Your Credit Card & Section 75 – FAQ’s

Friday, 24. March 2017

I have mentioned in the past the great asset a credit card can be when dealing with consumer rights issues such as faulty goods. Provided the goods cost between £101 and £30,000 and you pay even a token amount on a credit card you are covered for the full value of the goods.

In addition the dealer (supplier) and the credit card company are jointly liable under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. So let’s take as an example a car that costs £15,000 for which you either have cash or you have taken out a personal loan. Either way when you buy the car it is seen as a cash purchase. However, when you saw the car at the dealership, whilst you arranged for the cash to be available you made a nominal payment of £50 on your credit card in order to hold the car.

That is sufficient for you to be covered up to the total value of the car of £15,000. I have read of instances whereby a dealer, in a bad way, has taken holding deposits from customers on credit cards. The dealer has then received the balance in cash but before the car is delivered he goes bust. On the face of it the customer has lost his cash but by making the deposit payment on a credit card he can now claim back the full amount paid of £15,000.

When this has been explained to people both myself and lawyers get asked similar questions, here are a few with answers:

If you buy several things on a credit card coming to over £100 are you covered by section 75? No, you are only covered for individual items costing over £100 each. Buy 4 tickets to a show costing £50 each in one transaction that don’t arrive – you aren’t covered.

If an item costs from £100 to £30,000 I’m covered by section 75. No, the goods must cost OVER £100, exactly £100 is not covered.

Will you still be covered by section 75 even if you pay the amount of the deposit or the cost of the item off? Yes

If you exceed your credit card limit in order to pay the deposit or the cost of the goods are you still covered? Yes you are.

Do you have to wait till the seller or dealer refuses to give you a refund before approaching the credit card company? No, both are liable so you can approach both for a refund.

When making a claim to the credit card provider are you limited to the amount paid on the credit card? As mentioned above, no, if the dealer/supplier can be proven to be at fault both parties are liable for the total cost.

This is a common one which causes confusion as it goes to the definition of a consumer. If a self employed person uses a credit card to buy a vehicle for business use they won’t be covered by section 75. This is false because whilst the Consumer Rights Act would not see a self employed person as a consumer the self employed person would be considered to be a ‘consumer’ within the Sale of Goods Act which is still in force.

Many businesses offer the ability to pay by credit card or through Paypal. If you pay by credit card through Paypal are you still covered by section 75? This is true. But Paypal offers its own protection which can occasionally work better than section 75 but you no longer have access to the FOS.

If you pay a deposit on a credit card with the balance on HP will you still be covered by section 75? Many people would believe that you are covered and you still have access to the FOS but the fact is that you aren’t covered by section 75 as the HP agreement supersedes the credit card payment. It will only cover a 3 party arrangement, in this case there are 4.

Items costing more than £30,000 are not covered by section 75. This isn’t strictly true as there is a section 75A which imposes a secondary liability on the creditor increasing the limit to £62,620 but the joint responsibility no longer applies.

Hope all that helps.  By Graham Hill

Are You As Wary Over Identity Theft As You Should Be?

Thursday, 15. August 2013

Call me old fashioned but I still find it amazing how easily individuals part with their personal details to companies they know nothing about. I write about this time and again and still people are dopey enough to part with every piece of information a crook needs to open a bank account in your name or take out a credit card.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

If I wanted details from a number of high net worth individuals I would offer a great car deal on say a BMW X5 or M3, either car for say £299 + VAT per month. Absolutely impossible to get to those figures. I would then set up a dummy web site and wait for the enquiries to flood in.

I would have a very believable person answering the phone explaining how the boss has committed to a number of cars in order to achieve the very low rates on offer, all we need to do is take a finance application from them and away we go.

I would ask for some proofs such as a copy of a driving licence and passport along with a few bills and for good measure a copy of the front and back of a credit card. Oh and by the way last 3 months bank statements wouldn’t go amiss when applying for credit!

It would be that simple as people are greedy, they want everything on the cheap and that is what the crooks rely upon. Oh and by the way the scenario I described isn’t far fetched, it actually happened!

This leads me to the latest figures released by fraud prevention service, CIFAS. In the first 5 months of this year nearly 60,000 people were victims of identity fraud. There were more than 46,000 cases of impersonation over the period where fraudsters used individual identities to open new accounts.

They also showed that more than 13,500 were victims of ‘takeover’ when an existing account is broken into and hijacked. Around 96,000 confirmed frauds were reported to CIFAS in the first 5 months of this year.

By the way the identity theft I referred to earlier was on BMW X5’s, the same company carried out the same fraud when advertising Vauxhall Astras at well under the market rate, so you don’t have to be a high net worth individual.

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Credit Agency Reports Huge Increase In Auto Finance Fraud

Sunday, 19. September 2010

According to Experian, the credit reference agency, automotive fraud increased by 35% during the first half of 2010. 34 in every 10,000 applications were considered potentially criminal. The majority were recorded in the second quarter showing an upward trend. First party fraud overtook third party identity fraud during April to June as the most common type of attempted fraud. First party fraud is typically where individuals attempt to hide adverse credit history or misrepresent their employment status to try and secure credit and other Read more »

Public & Small Business Car Finance Ignorance Is Costing £Millions

Tuesday, 3. February 2009

Three times this week I have had discussions about APR for absolutely no reason. The bottom line question to be asked about any finance arrangement is how much will it cost and can I afford it? I am completing a book listing over 40 ways to fund a car and I point out at the very beginning that APR is not important in many cases. I have compared an HP agreement with a PCP the latter of which has a higher APR but Read more »