Sold a personal loan from a car dealership

Nearlyold

ClassicJonesy wrote: »

Bit of a long shot if anyone can help? Last year my partner entered into an agreement he believed to be a PCP at a car dealership and it turns out it was a personal loan with a mega APR of 8%.

The circumstances were he was sorting out a Mortgage and was told his car payments had to be reduced to a certain amount and then he would be approved but there was some urgency around this. He took the car into a dealership and explained the situation and they of course said they could help. Got the payment to within a £1 of what he needed and was all sorted there and then so he could then proceed with the mortgage.
I wasn't aware of this until I have recently questioned why the car payments were so high which is when he explained the situation around getting this car as it was before we were together.
I said how £275 a month for a Vauxhall was extremely high so we went into another dealership to see if they could help. They put the details in and said that the car wasn't on PCP it was a personal loan. My partner was very surprised that this was the case. As me and the car dealer explained to him ultimately he may have been a bit flustered in a rush to sort the car out but he's signed for it so doesn't really have a leg to stand on. The odd thing was although a personal loan the car was flagging as having finance attached to it still so couldn't then be sold to another dealer. If this was a true personal loan, really he should be able to sell the car if he wanted as long as the loan payments were kept to but this said otherwise. We've since spoken to Sanander who the agreement is through and they said that there was HP on the car. We then pushed as to if it's a personal loan how can there be HP on it. They didn't really give an answer but said they can take the HP off and did so.

My partner is a bit of a gentle giant kind of man but really not clued up on anything like this and I feel that there is an element the car dealer has totally seen him coming and mis sold a product that wasn't suitable for him. Just want to know if anyone else has had a similar experience, if there is anyone to speak to about mis selling or it's just a very bad mistake and just needs to get on with it. Know that may be the case but if anyone can help it would be hugely appreciated.
Thanks

There seems to be a bit of confusion so to clarify things :-

While the majority of PCP agreements are Hire Purchase contracts they can also be based on Conditional Sale or Fixed Sum/Term Loan contracts (aka Personal Loans). The fact that your partner has a Personal Loan does not mean that it isn't a PCP. You can't apply to Santander for a Personal Loan based PCP, however Santander will in some circumstances offer one where for whatever reason the underwriters do not want to provide an HP or Conditional Sale based PCP.

The features that make a loan product a PCP are just bolt ons to a standard HP, Conditional Sale or Personal Loan agreement.

I can't see why a Personal Loan based PCP would be unsuitable unless your partner was thinking of a Voluntary Termination.