuck in difficulty if there's even a small sign of it.
What is interesting however when arguing your case amongst the doom mongers, they give you a good idea of what to expect and arguments against your case, that helps me prepare better once personal feelings of commiting suicide are brushed aside.

uk1

EddySub19 wrote: »

Thank you UK1 for your kind words. I often find there's too many sceptics, pessimists and miserable gits pouring scorn in life. Also never understood this joy some people revel in worrying others. This wasn't just witnessed by me in the forum but out in the real world too. I had a 'friend' who works as a solicitor scaring the cr** out of me adamant that I would have to pay and there was no way out. This fear mongering is often unproductive as someone being stupidly optimistic about a potential outcome. Personally I've never felt joy scaring people and always try to bring hope for those stuck in difficulty if there's even a small sign of it.
What is interesting however when arguing your case amongst the doom mongers, they give you a good idea of what to expect and arguments against your case, that helps me prepare better once personal feelings of commiting suicide are brushed aside.

Eddy,

Your post does give the other side of why it's so important that people do try and take care when answering people's pleas for help on fora such as this. Some seem to take a great deal of joy out of sneering and making adverse judgements when simply not posting might be better. You solicitor friend doesn't send like he is either a friend or a good solicitor.

I only posted in your thread simply because I felt there was a tactical legal way through this complex situation and not posting might have meant you remaining at the mercy of those you mentioned and pessimistic and marooned and in poor spirits.

You can now look at this ghastly situation in your "rear view mirror" and move on.

Good luck.

ThePants999

Ghastly situations in your rear view mirror may be closer than they appear.

kh00488

EddySub19 said:

**** Good news!!!! ****

I'm clear!

Also a good slap for all those super armchair sceptics who were secretly wishing me the worst or the ones telling me I’m stupid for not reading the contract in detail …which to be honest is a little true but still!

Anyway, so where did I leave off from the last reply? Yes I left you lot back in February and promised an update here it is:

Synopsis:

I had an accident 4 years ago when a lorry changed into my lane and rear shunted me on a late night motorway. The conditions were foggy so I had good reason to drive slowly in lane 1 but the impatient lorry driver couldn’t stop flashing to make me go faster and started tailgating. Eventually he hit me and now through fear of losing his job or whatever stubbornly refused to accept guilt. I stupidly took out a Credit Hire car tricked into thinking it’s a free courtesy car after describing my details to a third party accident management firm, not reading the contract or researching on this type of business.

Nothing is for free and 3 years later the docile cop at the scene finally produces a report claiming that both parties could have been at fault stating I probably braked harshly and he probably tailgated. This ‘authentic report’ put a massive dampener on my case and I soon started to get calls and letters from hire company asking for full or half the EXTORTIONATE car hire bill for 2 months at £350pd coming to a grand total of nearly £35k if not more with extras. They even cheekily added interest on top.

The defendant solicitors then claimed I braked harshly on purpose in front of the lorry on the motorway and angled a defence report stating basically that it was some sort of ‘cash for crash’ without specifying that term exactly. Of course that was a load of bulls**t. I had a stable good job and income and didn’t need to resort to such lowly tactics to make a small amount of extra pocket money.

………

Anyway my solicitor booked a court date for me to attend and fight it out which I was determined to do. I had to first prove I wasn’t at fault for this accident so I could get the credit hire company off my back.
Luckily after filing a very good witness statement and making several points showing strong reason to believe I couldn’t have caused the lousy accident, the third party defendants settled on a 50/50. This was about 3 days before court day when I was shadow boxing ready to go in and fight it out determined to win.

I then got worried thinking OK I’ll still have to pay for half costs. Also I had taken some money from third party around time of accident to repair my car. They gave me £5k which all got spent on the car repairing it. So I thought I’ll have to pay half the hire and repair which comes to about £20k.

Luckily the Credit hire company, despite escalating my levels of stress and damage my health for 4 damn years turned out to be decent enough not to claim their half from me. Also third party defendant’s insurers never asked for their half of the repair costs.

Thank GOD!

The court date was cancelled and the whole problem came to a beautiful end. Nothing needed to be paid and everyone was happy. I think the Credit Hire firm accepted about £6k from TP insurers and disappeared from my nightmares forever.

I’m not forced on to street and don’t have to sell my children now!

