Car finance nightmare

Russtyh

In February 2016 I bought a motorcycle for £4600 with a payment plan over 5 years totalling about £6000 over 5 years.
After three months owning the motorcycle, it was stolen from my home.
The insurance company actually valued the bike at more than I paid for it due to the accessories that were on the bike when it was stolen. These accessories were valued at £500.
Up to this point I had made 4 payments on the finance. I can't remember the exact amount. Let's call it £100 per month, so £400.
So, in one lump sum the insurance received £5,100. They had already received £400 from myself. 
So the initial amount was paid off in full after 3 months plus £900.
And that's where I thought it would end. 
I never received a penny personally, it went direct to the finance company. 
Finance paid off early. All interest EASILY covered to that point. Any early settlement fee covered byvm the excess thry received. Job done.
Nope.
Now I never use credit. I don't have credit cards, don't have a mortgage, basically I never have any need to look at or require a credit check. 
However yesterday when asked what my credit score was by a friend we decided to sign up to credit karma and have a look, and there was missed payments on this bike on my record.
Instead of marking down having receiving the full amount from my insurance, they took that amount and month by month they've marked individual payments, thus allowing the interest to carry on building, as if they never received the lump sum. So despite only having finance for 3 months, and paying everyone off, advantage finance are saying I still owe them 4 years, 8 months of interest, on money that has been paid back. Not only that but I still owe them £900 in missed payments from this.
Can this be right? 
I owe nearly 5 years interest on a loan that was fully repaid YEARS ago. I've had no contact from the finance company at all. Ever.
No settlement fee request when the lump sum was paid. No reminders on what would be outstanding. Nothing. I've not even had demands to pay back the outstanding money on the credit file.

Now the friend I was discussing credit scores with actually owns a car dealership and is very familiar with car finance, and actually reckons that if anything, the finance company took money that wasn't theirs to take after you total up the payments I made, the value of the bike insurance, and the extra money they got for my accessories, because that went to them, not me.
He reckons that the interest and the amount that i had already paid off already should have been calculated up to the settlement date, and any amount left over from the insurance should have refunded to myself.
I should actually be owed money, not the other way around.

Now I don't care about getting money from the finance company
 I just don't want this black mark on my credit report. They've never recorded it s a default, just missed payments for the last 18 months or so.

Can anyone tell me where stand on this please?

MorningcoffeeIV

You query it with the finance company.

But be wary of your friend's advice. You say he knows a lot about car finance, yet he believes in credit scores.  Bit suspect...

Wonka_2

So what type of finance agreement was it ? And did it allow for early settlement (albeit for a fee) ?

Do you still have the original agreement ?

Brie

wouldn't the debt be barred now that it's more than 6 years?  if so would contacting the finance company be a good idea?

Russtyh

MorningcoffeeIV said:

You query it with the finance company.

But be wary of your friend's advice. You say he knows a lot about car finance, yet he believes in credit scores.  Bit suspect...

It was just a quick check, it wasn't anything serious,  I just said I had no idea what it was and it was just to get a roundabout check.

Russtyh

Brie said:

wouldn't the debt be barred now that it's more than 6 years?  if so would contacting the finance company be a good idea?

No, because they've never marked it as a default. Just a missed payment. And even if they had the default wouldn't have been until the last payment would have been missed which would have been 2022. It would be 6 years from then.

Russtyh

Wonka_2 said:

So what type of finance agreement was it ? And did it allow for early settlement (albeit for a fee) ?

Do you still have the original agreement ?

I don't have anything. As far as I knew it was all done and dusted so I didn't keep anything. I don't even have that email address I had at the time.

_Penny_Dreadful

Russtyh said:

Brie said:

wouldn't the debt be barred now that it's more than 6 years?  if so would contacting the finance company be a good idea?

No, because they've never marked it as a default. Just a missed payment. And even if they had the default wouldn't have been until the last payment would have been missed which would have been 2022. It would be 6 years from then.

That doesn’t matter. A debt becomes statute barred when you don’t acknowledge it for 6 years (5 in Scotland). 

fatbelly

Thanks to Doyle v PRA the default date now constitutes the cause of action, so the OP is correct unless he can persuade the lender to back-date a default.

As the initial answer said, query it with the finance company.

_Penny_Dreadful

fatbelly said:

Thanks to Doyle v PRA the default date now constitutes the cause of action, so the OP is correct unless he can persuade the lender to back-date a default.

As the initial answer said, query it with the finance company.

Bummer

LunaLater

It’ll depend who owned the bike, I think. If the finance company were the owners then they get the windfall.