Auction Company Adding Extra Clauses
Discussion
Bit of an interesting one this.
My partner had a Twingo on Renault Finance PCP. Two years down the line, circumstances have changed, she doesn't need it any more, so she decided to exercise her statutory right to voluntary termination (VT).
This is not a rant thread about how it took Renault Finance 19 phonecalls and eleventy million emails to process the VT, because I think that's fairly common. Instead, I'd be interested in opinions on the following.
Renault Finance arranged for the vehicle to be collected, and - bang on time I might add - a couple of gentlemen turned up from a specific auction house. I can't name and shame them of course. In a totally unrelated question, what's the name of that town in Germany where the big John Deere factory is? Anyway I digress.
Said gentlemen did a thorough examination of the car and earned their bonus by locating some "corrosion" on the wheels, which wasn't there, and a bit of kerbing on one wheel, which was. They entered their report and photographs directly into an iPad, then gave it to my partner to e-sign. She had the the option to toggle a switch to say that she disputed the condition report (because of the nonsensical "corrosion" issue), which she dutifully did.
In the car the gentlemen had arrived in was a wireless printer, and lead gent produced three paper copies of the condition report which had reproductions of my partner's signature on them. He kept one himself, left one with the car, and gave one to my partner. Reading the paper copy, we found that, underneath her signature, some small print had been added: "I agree that there will be a second, more detailed inspection at the auction house, and I agree that I am liable to pay charges for any damage we find during this inspection".
Now, that small print had not been anywhere on the screen when she e-signed. I am 100% sure of that. It was also not explained verbally by the collection gentlemen. When we challenged it, lead gent's response was "Oh don't worry, they never enforce that bit." Yeah alright then mate!! Of course, we crossed out the clause on all three copies and wrote "b
ks to you" next to it (or words to that effect), but how many people fail to check?
How does this not constitute fraud? It's a bait-and-switch, surely?
My partner had a Twingo on Renault Finance PCP. Two years down the line, circumstances have changed, she doesn't need it any more, so she decided to exercise her statutory right to voluntary termination (VT).
This is not a rant thread about how it took Renault Finance 19 phonecalls and eleventy million emails to process the VT, because I think that's fairly common. Instead, I'd be interested in opinions on the following.
Renault Finance arranged for the vehicle to be collected, and - bang on time I might add - a couple of gentlemen turned up from a specific auction house. I can't name and shame them of course. In a totally unrelated question, what's the name of that town in Germany where the big John Deere factory is? Anyway I digress.
Said gentlemen did a thorough examination of the car and earned their bonus by locating some "corrosion" on the wheels, which wasn't there, and a bit of kerbing on one wheel, which was. They entered their report and photographs directly into an iPad, then gave it to my partner to e-sign. She had the the option to toggle a switch to say that she disputed the condition report (because of the nonsensical "corrosion" issue), which she dutifully did.
In the car the gentlemen had arrived in was a wireless printer, and lead gent produced three paper copies of the condition report which had reproductions of my partner's signature on them. He kept one himself, left one with the car, and gave one to my partner. Reading the paper copy, we found that, underneath her signature, some small print had been added: "I agree that there will be a second, more detailed inspection at the auction house, and I agree that I am liable to pay charges for any damage we find during this inspection".
Now, that small print had not been anywhere on the screen when she e-signed. I am 100% sure of that. It was also not explained verbally by the collection gentlemen. When we challenged it, lead gent's response was "Oh don't worry, they never enforce that bit." Yeah alright then mate!! Of course, we crossed out the clause on all three copies and wrote "b
ks to you" next to it (or words to that effect), but how many people fail to check?How does this not constitute fraud? It's a bait-and-switch, surely?
mcflurry said:
I'm of the opinion that it's there to cover the collection company if the collector misses something huge; for example if the paint had been taken off with a brillo pad, but they couldn't see it as collected the car when it's raining and dark mangles the fk out of the alloys on the way back to the depot..
FTFY k out of the alloys on the way back to the depot..
