Windfall from BMW Financial Services

Windfall from BMW Financial Services

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pjv997

Original Poster:

648 posts

181 months

Wednesday 17th December 2014
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Opened a rather innocuous envelope this morning thinking it was another bit of compliance or marketing material from BMW to find a letter advising that they had failed to comply strictly with Consumer Credit Regulations.

This didn't affect the amount I paid them at all but nevertheless, I had a rather nice cheque refunding all the interest that I paid for year's two and three of my E90 M3 saloon credit agreement.

Anybody else be similarly successful or understand the ins and outs? My wife had her Mini Cooper S on a finance agreement around the same time so I wondered if there may be similar issues there.

Rythmic slapping

76 posts

148 months

Wednesday 17th December 2014
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We had this on a Tesco loan that we finished paying off over 12 months ago - said something along the lines of not issuing the annual interest statement within a set period and refunding interest for the period the statement was late.

They refunded me and the wife £60 each via a cheque last week(joint loan).

The letter said it didn't effect what we had been paying, but compensation for not sending out the annual statement.

Win Win!

nick1275

1,272 posts

169 months

Wednesday 17th December 2014
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My dad had the same recently with his Range Rover as did his friend with Audi

brid

74 posts

182 months

Thursday 18th December 2014
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What period was your credit agreement over?

I had finance from them at a particularly eye watering 12% APR from 2010 to 2013, so i'd be be VERY interested to see if this applied to me also.

Timbola

1,956 posts

139 months

Friday 19th December 2014
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Finance houses sending out small sums to pre-empt/mitigate large fines from the FCA for falling foul of minor regulatory infringements - in this case the CCA.

Will also serve the purpose of preventing you from being able to claim larger amounts from them for said infringements if you accept the settlement (cash the cheque). There will likely be something in the small print of the letter they sent you to this effect.

Were you of a particular disposition, you could take this to court as proof of their admission of failure to abide by the standards set out by the regulator to which the finance house is legally bound by in all its financial contracts, and seek greater compensation.

Would be very interested to know , OP, what particular detail of the CCA they failed to comply with? If you are willing to impart the info.

Could be that the amount they voluntarily settled with you is small beans in comparison to the infringement, at least in the eyes of the FCA in the dim view it will take of the finance house, if not in actual monetary terms.


Edited by Timbola on Friday 19th December 08:44

MerseaBoy

234 posts

259 months

Friday 19th December 2014
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pjv997 said:
Opened a rather innocuous envelope this morning thinking it was another bit of compliance or marketing material from BMW to find a letter advising that they had failed to comply strictly with Consumer Credit Regulations.

This didn't affect the amount I paid them at all but nevertheless, I had a rather nice cheque refunding all the interest that I paid for year's two and three of my E90 M3 saloon credit agreement.

Anybody else be similarly successful or understand the ins and outs? My wife had her Mini Cooper S on a finance agreement around the same time so I wondered if there may be similar issues there.
Do you mind saying when you took it out and what the infringement was??

Thanks.

pjv997

Original Poster:

648 posts

181 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
MerseaBoy said:
Do you mind saying when you took it out and what the infringement was??

Thanks.
I took my finance agreement out in March or April 2009 and then p-ex'd in Mar 2012.

I had now discarded the letter but I think it was because the statements they sent out were not compliant with one of the credit consumer acts.

pjv997

Original Poster:

648 posts

181 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
Timbola said:
Finance houses sending out small sums to pre-empt/mitigate large fines from the FCA for falling foul of minor regulatory infringements - in this case the CCA.

Edited by Timbola on Friday 19th December 08:44
This was not a small amount - my original post does say they have refunded all of my interest from the point of the infringement - so I have received a very substantial four figure sum - shall we say enough to take my family of four adults on a very decent weeks skiing.

I didn't try to work out whether the actual sum is correctly calculated based on the explanation in the letter, but given the amount was unexpected, and it seems very generous for what appears a modest technical infringement, I wouldn't pursue them for any more money anyway.

RCBRG

603 posts

140 months

Friday 19th December 2014
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pjv997 said:
This was not a small amount - my original post does say they have refunded all of my interest from the point of the infringement - so I have received a very substantial four figure sum - shall we say enough to take my family of four adults on a very decent weeks skiing.

I didn't try to work out whether the actual sum is correctly calculated based on the explanation in the letter, but given the amount was unexpected, and it seems very generous for what appears a modest technical infringement, I wouldn't pursue them for any more money anyway.
My girlfriends dad has just received a similar cheque. I didn't get the details as to why he received it, but it was also a nice 4 figure sum. The car is long gone now so it's certainly a surprise for him!

matrignano

4,344 posts

209 months

Friday 19th December 2014
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Would be keen to hear more about what were the exact failings of these finance companies!

Timbola

1,956 posts

139 months

Friday 19th December 2014
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pjv997 said:
This was not a small amount - my original post does say they have refunded all of my interest from the point of the infringement - so I have received a very substantial four figure sum - shall we say enough to take my family of four adults on a very decent weeks skiing.
The comparison was made between the amount they volunteered to settle with you, and the fines imposed by the FCA.