If anyone else is caught in this horrible situation, don’t worry. Best advice is prepare a very good witness statement and don’t be scared to fight it out and go to court if you have to. Also these Credit Hire firms get bartered down on their ridiculous claims anyway. Also depending on how blatantly irresponsible you were not reading T&C’s of credit hire contract, it’s highly unlikely you’d be forced to pay its bill considering the shady way they make you sign a dotted line and lose your soul to the Credit Hire devil!

Overall there is a huge problem in insurance industry on how it operates and deals post-accident why motorists who know nothing about these shady businesses operating this area are given an opportunity to take out expensive replacement cars for months. Instead your own insurance company or TP, if there is a modicum of hope that you are not at fault, should give you at least 2 months of hire credit to spend and repair your car asap. This is substantially cheaper and in this case for 2 months of a Passat would have only cost around £2k on high street with big firms like Hertz, National Car Hire etc not £35k.

There are few decent firms who will truthfully tell you that you could be liable if liability of accident goes wrong or TP insurers refuse to pay. Also if you are rich enough to hire a car from your own funds for 2 months or through your own credit card, then you could be liable to pay the credit hire bill EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT AT FAULT…because you are not impecunious and not doing enough to limit the costs involved. If you are seen as milking a bad situation to make it worse by hiring expensive cars you’ll end up with issues and a dim view from a judge.
HOWEVER even in this scenario if the Credit Hire company themselves are seen as not doing enough to get their car back and seem to be milking an extortionate day rate whilst you show off a new car to your neighbours, then the question I guess for the judge is WHO is the real milk maiden pumping out the insurance cash cow?

Never ever use as I did in my case an independent claims company. They are all dodgy usually 1 man band operatives. Always use your own insurance company to deal with accident and repair.

So yeah….I’m OK. I will never use Credit Hire ever again even if I came out in the end unscathed. They are not worth it.

I read your post and all the comments here. Some people are really mean. Of course we need to check terms and conditions before we signed but who else would check every single line each time they buy things or just visit a website. I was also offered credit car hire and I am in a similar situation like you but it was Admiral (my insurer) passed me on to the credit hire (accident management) company. I did read the terms and conditions on the 3 documents they provided. They didnt mention the liability will be on me if the TP doesnt pay in terms and condition. Every time I called the credit hire company I reassured that I wouldnt need to pay so I thought the TP accepted the fault already!
I realised something was suspicious when Auxillis sent me the diagram and incident description form after my car was written off and collected by a car salvage agent they arranged. So I started doing my research and found out the liability would be on me if the TP doesnt pay, etc... The most ridiculous thing is that, after I returned the car back to the credit car hire company, 4 new documents that mentioned about the liability showed up on the credit car hire company customer portal. I swear to god I never seen these documents when I was reading the T&C on the credit car hire agreement. The production date of these docs stated on the portal wasnt real and unfortunately I didnt take a screenshot in the past. But I have many recordings that they said I didnt need to pay in any cases...

EddySub19

Hi kh00488
sorry for late reply to the thread, but what is the latest on your situation?

obstreperous4

Hi, so recently I discovered I'm in a similar situation. I work for the NHS and I had a car on a salary sacrifice scheme through a company that provide this to the NHS. In April I was in an accident that wrote my vehicle off. The other driver accepted liability, not just to me but actually to the NHS insurance providers also, who contacted him in the days after the accident. The insurance providers also asked me if I needed the use of a vehicle, to which I did, and so they had a hire company contact me to provide me with a vehicle while the insurance claim was ongoing. The company who provide my car salary sacrifice car that was written off told me that I had to continue making my payments each month while the claim was ongoing and that my payments then effectively cover the hire car that I was given to use. Now in the last couple of weeks a solicitor's have been contacting me because they have been unable to retrieve the money for the hire car and recovery and storage (totalling £14000) of the wrote off car back and they want me to take the other driver to court now. What's confusing me is that the other driver has already admitted liability, plus the fact that I was told my continued payments would effectively cover the cost of the hire car for me. But now they wanting me to take it to court and if I don't I will be liable to pay.

dunstonh

I remember this thread but missed the outcome.  

@EddySub19 belated well done on the result.

