VW Financial Services unfair termination of agreement

Emma_Line

I bought a Skoda on PCP in Sept 2017, everything being fine with the finance (or so I thought) until I received an email on Thursday from debt collectors demanding 30k full payment for the agreement or they will repossess the car.
In the past week I have gone through everything I can think of, VW Financial are being less than helpful as they're saying they've terminated the agreement and it's in the hands of the debt collectors. The debt collectors are saying they are only acting on behalf of VW financial and can't help me. I've managed to hold off the debt collectors until 6th November, but they've said by email today that the only people who can delay this any further are VW financial (who say they can't do anything!)
The account basically has 3 missed payments, April, May and August, but I haven't received any letters to tell me this. They took a direct debit on 1st October and then cancelled the agreement on 11th October claiming I hadn't replied to their letters. I hadn't actually received any letters, only one opening the account and one terminating it. They also claim to have spoken to me by phone on 4th October, but I was sat at my dad's hospital bedside that day and have no missed calls, taken calls or voicemail from them. I've asked for a transcript of that call which hasn't yet appeared.
I've offered to pay the arrears, VW are saying that isn't possible as the agreement is terminated. I've offered to pay the monthly payments to the debt collectors, which they say isn't possible because they don't own the debt.
Has anyone heard of a situation like this before or know who I can turn to for help? I've tried to get a personal loan and a secured loan to just get rid of the whole situation, but am failing the credit due to it looking like I don't pay.
Any help would be very gratefully received

motorguy

Emma_Line wrote: »

I bought a Skoda on PCP in Sept 2017, everything being fine with the finance (or so I thought) until I received an email on Thursday from debt collectors demanding 30k full payment for the agreement or they will repossess the car.
In the past week I have gone through everything I can think of, VW Financial are being less than helpful as they're saying they've terminated the agreement and it's in the hands of the debt collectors. The debt collectors are saying they are only acting on behalf of VW financial and can't help me. I've managed to hold off the debt collectors until 6th November, but they've said by email today that the only people who can delay this any further are VW financial (who say they can't do anything!)
The account basically has 3 missed payments, April, May and August, but I haven't received any letters to tell me this. They took a direct debit on 1st October and then cancelled the agreement on 11th October claiming I hadn't replied to their letters. I hadn't actually received any letters, only one opening the account and one terminating it. They also claim to have spoken to me by phone on 4th October, but I was sat at my dad's hospital bedside that day and have no missed calls, taken calls or voicemail from them. I've asked for a transcript of that call which hasn't yet appeared.
I've offered to pay the arrears, VW are saying that isn't possible as the agreement is terminated. I've offered to pay the monthly payments to the debt collectors, which they say isn't possible because they don't own the debt.
Has anyone heard of a situation like this before or know who I can turn to for help? I've tried to get a personal loan and a secured loan to just get rid of the whole situation, but am failing the credit due to it looking like I don't pay.
Any help would be very gratefully received

And did you actually have three missed payments, ie is it now 3 months in arrears?

foxy-stoat

Did you pay them in April, May and August? If you have bank statements showing the payments then you can argue it. If you didnt make the payments and didnt notice that you had extra money in your account and didnt think to call them up, I am not sure what you can do.

I would read your credit agreement and see if by missing 3 payments and your PCP going into arrears by this long they are within their rights to escalate the debt and take the car back.

motorguy

foxy-stoat wrote: »

Did you pay them in April, May and August? If you have bank statements showing the payments then you can argue it. If you didnt make the payments and didnt notice that you had extra money in your account and didnt think to call them up, I am not sure what you can do.

I would read your credit agreement and see if by missing 3 payments and your PCP going into arrears by this long they are within their rights to escalate the debt and take the car back and then pursue you for any shortfall for amount owed v what they recovered for the car at auction

Worth adding...

neilmcl

motorguy wrote: »

And did you actually have three missed payments, ie is it now 3 months in arrears?

