For months, the courts have been wrangling over how to address unfair and dishonest car finance deals. Unsurprisingly, the supreme court has sided with the big business finance companies, limiting the redress likely for people like me who have been ripped off.
I got a second-hand car on finance in 2012. I needed a car for my first job, which would involve me driving country roads alone so I wanted it to be reliable. My parents suggested we try their local car dealership which had a 0% finance weekend.
I found a good-sized second-hand car in good condition so we signed up and did the paperwork. But when I got home I realised I hadn’t signed up to a 0% deal, but 0% for a year and then excessive interest thereafter. We had been got by clever car dealer tricks.
We went back to complain but they said the original 0% deal was no longer available because it was no longer the special weekend. Last year, I submitted a complaint and was notified I was on one of these finance schemes. I now realise that the dealership was incentivised to get me to sign up because they would be taking a cut of the interest.
The court ruling means I won’t be refunded what I lost, just a gesture to be decided by the Financial Conduct Authority. Something that sticks in the throat is that chancellor Rachel Reeves intervened, threatening ahead of the supreme court decision, to overrule it to help save the financiers billions of pounds, fearing the impact it would have on ‘markets’.
So the courts have ruled it’s ok to rip us off, and the Labour chancellor again looks after the interests of big businesses versus the rest of us. The original ruling could have led to payouts totalling £44 billion, peanuts for the huge capitalist investment banks behind these car finance firms – nationalise them!
Bea Gardner