Hope you took plenty of photos OP 
Could that by its wording - never mind its adding after signing - be classed as an 'unfair term' & consequently unenforcable?
"What is unfair?
Generally, contract terms and notices are unfair if they put the customer at an unfair disadvantage. The law applies a fairness test that starts by asking whether the wording used tilts the rights and responsibilities between the customer and the trader too much in favour of the trader."
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/unfair-terms-explained...
ETA Or if it was prior to the implementation of the CRA2015 then I presume that this would apply:
"Unfair Terms
5.—(1) A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer.
(2) A term shall always be regarded as not having been individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term.
(3) Notwithstanding that a specific term or certain aspects of it in a contract has been individually negotiated, these Regulations shall apply to the rest of a contract if an overall assessment of it indicates that it is a pre-formulated standard contract.
(4) It shall be for any seller or supplier who claims that a term was individually negotiated to show that it was.
(5) Schedule 2 to these Regulations contains an indicative and non-exhaustive list of the terms which may be regarded as unfair."
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/2083/regul...
"What is unfair?
Generally, contract terms and notices are unfair if they put the customer at an unfair disadvantage. The law applies a fairness test that starts by asking whether the wording used tilts the rights and responsibilities between the customer and the trader too much in favour of the trader."
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/unfair-terms-explained...
ETA Or if it was prior to the implementation of the CRA2015 then I presume that this would apply:
"Unfair Terms
5.—(1) A contractual term which has not been individually negotiated shall be regarded as unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations arising under the contract, to the detriment of the consumer.
(2) A term shall always be regarded as not having been individually negotiated where it has been drafted in advance and the consumer has therefore not been able to influence the substance of the term.
(3) Notwithstanding that a specific term or certain aspects of it in a contract has been individually negotiated, these Regulations shall apply to the rest of a contract if an overall assessment of it indicates that it is a pre-formulated standard contract.
(4) It shall be for any seller or supplier who claims that a term was individually negotiated to show that it was.
(5) Schedule 2 to these Regulations contains an indicative and non-exhaustive list of the terms which may be regarded as unfair."
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/2083/regul...
Edited by paintman on Friday 1st December 15:03
The precise wording will vary from what I wrote above, I was writing from memory, but that was the gist of it.
It's not the clause itself I object to, per se, but the addition of it ex post facto next to a copy of a signature. It's purporting to prove someone has considered and agreed to something that they have not.
It's not the clause itself I object to, per se, but the addition of it ex post facto next to a copy of a signature. It's purporting to prove someone has considered and agreed to something that they have not.
For anyone interested, I did email the company in question. It took them nearly a month but I received, in response, the following short para (surrounded by stock text of course)
I sent them a note in return:
Hanmein said:
The clause is added by RCI and as such is an agreement between yourselves and your finance provider and states that vehicles may be subject to a further inspection at the vehicles end destination. It is an inspection that is out of the control of ***. This is why the inspector did not have the relevant details for you when you asked, we have flagged this as a training issue and have now added this to the new inspectors training and we will retrain all our existing inspectors with this knowledge for future inspections.
U wot m8? So you're telling me I'm somehow committing to an agreement with a third party company by signing your own paperwork, without knowing about it? Am I being a spanner here or is something extremely not right with this?I sent them a note in return:
My response said:
Thank you for your response.
Unfortunately this does not address my concerns and I would like to escalate this. You have taken 19 working days to come up with two and a half lines stating "it's not our problem".
If anything you have added more concerns with your statement below:
-- "The clause is added by RCI and as such is an agreement between yourselves and your finance provider and states that vehicles may be subject to a further inspection at the vehicles end destination."
1) At no point did we have any such agreement with RCI. We simply told RCI we wished to VT the finance on the vehicle and for them to arrange collection, as the vehicle was in Reasonable Condition.
2) We had no wish to agree to a clause such as this
3) If we are signing a *** inspection form, how can we be agreeing to a contractual clause with another company in the same document, without knowing about it?
