No car credit?

[Cavcraft]

Taken from another forum I use, I had to read this a few times to believe me eyes but it's genuine alright...

 

"I'll try and keep this as short as possible but I need some advice

 

Back in August 2005 i got my current car on finance, which is with Welcome finance. The car was £4800, interest was high due to a not so good history, roughly £4000 on top. I was asked if i wanted payment insurance which covers loss of work through injury, sickness, or contract/work being terminated for any reason. As i have a tendancy to piss people off i took this out, which was another £4000 on top (stupid i know but at the time i was desperate)

 

I was sacked from my job the last week of Jan 2006, and first week of Feb i called Welcome to start the payment insurance policy. Obviously i was told it doesnt cover being sacked, and after a long argument was told by the branch manager i could write in and cancel the insurance on my account, although my payments would stay the same amount, just for a shorter period of time.

 

The following 4 months payments were missed (welcome agreed to debit just £20 a week from my account instead of the usual £266.01, but they didn't bother to set up the direct debit so nothing was made) and my mum helped pay full amounts until august, In september 2006 i started to make the £266.01 payments on a monthly basis and have not missed on since.

 

Another 2 letters have been sent requesting the insurance to be cancelled and backdated, as promised was okay to do by Welcome staff on numerous occassions.

 

I have since decided to look at a newer and more economic car, again on finance, but the settlement figure from Welcome is over £5000 and it is doubtful the new company who have agreed finance on a new car (with a guessed £1000 settlement figure and a grand for my car) will take on the extra 4 grand for the settlement

 

I have requested in writing 3 times over 2 years for the insurance payment to be cancelled and to be backdated to Feb 2006, i have been told by Welcome staff that there is a note on my account saying that i requested this to be cancelled in Feb 2006, but the insurance policy cancellation team have said this isnt possible.

 

They could however cancell it now and knock off the rest of the policy amount off my outstanding account (i have worked out £4000 insurance over 4 years is a grand a year, and there is a year left on the account).....which they have worked out at £118

 

I have spoken to the current branch manager at lunch time on Monday and i am still waiting for him to call me back despite me calling 4 times since and being told he's looking into it."

 

Yep, you read it right. They charged him another £4,000 on top of the price of the car and on top of the £4,000 finance charges on top of the money the car cost him in the first place

[pogweasel]

Absolutely incredible. Desperate? Stupid? Just plain THICK? This guy should be on the fugging bus. Or dead, as he is clearly a waste of oxygen. Whilst car-credit firms are clearly satanic, it takes a special kind of stupid to go to them cap in hand in the first place.

[fiatdaft]

dont understand why these people dont hand the car back halfway through,although they will still chase you for any insurances that you are daft enough to sign up to.

[Cavcraft]

It's just incredible he bought it in the first place and that they fleeced him for so much money.I just don't get people who are so desperate for a car they lash that kind of money out. If it were me I'd have saved five hunded quid, scored myself an old banger and just made do, like we did in the good old days.Still, it's good for me because I predominantly flog sub £500'ers (for sod all profit I might add) and the amount of people asking me for a cheap runner has increased massively the last few months.With the cost of a new car plus insurance and fuel people are now finally waking up to the fact that buying a brand new car for their 17 year old kid is madness.

[Ross_K]

Proper order. People this dumb deserve to have their money taken off them as they're clearly incapable of looking after it.

[Split_Pin]

I worked for Welcome Finance for some time and this is part of the reason why I left. Welcome charged about 40%APR on car loans, and although the importance of this fact was reflected in their adverts there were some proper bell-ends who still took out £15k loans on Beemers (e.g.) and be surprised when I had to knock on their door when they fell into arrears.Sad thing is that Welcome would underwrite a loan on anything, even household appliances. It really is that dire lolThe worst case I dealt with was a woman who had an r-reg Xsara. This car was a proper shitter without a hint of irony about it. Exhaust hanging off, totally fooked looking, and because she had skipped so many payments, she owed seven grand on it.I really had no sympathy for her.

[Ross_K]

Shiiiiiit!I'd hang myself if I owed seven large on a Xsara. Really, I would...

[Pillock]

Welcome Finance? Bollocks to them! My ex-wife, when she was my girlfriend, had a Mondeo through them. 1997, worth about £3k when she bought it, owed £4k on it and she'd been paying it off for two years when I met her! Think it was an £7k loan initially, the car was incredibly overpriced.Tragically, we refinanced it jointly.... and then split up. So they're getting about £2.64 a month out of me and can whistle for the rest, the car was broken for spares about 6 months ago so they can't even have it back

[Richard]

Was the original post from MSE by any chance? There are some real thickoes on there.

[mk2_craig]

Back in August 2005 i got my current car on finance, which is with Welcome finance. The car was £4800

So three years on the actual resale of the car (whatever it is) will presumably be getting on for scrap value now.

[Richard]

I'd guess the car would be something like an Astra or Escort and five or six years old, something that would have been worth £2500-£3000 at the time. Three years on it will be well under £1000 worth, especially with the amount of maintenance it's likely to have had.There's one born every minute, though ones of this calibre are rarer. Maybe every half hour.

[Pillock]

Tragically, they exist. Whilst not wanting to badmouth my ex-wife, she's the kind of person who would see a two-year-old ex-rep-mobile as a much superior vehicle to, say, a ten-year-old luxury cruiser. And so is happy to pay anything up to 175% of market value for the fact the registration is fairly new, and they've not had to shell out the entire wad of cash in one go.Three years down the line, the luxury cruiser would now sell for not far off the price paid given decent servicing and maintainance, whilst the Welcome Finance repmobile is now worth less than a curly wurly and still costs £250 a month.

