Mr Grumpy here again and whilst I don’t want to dwell
again on end of lease charges, it would help if those that are
going to write on the subject write from a position of
knowledge.
First of all, the ex-Sun editor, Kelvin
Mackenzie, who is in my opinion an idiot, has ruffled feathers for
all the wrong reasons. His complaint was that, within a charge of
£1,867.48, he had been overcharged by £250 for four tyres.
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He had an independent inspection of the photos,
provided by Mercedes Benz Finance, carried out by Barnwells of
Nottingham, which said the end of lease charge was reasonable
except for the high cost of the replacement tyres which could have
been obtained at Kwik Fit for £250 less.
This is after Mackenzie admitted in his article
that he hadn’t read the contract.
Is he totally nuts? The real point has been missed
here and that is that he had to have four tyres replaced!
This suggests they were illegal. He was driving the
bloody car illegally, if this is true, so rather than go to court
with MB Finance I would shut up and consider myself lucky he still
has a licence and didn’t manage to kill anyone while driving a car
with illegal tyres, assuming they would have to be illegal before
the funder insists on replacements.
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By GlobalDataWhat needs to be addressed is the increasing number
of genuinely unreasonable charges.
One client was intimidated by three, yes three,
vehicle inspectors and my sister was forced to have a screen
replaced after a chipped screen was repaired by Autoglass with its
usual guarantees. There may have been an argument but for the fact
the chip was outside the line of vision.
When the car was collected the driver explained it
was going straight to auction. It is a total disgrace and the
stories I hear from the front line are shocking.
The FLA and BVRLA are living in a dream world, and
as for taking pictures with your mobile phone for use in a court
case, as advised by James Baird of law firm Gateley Wareing [see
Motor Finance April issue], I would respectfully suggest
it would be more appropriate to take pictures with a disposable
camera. Digital phone pictures can be modified using Photoshop.
I would also get the inspector to sign the back of
each photo along with date and time of inspection.
Moving on, as a broker I am really struggling with
the strange decisions of some lenders when proposing clients.
Even more frustrating for clients who believe that
their credit is in good order.
What we need is more guidance and transparency from
the lenders. It would certainly help us brokers when choosing which
lender to place our business, and also customers that might need to
deal with any problems before applying for finance.
What would be really useful is an industry
standard for measuring credit scores made available to clients
along with guidance from lenders as to what they are looking for.
Applying for credit shouldn’t be such a lottery.