In addition, my original issue remains: this clause was not displayed anywhere on the screen before signature, but was added to the printouts after signature. This is a fundamentally dishonest practice. I appreciate that you will be retraining your inspectors to account for this, but you still can't add this text to the inspection form without giving the customer the opportunity to decline this clause prior to signature.
To reiterate - the consumer's statutory rights are very clear that a vehicle returned under voluntary termination must be in REASONABLE CONDITION. Any attempt, by stealth, to introduce clauses which infringe on those statutory rights, is not what a reputable company should be doing.
I look forward to your further response.
Unfortunately this does not address my concerns and I would like to escalate this. You have taken 19 working days to come up with two and a half lines stating "it's not our problem".
If anything you have added more concerns with your statement below:
-- "The clause is added by RCI and as such is an agreement between yourselves and your finance provider and states that vehicles may be subject to a further inspection at the vehicles end destination."
1) At no point did we have any such agreement with RCI. We simply told RCI we wished to VT the finance on the vehicle and for them to arrange collection, as the vehicle was in Reasonable Condition.
2) We had no wish to agree to a clause such as this
3) If we are signing a *** inspection form, how can we be agreeing to a contractual clause with another company in the same document, without knowing about it?
In addition, my original issue remains: this clause was not displayed anywhere on the screen before signature, but was added to the printouts after signature. This is a fundamentally dishonest practice. I appreciate that you will be retraining your inspectors to account for this, but you still can't add this text to the inspection form without giving the customer the opportunity to decline this clause prior to signature.
To reiterate - the consumer's statutory rights are very clear that a vehicle returned under voluntary termination must be in REASONABLE CONDITION. Any attempt, by stealth, to introduce clauses which infringe on those statutory rights, is not what a reputable company should be doing.
I look forward to your further response.
Just so the OP knows someone is interested as an observer and that further updates would be interesting.
IME there is a dead horse and you are in danger of flogging it.
Unless you start to get heavy handed (ie start to cause them problems) they will simply keep giving you non answers at a rate of 1 every 15-20 working days after each piece of correspondence from you until you give up.
Remember they are being paid to reply to your letter and right now you are one niggling little voice that isn't going to upset anyone's day.
Therefore unless you start to cost them serious money, or can get it on Money Box or the like i suspect that you will get nowhere other than to ensure (if they have a brain) that they do not find anything else on the car once it is re inspected.
IME there is a dead horse and you are in danger of flogging it.
Unless you start to get heavy handed (ie start to cause them problems) they will simply keep giving you non answers at a rate of 1 every 15-20 working days after each piece of correspondence from you until you give up.
Remember they are being paid to reply to your letter and right now you are one niggling little voice that isn't going to upset anyone's day.
Therefore unless you start to cost them serious money, or can get it on Money Box or the like i suspect that you will get nowhere other than to ensure (if they have a brain) that they do not find anything else on the car once it is re inspected.
Rude-boy said:
IME there is a dead horse and you are in danger of flogging it.
You're probably right, it just pisses me off that such an unscrupulous thing to do can go uncorrected.
Assuming you are right and I just get fobbed off again, what would be my route of escalation?
To be clear, the car's long gone and agreement with RCI has been concluded, so there's absolutely nothing financially at risk (or to gain) for me personally, I just want them to admit that they've got a dodgy process in place and to make it more transparent.
Usget said:
Bit of an interesting one this.
My partner had a Twingo on Renault Finance PCP. Two years down the line, circumstances have changed, she doesn't need it any more, so she decided to exercise her statutory right to voluntary termination (VT).
This is not a rant thread about how it took Renault Finance 19 phonecalls and eleventy million emails to process the VT, because I think that's fairly common. Instead, I'd be interested in opinions on the following.
Renault Finance arranged for the vehicle to be collected, and - bang on time I might add - a couple of gentlemen turned up from a specific auction house. I can't name and shame them of course. In a totally unrelated question, what's the name of that town in Germany where the big John Deere factory is? Anyway I digress.