^^This.

Emma, it's entirely your responsibility to make sure you have enough funds to make the monthly payments, it's not down to the finance company to have to remind you.

It sounds like quite an expensive model if your required to pay £30K to settle after a full year of ownership. Have you asked VWFS if they will give you a settlement figure?

DoaM

neilmcl wrote: »

Emma, it's entirely your responsibility to make sure you have enough funds to make the monthly payments, it's not down to the finance company to have to remind you.

A bit of an assumption that the OP didn't have the funds available to service a DD request, don't you think? (OP would likely have received charge notifications from the bank in respect of failed DDs due to insufficient funds). Isn't it equally as likely that VWFS failed to take the DD those months? After all a DD is down to the payee to collect, not the payer to make.

Edit: I stand corrected by the OP's update below.

Emma_Line

Due to nature of 'money movement' in my bank account, paying large work expenses etc the payments not going out didn't flag up. However, when the account was first opened and the DD didn't go through(it hadn't been set up correctly) they were quick to send a letter and I paid by debit card.
The payments have been missed, so yes it is in arrears. I have offered to pay this in full.
The t&c document is flaky at best and that is coming from the Skoda regional finance rep. All it says is 'we will terminate the agreement at the end of the statutory written period' but doesn't say how long that is. I've managed to get out of their collections department that the normal trigger for termination is 3 consecutive missed payments, but I can prove that didn't happen. When I told them this and offered the proof, they changed the trigger to more than 3 months in arrears. It doesn't state that anywhere on the t&c document. Also, if that is the trigger, how come it has taken 6 months to terminate, since technically the account has been in arrears since that first missed payment in april. I've asked for a settlement figure but have been told that isn't an option (yet the debt collector said that once the car is recovered and sold on, then a monthly payment plan is available for the shortfall!)
It just seems that despite me trying to be co-operative, everyone I speak to is being obstructive.
I know it's a confusing situation, I just wondered if anyone else had had any issues with them that's all.

neilmcl

DoaM wrote: »

A bit of an assumption that the OP didn't have the funds available to service a DD request, don't you think? (OP would likely have received charge notifications from the bank in respect of failed DDs due to insufficient funds). Isn't it equally as likely that VWFS failed to take the DD those months? After all a DD is down to the payee to collect, not the payer to make.

Not really, no.

It's a pretty safe bet to suggest when all of sudden DD payments are missed it's more likely than not that sufficient funds weren't available, as clearly now confirmed by the OP.

DoaM

Easy to say AFTER the OP has posted an update.

motorguy

Emma_Line wrote: »

Due to nature of 'money movement' in my bank account, paying large work expenses etc the payments not going out didn't flag up. However, when the account was first opened and the DD didn't go through(it hadn't been set up correctly) they were quick to send a letter and I paid by debit card.
The payments have been missed, so yes it is in arrears. I have offered to pay this in full.
The t&c document is flaky at best and that is coming from the Skoda regional finance rep. All it says is 'we will terminate the agreement at the end of the statutory written period' but doesn't say how long that is. I've managed to get out of their collections department that the normal trigger for termination is 3 consecutive missed payments, but I can prove that didn't happen. When I told them this and offered the proof, they changed the trigger to more than 3 months in arrears. It doesn't state that anywhere on the t&c document. Also, if that is the trigger, how come it has taken 6 months to terminate, since technically the account has been in arrears since that first missed payment in april. I've asked for a settlement figure but have been told that isn't an option (yet the debt collector said that once the car is recovered and sold on, then a monthly payment plan is available for the shortfall!)
It just seems that despite me trying to be co-operative, everyone I speak to is being obstructive.
I know it's a confusing situation, I just wondered if anyone else had had any issues with them that's all.

It sounds like they've pulled the trigger on the termination and have engaged with a debt collection company to recover the car and as such arent prepared to deviate from that.

Not good