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The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) has issued a notice regarding rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 vs Distance Selling Regulations. Consumers taking cars on finance are confusing the two and looking to reject the car they have just taken delivery of simply because they don’t like it. The distance selling rules allow you 14 days from receipt to reject anything you haven’t seen i.e. goods you have ordered on line.

You don’t need a reason to reject, you can simply return and get your money back. In the case of the Consumer Rights Act you have 30 days to reject the goods, i.e. a new or used car in our case, but there must be a problem. It must have something more than a minor fault, be not as described or not be fit for purpose for a rejection under the Consumer Rights Act.

You can still allow the dealer to put right the fault but it is your decision and if he doesn’t repair the fault you can still reject the car at a later date. But you can’t simply return the car because you don’t like the shape any more or you’ve gone off the interior colour. It seems that the FOS are receiving complaints from consumers because the dealer won’t take the car back because confused consumers think they can reject the car for no reason as they can under distance selling rules.

Having said that there are far too many dealers refusing to accept car rejections for absolutely genuine reasons as they will lose money as a result. Many feel the law isn’t working and I have proof that it isn’t from disgruntled customers – not mine I hasten to add. So it’s a good reason to make sure you have a professional independent broker working on your behalf when buying or leasing a new car in particular. That’s my plug over! By Graham Hill

Having a blog means that I get to hear some very dopey stories. The latest was a car that was delivered by transporter to a customer. As excited as he was about driving his new car something wasn’t right.

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He couldn’t put his finger on it but each time he walked towards the car a bell was ringing in his head but what was it? He walked all around the car trying to find a dent or something obviously wrong but could find nothing. After two days of driving the car he realised what it was, there was something wrong with the registration number.

He checked his agreement and realised that the car had been issued with a different number to his agreement. As it turned out there were two identical cars on the transporter, delivered on the same day to two different customers. Whether the dealer had issued the paperwork incorrectly or the delivery driver dropped the cars off to the wrong owners I couldn’t get to the bottom of, but as both cars were insured by the drivers on the other’s registration neither were insured to drive the car they were driving.

The fact is that they may never have known until the cars were returned or sold – how crazy is that? The other driver didn’t have a clue but apparently went loopy when he was told! And I don’t blame him!

The two drivers had their cars swapped and received a free first service. So when you have your car delivered check that the registration number agrees with your documents. By Graham Hill

A few weeks ago I had a bet with an old friend of mine over one of the critical sectors that I believed had been omitted from the new EU Consumer Credit Directive (CCD) which came fully into force from 1^st February. The question was over Hire Purchase. I knew that the sister product, known as Conditional Sale, was included but it was my understanding that Hire Purchase was excluded and was therefore simply controlled, as it always has been, by our existing Consumer Credit Act. Confused? It gets Read more »

On the subject of the new EU Consumer Credit Directive there is a change to the 14 day cooling off period that is given to consumers when they sign the finance agreements off trade premises. Currently you can cancel an agreement if it is regulated under the Consumer Credit Act and signed away from the premises of the funder, the broker or the dealer. However, if you sign on trade premises you don’t have the 14 day Read more »

As more consumers take out Personal Contract Hire and those that have Personal Contract Purchase end up with cars that are worth less than the final payment, more cars are being returned to the leasing companies at the end of the contract that must be in ‘reasonable condition for its age and mileage’. But what is reasonable? One lady wrote to me complaining that she had some unreasonable Read more »

There is growing evidence that SME’s and consumers are moving over to leasing as a way to fund their vehicles. The old reasons still exist, having a fixed, known monthly cost, no risk in uncertain resale values and benefitting from hidden substantial bonuses provided by manufacturers to leasing companies but SME’s and consumers  have identified a new benefit. Read more »