Said gentlemen did a thorough examination of the car and earned their bonus by locating some "corrosion" on the wheels, which wasn't there, and a bit of kerbing on one wheel, which was. They entered their report and photographs directly into an iPad, then gave it to my partner to e-sign. She had the the option to toggle a switch to say that she disputed the condition report (because of the nonsensical "corrosion" issue), which she dutifully did.
In the car the gentlemen had arrived in was a wireless printer, and lead gent produced three paper copies of the condition report which had reproductions of my partner's signature on them. He kept one himself, left one with the car, and gave one to my partner. Reading the paper copy, we found that, underneath her signature, some small print had been added: "I agree that there will be a second, more detailed inspection at the auction house, and I agree that I am liable to pay charges for any damage we find during this inspection".
Now, that small print had not been anywhere on the screen when she e-signed. I am 100% sure of that. It was also not explained verbally by the collection gentlemen. When we challenged it, lead gent's response was "Oh don't worry, they never enforce that bit." Yeah alright then mate!! Of course, we crossed out the clause on all three copies and wrote "bks to you" next to it (or words to that effect), but how many people fail to check?
How does this not constitute fraud? It's a bait-and-switch, surely?
This company collected my lease vehicle and the guy couldnt have given less of a 5hite. He said they only get audited if they auction it and since this was going to BCA they didnt care. My partner had a Twingo on Renault Finance PCP. Two years down the line, circumstances have changed, she doesn't need it any more, so she decided to exercise her statutory right to voluntary termination (VT).
This is not a rant thread about how it took Renault Finance 19 phonecalls and eleventy million emails to process the VT, because I think that's fairly common. Instead, I'd be interested in opinions on the following.
Renault Finance arranged for the vehicle to be collected, and - bang on time I might add - a couple of gentlemen turned up from a specific auction house. I can't name and shame them of course. In a totally unrelated question, what's the name of that town in Germany where the big John Deere factory is? Anyway I digress.
Said gentlemen did a thorough examination of the car and earned their bonus by locating some "corrosion" on the wheels, which wasn't there, and a bit of kerbing on one wheel, which was. They entered their report and photographs directly into an iPad, then gave it to my partner to e-sign. She had the the option to toggle a switch to say that she disputed the condition report (because of the nonsensical "corrosion" issue), which she dutifully did.
In the car the gentlemen had arrived in was a wireless printer, and lead gent produced three paper copies of the condition report which had reproductions of my partner's signature on them. He kept one himself, left one with the car, and gave one to my partner. Reading the paper copy, we found that, underneath her signature, some small print had been added: "I agree that there will be a second, more detailed inspection at the auction house, and I agree that I am liable to pay charges for any damage we find during this inspection".
Now, that small print had not been anywhere on the screen when she e-signed. I am 100% sure of that. It was also not explained verbally by the collection gentlemen. When we challenged it, lead gent's response was "Oh don't worry, they never enforce that bit." Yeah alright then mate!! Of course, we crossed out the clause on all three copies and wrote "b
ks to you" next to it (or words to that effect), but how many people fail to check?How does this not constitute fraud? It's a bait-and-switch, surely?
Didnt stop the lease company trying to claim for repairs prior to auction. Shame i was 1 step ahead and had copies of the auction paperwork which showed the minor damage was still present. It seems the "repairs" were actually them covering losses at auction instead.
Usget said:
Rude-boy said:
IME there is a dead horse and you are in danger of flogging it.
You're probably right, it just pisses me off that such an unscrupulous thing to do can go uncorrected.
Assuming you are right and I just get fobbed off again, what would be my route of escalation?
To be clear, the car's long gone and agreement with RCI has been concluded, so there's absolutely nothing financially at risk (or to gain) for me personally, I just want them to admit that they've got a dodgy process in place and to make it more transparent.
Thinking outside the box; does the original finance agreement / contract say anything about collection inspections and charges for damage, etc?