[Cavcraft]

Was the original post from MSE by any chance? There are some real thickoes on there.

MSE? Haven't heard of that one so wasn't there. If it's thickos you want the best places are websites for local cruises and cruisers. Some are hysterically funny and they're usually full of keyboard Conans and people who speak a different language to the rest of the civilised world.

[Richard]

MSE is the Money Saving Expert, which is what Martin Lewis calls himself.

[Cavcraft]

Ah, I like that fella. I think he does a slot on Radio 2 if it's the same one, speaks at 100mph and comes across as witty and helpful?

[Guest]

Excellent work! Let's do some maths.....

 

In August 2005 he got his current car on finance at the following rate:

 

Car: £4800

Interest: £4000

Insurance: £4000

Total: £12800

 

And now this other company, presumably about 3 years later, have offered him a GRAND for his car. Absolutely superb. It's like a licence to print money!

 

I have zero sympathy, if he can afford to pay nearly £300 a month for a car worth only a grand part-ex in three years, he deserves to be ripped off.

[r.welfare]

Yeah, he's good is old Martin.Unfortunately there is a willing market for this kind of stuff, for those who absolutely have to drive something to keep up with the Joneses but have too many CCJs and previous arrears etc to get an APR below 297%.It's bad enough at mainstream dealers on the secondhand stuff. I remember just shaking my head at some daft bird at work years ago who was crowing about the Escort she and her husband had just got from Reg Vardy. This was in 1998 or thereabouts and the car in question was 5 years old - it was the (badly) facelifted Mk5 so still a real shitter - not only had they "paid" 6 grand (so well over the odds), because it was "only" £50 a week over 5 years, they were paying back some ridiculous amount.I left that job shortly afterwards, so I never found out whether they (or the car!) made it to the end of the repayment plan. No doubt it was swiftly traded in (at a derisory value) for another Scrote, a year or two newer perhaps, a year down the line, for another huge APR amount.When I audited a similar business to Welcome a few years back (not doing car loans, but personal loans & second mortgages) the funniest application I came across stated, under the line "Purpose of loan", "BOOB JOB". How do you repossess that if they go into arrears then, eh? No shortage of takers in the office to pay a visit on that one, no doubt

[maximalist]

Wow this heigthen stupidity to new unprecedented levels. That guy could buy one banger every month for what he is paying welcome, just hilarious.I payed 250 for my Rapid 9 months ago and its passed MOT and still is running fine.

[garethj]

Fellow autoshiters, there's a golden opportunity here. What we need to do is start a company called NO CAR CREDIT, open an office, get a big poster up and advertise on Sky.

 

We entice customers in by finding out how much they'd normally pay per month (say £250) and get them to buy a car for that amount. Naturally we charge another £250 for consultancy services, that should cover a PC with ebay on all the time and subscriptions to Loot, Autotrader and a shilling for a kid to run around the For Sale boards at Asda and Homebase.

 

The £250 consultancy would cover 20 minutes of beating the customer with a rolled up newspaper and saying "you don't need a 3 year old car, have an 8 year old one instead and save thousands!"

 

Then onto Autotrader etc, we could advise on a range of cars, I'm thinking Volvo 440, Mk4 Escort, any Belmont, Hyundai Lantras... All quality motoring on the cheap and should last a year or two. A trip out to see the car, check it's not a cut 'n' shut, the MoT is real and the head gasket is good, then wave the customer off in his new purchase. £20 worth of flowers available at extra cost.

 

If the customer umms and ahhs a bit, saying they'd really like something newer you can say "let me just look at the figures again". Unlike in a dealers where you scribble away at percentages, deposit figures and repayment periods you just say "You've got £200. That car costs £300. This one costs £200. You have the one for £200

 

Franchise it across the country and this time next year, Rodders....

[Rocket88]

Do you a Channel Islands agent, by any chance.....................

[garethj]

Do you a Channel Islands agent, by any chance.....................

Possibly. Do you have your own camel hair coat?

[mk2_craig]

A trip out to see the car, check it's not a cut 'n' shut, the MoT is real and the head gasket is good, then wave the customer off in his new purchase. £20 worth of flowers available at extra cost

On similar lines to the "lettings introduction service" I tried a while back. Worked a bit like a dating agency

[bones96]

Do you a Channel Islands agent, by any chance.....................

i,ll run the west sussex branch

[Guest]

I will do the Leicester office-I have some local cars at the ready

2003 Mondeo? No no sir you need this

[Cavcraft]

You know what? It just gets better. Apparantly the car he bought is 'shit and it needs more and more work every week'. He also still owes at least £2,700 on it.So what would you do? Well, thankfully he's gone for the sensible option of buying a car for 'less than 12 grand' but not to worry because he's looked around and 'there's cars on Auto Trader for not far off that price'. Now he's trying to see if they'll extend his credit limit (surprisingly the 'under twelve grand' car has taken him to the limit) to incorporate the money he owes on the other one.I've done my best to dissuade him and asked him if he knows what the car he's buying will be worth in 3 years time but he doesn't have to worry about apparantly because his new one will be 'good on fuel'.I did suggest that I could buy a prefectly good fairly modern car that would last three years minimum for less than the money he'll lose in the first year alone but seemingly he's going for this nearly new car.He's a nice enough lad but what the fuck is he doing?

[maximalist]

Please,please,please,please,please,please, the orignal link, please,please,please.

[Cavcraft]

For you sir...http://www.migweb.co.uk/forums/off-topi ... blems.html

[M'coli]

I've just offered him me Cav for £400, which is 4 times what it cost me, if he's any sort of mug then I'm quids in!

[Cavcraft]

You on Mk2cav as well Mr Coli?

[maximalist]

Thanks Cavette for the link