Sandtree

obstreperous4 said:

Hi, so recently I discovered I'm in a similar situation. I work for the NHS and I had a car on a salary sacrifice scheme through a company that provide this to the NHS. In April I was in an accident that wrote my vehicle off. The other driver accepted liability, not just to me but actually to the NHS insurance providers also, who contacted him in the days after the accident. The insurance providers also asked me if I needed the use of a vehicle, to which I did, and so they had a hire company contact me to provide me with a vehicle while the insurance claim was ongoing. The company who provide my car salary sacrifice car that was written off told me that I had to continue making my payments each month while the claim was ongoing and that my payments then effectively cover the hire car that I was given to use. Now in the last couple of weeks a solicitor's have been contacting me because they have been unable to retrieve the money for the hire car and recovery and storage (totalling £14000) of the wrote off car back and they want me to take the other driver to court now. What's confusing me is that the other driver has already admitted liability, plus the fact that I was told my continued payments would effectively cover the cost of the hire car for me. But now they wanting me to take it to court and if I don't I will be liable to pay.

Its a lot easier if you talk about your insurers and the third party insurers...

So by the sounds of it your insurers sold passed your details to a credit hire company potentially. 

As to you still pay for your lease... I think they have tried to simplify things for you to the extend that its the wrong information... you continue paying for your car because your still under contract for it not that its paying for the hire car. Once your car has been written off then the hire car goes back shortly after.

There are two parts to every case... liability and quantum (aka cost)... I can admit that I caused damage to your Casio watch but you cannot then send me a bill for a new Cartier watch. So the driver admits that they caused the accident but their insurers are saying £14,000 is an excessive amount of hire, storage and recovery fees to run up in the circumstances. 

Ultimately, read what you signed if you havent done so already... it'll probably be a credit agreement and use some rather odd seeming clauses about your liability being capped to the level of the third party's liability etc. It will almost certainly say you must continue supporting them in their attempt to recover the monies and as long as you do there is no costs to you. It likely there will be questions around why you needed the car you hired and prove why financially you had to go for an expensive credit hire car rather than hiring a vehicle yourself etc. These are all well trodden paths and you just need to comply with your representatives.

obstreperous4

Sandtree said:

obstreperous4 said:

Hi, so recently I discovered I'm in a similar situation. I work for the NHS and I had a car on a salary sacrifice scheme through a company that provide this to the NHS. In April I was in an accident that wrote my vehicle off. The other driver accepted liability, not just to me but actually to the NHS insurance providers also, who contacted him in the days after the accident. The insurance providers also asked me if I needed the use of a vehicle, to which I did, and so they had a hire company contact me to provide me with a vehicle while the insurance claim was ongoing. The company who provide my car salary sacrifice car that was written off told me that I had to continue making my payments each month while the claim was ongoing and that my payments then effectively cover the hire car that I was given to use. Now in the last couple of weeks a solicitor's have been contacting me because they have been unable to retrieve the money for the hire car and recovery and storage (totalling £14000) of the wrote off car back and they want me to take the other driver to court now. What's confusing me is that the other driver has already admitted liability, plus the fact that I was told my continued payments would effectively cover the cost of the hire car for me. But now they wanting me to take it to court and if I don't I will be liable to pay.

Its a lot easier if you talk about your insurers and the third party insurers...

So by the sounds of it your insurers sold passed your details to a credit hire company potentially. 

As to you still pay for your lease... I think they have tried to simplify things for you to the extend that its the wrong information... you continue paying for your car because your still under contract for it not that its paying for the hire car. Once your car has been written off then the hire car goes back shortly after.

There are two parts to every case... liability and quantum (aka cost)... I can admit that I caused damage to your Casio watch but you cannot then send me a bill for a new Cartier watch. So the driver admits that they caused the accident but their insurers are saying £14,000 is an excessive amount of hire, storage and recovery fees to run up in the circumstances. 

Ultimately, read what you signed if you havent done so already... it'll probably be a credit agreement and use some rather odd seeming clauses about your liability being capped to the level of the third party's liability etc. It will almost certainly say you must continue supporting them in their attempt to recover the monies and as long as you do there is no costs to you. It likely there will be questions around why you needed the car you hired and prove why financially you had to go for an expensive credit hire car rather than hiring a vehicle yourself etc. These are all well trodden paths and you just need to comply with your representatives.

Hi 

Thank you for your reply, it’s appreciated. 

Sorry if my original post was a bit long winded and confusing, I could have explained it a bit better. 

Yes everyone of the things you mentioned are there and have been said to me. 

So yeah this my mistake, I didn’t read things thoroughly and I assumed my insurance company was doing the best things to help
me out. 

So I just have to comply and follow it through and learn a valuable lesson. 

Thank you