Punitive fines imposed by the regulator can and do run to billions of pounds. Court settlements pursuant to claims can and do run to millions. So your four-figure sum is a drop in the ocean to a finance house. Which is the point being made - if they can mitigate or avoid the fines and court settlements by paying out a few hundreds of thousands of pounds in voluntary settlements such as yours, they will. It's all profit, innit.

To put it in perspective, the £2bn the incumbent Conservatives have allotted toward an increased spend on the NHS has come purely from FCA-levied fines. That's just one application of that particular pot of funds.

Regardless, from the standpoint of your individual point of view, an unexpected windfall is just that. Enjoy.




Edited by Timbola on Friday 19th December 16:24

pjv997

Original Poster:

648 posts

181 months

Friday 19th December 2014
quotequote all
Timbola said:
The comparison was made between the amount they volunteered to settle with you, and the fines imposed by the FCA.

Punitive fines imposed by the regulator can and do run to billions of pounds. Court settlements pursuant to claims can and do run to millions. So your four-figure sum is a drop in the ocean to a finance house. Which is the point being made - if they can mitigate or avoid the fines and court settlements by paying out a few hundreds of thousands of pounds in voluntary settlements such as yours, they will. It's all profit, innit.

To put it in perspective, the £2bn the incumbent Conservatives have allotted toward an increased spend on the NHS has come purely from FCA-levied fines. That's just one application of that particular pot of funds.

Regardless, from the standpoint of your individual point of view, an unexpected windfall is just that. Enjoy.






Edited by Timbola on Friday 19th December 16:24
Thanks I will drink

Really flagged up the issue so others were aware and may be able to benefit - do you know what the process should be to make an enquiry because from some of the posts it seems not only BMW who fell foul of this. I'm a bit surprised I hadn't seen anything about it before.

crazy about cars

4,454 posts

168 months

Friday 19th December 2014
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Take that all the "I'll buy my car outright with cash" crowd! biggrin

brid

74 posts

182 months

Tuesday 6th January 2015
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So, to help get the ball rolling on this, any chance we can get a REDACTED copy of your letter, obviously with all your personal details wiped out on it?

I'm going to get in touch with BMW financial services to enquire about this, but before I do that it would be great if I could see the exact wording of the letter so the right words / legalese can be mentioned to hopefully push some buttons.

I'll be happy to feed back with my findings to the rest of the forum if so.

CSLchappie

432 posts

203 months

Tuesday 24th February 2015
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Has anyone else experienced this recently with BMW?

One of my work colleagues has just found out that he's due to be refunded £2750 on a 22k loan taken out in Q4 2009 over 4 years. He doesn't know the exact details of why because all correspondence has been sent to an old address and the new owners have managed to get in contact via the estate agent who sold their house.

I'm just curious if there is anyway of finding out if you're due anything as I'm in a similar position, I took finance out at the same time for the same duration and have moved house since settling the loan.

theboss

6,878 posts

218 months

Tuesday 24th February 2015
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CSLchappie said:
Has anyone else experienced this recently with BMW?

One of my work colleagues has just found out that he's due to be refunded £2750 on a 22k loan taken out in Q4 2009 over 4 years. He doesn't know the exact details of why because all correspondence has been sent to an old address and the new owners have managed to get in contact via the estate agent who sold their house.

I'm just curious if there is anyway of finding out if you're due anything as I'm in a similar position, I took finance out at the same time for the same duration and have moved house since settling the loan.
I took a similar term, similar amount loan with BMWFS in Q4 2009 as well... but have long since moved house. Might have to drop a note through the old door!

brid

74 posts

182 months

Tuesday 24th February 2015
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I got copies of both my statements sent to me first by email and THEN got BMW to change my address on file (also changed like the posters above) and get them to send me hard copies of my statements. I did this in the hope someone from BMW might have chimed in at this point about something being on my file... nope.

Both email and hard copies came through, with nothing from BMW to suggest anything was up. In fact they make reference to new consumer credit requirements ... so perhaps I'm not due anything from them. It would be nice to know what EXACTLY i should be looking for - Still hoping someone has a copy of their letter from BMW and wants to share the verbiage with us.

Wills2

22,666 posts

174 months

Tuesday 24th February 2015
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I had this with Porsche FS, what they failed to do was to remind me that I could terminate the contract at the half way point.

This means they cannot keep the interest after the point they failed to inform me of my rights.

pjv997

Original Poster:

648 posts

181 months

Tuesday 24th February 2015
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OK so I still have the letter from BMW Financial Services and it states:

"Following a recent review, it has come to our attention that your annual statement(s) covered a period in excess of a year. This meant the annual statement(s) you received did not strictly conform to the requirements of the Consumer Credit Act (the Act).

Importantly, this has not affected the payments that you needed to make, the accuracy of the calculation of the outstanding balance on your account or the interest charge we applied, if any.

Although this has not affected what you were required to pay under your agreement, due to the statutory provisions of the Act, we are reimbursing you any interest and/or default sums charged to your account which relate to the period starting from when we were required to send you the statement until the end of your agreement (which is the relevant period under the Act). This amounts to the sum of £X,XXX.

We enclose a cheque for this amount"


essayer

9,008 posts

193 months

Wednesday 25th February 2015
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I only ever had monthly statements frown