It could be that you have already agreed to such provisions when signing the original contract, and the additional clause included at the time of collection is designed to re-iterate what has previously already been agreed.
It could be that you have already agreed to such provisions when signing the original contract, and the additional clause included at the time of collection is designed to re-iterate what has previously already been agreed.
Usget said:
You're probably right, it just pisses me off that such an unscrupulous thing to do can go uncorrected.
Assuming you are right and I just get fobbed off again, what would be my route of escalation?
To be clear, the car's long gone and agreement with RCI has been concluded, so there's absolutely nothing financially at risk (or to gain) for me personally, I just want them to admit that they've got a dodgy process in place and to make it more transparent.
Best of luck all the same, and well done for chasing it!
OverSteery said:
But I am not sure what you are escalating? If they apply this "clause" to yout o your detriment then you have a grievance. If they haven't (which is the case), you haven't actually been materially affected in any way.
That completely misses the salient point.Covert insertion of an additional clause after signature is simply unacceptable.
IANAL but I'm pretty sure a court would strike it.
The context was different but the principle in play is the same.
"Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."
J S Mill: inaugural address to the University of St Andrews
The OP was on the ball: someone else might not be.
OverSteery said:
If they haven't (which is the case), you haven't actually been materially affected in any way.
I'm looking at it this way. If a chap tried to nick my wallet, and I caught him at it, would I shrug it off or would I report him to plod in the hope that I could stop a few others getting ripped off?Not all superheroes wear capes
but seriously, it would be a good outcome to get them to at least be honest with their customers, in the hope that if someone like my mum ever found herself using them, she'd be in with a shout of not getting fleeced.Usget said:
Hanmein said:
The clause is added by RCI and as such is an agreement between yourselves and your finance provider and states that vehicles may be subject to a further inspection at the vehicles end destination. It is an inspection that is out of the control of ***. This is why the inspector did not have the relevant details for you when you asked, we have flagged this as a training issue and have now added this to the new inspectors training and we will retrain all our existing inspectors with this knowledge for future inspections.
U wot m8? So you're telling me I'm somehow committing to an agreement with a third party company by signing your own paperwork, without knowing about it? Am I being a spanner here or is something extremely not right with this?"This is part of your contract with Renault. Don't blame us, we're merely the people they've asked us to pick it up."
And I bet they're right. Have you actually looked back at that?
Think about it - they have to pick cars up in all weathers and light conditions and from all sorts of places. If they pick a car up at night, in the pissing wet, covered in mud, parked against a wall... Can the collection crew really be expected to do a fair inspection like that? Of course not. So do Renault simply price-in worst-case conditions to allow for that? Of course not, because that'll simply go on the lease cost for those who don't return the car battered to hell and back.
The BVRLA's industry-standard fair wear and tear guide says...
https://www.drive-electric.co.uk/wp-content/upload...
BVRLA said:
Customers should be advised that the vehicle will also undergo a full inspection at the leasing company’s nominated site in line with the agreed fair wear and tear policy.
...so it's hardly just Renault being sharp.Mandat said:
Thinking outside the box; does the original finance agreement / contract say anything about collection inspections and charges for damage, etc?.
Nope. The paperwork they would have liked us to sign for Voluntarily Terminating the vehicle had all sorts of stuff like that on it, of course, but we didn't sign it. We simply sent them a letter, which is sufficient.Furthermore, even if it did, we were signing some M****m documentation, therefore any clause inserted makes it look like we've agreed for M****m to charge us whatever they like. Any agreement we did, or did not, have with RCI is beside the point.
TooMany2cvs said:
The BVRLA's industry-standard fair wear and tear guide says...
https://www.drive-electric.co.uk/wp-content/upload...
I think you've missed the point of the post, but in particular, those guidelines are for leased vehicles, not VT'd PCPs.https://www.drive-electric.co.uk/wp-content/upload...
TooMany2cvs said:
"This is part of your contract with Renault....
But here's the thing. It isn't.Gassing Station | Speed, Plod & the Law | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff