Credit hire scam - sign or not sign CFA?

SendLudes911

Hi,

My partner a month ago had a learner driver reverse into her car, small scrape down the side of the vehicle. She googled direct line accident helpline where she then called the number at the time thought she was dealing with direct line however it was not, it was Winn solicitors (who she thought was acting on behalf of them).

They sent the car off to a repair garage, we got a what we thought was a courtesy car ('hire car') from enterprise & had it for 27 days.

The repair garage fixed the car but then subsequently went into liquidation, after a fight & multiple calls we managed to get the car back a week later, unhappy with the repair but have said we will deal with this ourselves now as the issue remaining is minor. Technically we should not even have had the hire car for 11 of the 27 days because of the repair garage going into liquidation.

I have just read the agreement from Winn solicitors & am extremely concerned about the hire car charges x the amount of days we have had this car. It amounts to over £9000!!!!

The solicitors fees are £350/hour.

i have just read similar threads regarding this & have seen the at fault insurers will likely dispute or refuse to pay for these charges as they are extremely excessive!

She has not yet even signed the CFA with Winn as it was in her junk folder & has only recently just seen this, we originally thought this was all part of direct line insurance with courtesy car etc.

I would assume if she does not sign this she will be liable for ALL costs regarding this claim but am reluctant too yet as dont want to put her in a locked agreement of some sorts.

What is the likelyhood of having to not pay for these extortionate fees whether we sign or not & is there any way out of this?

so unsure whether to sign the agreement or not.

Aware she should have been more diligent on sourcing the correct telephone no. etc
The repairs were minor & no personal injury. But am worried we will have to go broke trying to get this sorted all because of some company has paid to have a number come up first on google!

Anyone been through this & what was the outcome? any help much appreciated

Thanks

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6682583/credit-hire-scam-sign-or-not-sign-cfa

You need to read the original credit agreement you signed, most sign it thinking its just the collection form for the hire car but if you read the text, often on the back if its physical or second page if digital, then its easy to see its not. These are the terms that will define what you may have to pay and in whcih circumstances.

In most cases, and I would certainly expect it to be the case with Enterprise, there is no liability to you as long as you didnt stage the accident (aka fraud), gave the car back when instructed and as long as you support their recovery attempts. Assuming these are all true then doesnt matter to you if they recover £100, £3,000 or £9,000 the shortfall is the credit hire company's issue.

If you do refuse then you will be paying the £9,000 yourself. They cannot claim the money as themselves, they werent involved in the accident, its different to an insurer company because laws exist that enable insurers to act on your behalf that dont apply to credit hire firms. Their terms and processes have evolved over the years to deal with prior court case outcomes.

£350/hr is a mid level associate lawyer and far from excessive. For context in a project a couple of years ago we had an equity partner working on something for us and they were £1,650/hr

Is Winns actually trying to recover the credit hire or are they just dealing with recovering the repairs? Enterprise have their own recovery unit but may have a different relationship with these guys. Its unclear what Winns are really doing in this, if they were just a lead generator or are doing recovery work.

born_again

For future use, when taking out insurance. Make a note of important phone numbers in your phone. So you know you are calling the correct people.

Many now also have a app that will just connect you to the right team.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82130147#Comment_82130147

Insurers will sell pass you to credit hire too and in my days DL used to use Credit Hire from Enterprise too. That said for most it was only in certain circumstances whereas accident management companies are clearly blanket (noting that Admiral are an outlier who also attempts to use credit hire in all cases possible)

Had actually missed the original point about that they called an accident management company advertising on their insurers name but it doesnt materially change things.

GDB2222

Credit Hire costs are a significant factor in motor insurance premiums these days. It's really well beyond high time that the FCA stepped in.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82130261#Comment_82130261

The FCA have only limited opportunities, they dont regulate hire car companies and the "credit" in this case isnt regulated credit. The only opportunity the FCA themselves have is to ban or restrict insurers and brokers from referring their customers to these firms or at least ban them accepting the referral fees.

For Brokers its often a decent income stream which makes up for the pitiful commissions they get so if its banned then likely they will just raise their commissions to make up for the loss.

Even if the FCA did this then it would stop the likes of Admiral but as the OP says, they werent referred by an insurer but by a law firm and these arent in the control of the FCA. Almost every car sold these days will come with the telephone number for the preferred accident assistant company that will refer to credit hire, bodyshops too etc etc.

More realistically you need a senior appellant court to determine these fees arent mitigation of your losses and create precedent… they have done in the past but the CHO tweaked their terms and got around the issues. The golden bullet is for the government to pass legislation or the CMA to step in. The former did so with the Whiplash Reforms significantly reducing the monies that both claimants and lawyers got from modest injury claims

SendLudes911

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82129807#Comment_82129807

Thanks for your reply

Enterprise agreement states this in a clause.

The following is added to section 4 “Your Main Obligations under
the Rental Agreement”:
(b) You are responsible for all charges payable under the Rental
Agreement, even if you asked someone else to be responsible
for them. You agree that we have notified you, and will compute
and debit the final charges payable under the Rental Agreement
from your credit and/or debit card that was presented at the time of
rental if that is the form of deposit or security being used, as shown
on the Summary. All charges are subject to final audit.
(c) If the Vehicle is rented as a result of your own vehicle having
been involved in an accident, and the replacement Vehicle has
been provided to you on a credit basis, payment of the charges
payable under the Rental Agreement are deferred for a period
not exceeding 11 months from the date on which the Rental
Period begins. At the end of the deferment period the amounts
due become payable in one single payment. No interest or other
charges are payable during, or as a result of, the deferment or
credit period. The credit amount is for a fixed sum which is the daily
charge or charges multiplied by the number of days of the Rental
Period.
The following supplements section 7(a) “Damage Waiver (DW)”:
If no excess fee is otherwise indicated on the Summary, the excess
fee that applies to your DW coverage is, depending on the class of
Vehicle, up to £2,250.'

Their charges are around £40/day for the vehicle. as stated on the invoice/

When i spoke with Enterprise they insisted they would never come after us for any monies owed etc. but in Winns CFA it states if the 3rd party refuses (which they will) then 'we' become liable.

Is your opinion to sign the CFA & let winns try to deal with it then potentially go to court if the Hire car charges are disputed? As this puts us at lower risk for the entirety of the bill i.e repair costs, solicitor costs & hire costs?

i am going to call winns today & record conversation with regards to if we can be liable etc.

SendLudes911

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82130147#Comment_82130147

Indeed, i was not there at the time, she was probably a little shaken up & lapse of judgement got caught by an ad spoofing 'scam'. site. Numbers in cars from now onwards

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82131062#Comment_82131062

They legally have to make you liable for the bill, if they dont then there is no way that the money can be recovered becaue the courts have ruled they are too remote to the incidence that caused the losses to claim directly. Often the wording is more complex saying your liability is capped to the liability of the third party which is what absolves you of any surplus above what the court awards, others may be just making a nonwritten promise.

A load of credit hire companies lost a lot of money when someone decided to take it to an appellant court as my day was before the court ruling and we were paying out under the old wording that didnt make the hirer liable. Its similar to the fact that if you had time off work as you were injured your employer cannot sue the other driver for your sick pay.

If Enterprise state you were just referred to them and they will be doing all the recovery themselves then directly there would be no need to engage with the person that got the fees for referring you. Im assuming the repairs were also done on credit so there would be a question on if thats also Enterprise dealing with everything or if thats gone down a different path.