BMW Finance Terrible Customer Service

[bentley01]

I have had an absolute nightmare with a finance agreement taken out with BMW. I bought a 6 month old X3 for my wife and financed 33k of it primarily for the dealer contribution. I won’t get into the rights and wrongs of this but the dealer encouraged me to do this as a way of getting the best deal available. I used my right to withdraw and paid the balance back including the £90 interest and thought no more about it until I received a letter from the finance company talking about a missing payment. Multiple times of calling them sometimes taking over an hour to get through made no real progress except to find that whoever processed the payment hadn’t done it properly and the money was never allocated to my agreement.
My credit rating which was excellent has been decimated and as a consequence my credit card companies have reduced my credit limits. Barclaycard for example 10K down to £100.
I have raised a complaint but heard nothing and complained to the financial ombudsman but 4 months after the event nothing has changed.
I should of just paid for the car but honestly you would think that they would be proactive in trying to help but they couldn’t care less.

[bennno]

Never had an issue with them, after paying why didn’t you call to confirm receipt and only cancel the dd once they’d confirmed payment?

[bentley01]

bennno said:

Never had an issue with them, after paying why didn’t you call to confirm receipt and only cancel the dd once they’d confirmed payment?

I received an email acknowledgment from them immediately stating the settlement of the agreement and then cancelled the DD

[bennno]

bentley01 said:

bennno said:

Never had an issue with them, after paying why didn’t you call to confirm receipt and only cancel the dd once they’d confirmed payment?

I received an email acknowledgment from them immediately stating the settlement of the agreement and then cancelled the DD

If you got that and it is entirely as described then you should be fine, get back on the phone to BMW FS and ask them for an update on the complaint and ask them to correct the error showing against your account. I'd advise them that their mistake is having a material impact and youd like to discuss with a more senior manager about how they correct the situation.

You can notify Experian / equifax etc of an error outside of your control and they will place notes on your credit file.

[bentley01]

Thanks Benno. I did raise a dispute with Transunion but it came back as unresolved. I have also received the letter from BMW stating that the agreement is finished and they have no more interest in the car but the credit rating issues continue. It did make me laugh when Barclaycard who I have been a longstanding customer of cut my credit limit to £100. Not much use for travelling 🧳

[Ducati996R]

bentley01 said:

Thanks Benno. I did raise a dispute with Transunion but it came back as unresolved. I have also received the letter from BMW stating that the agreement is finished and they have no more interest in the car but the credit rating issues continue. It did make me laugh when Barclaycard who I have been a longstanding customer of cut my credit limit to £100. Not much use for travelling ??

Might be worth joining Which …..they have an excellent legal team ….only costs £50 first year I think

[bennno]

bentley01 said:

Thanks Benno. I did raise a dispute with Transunion but it came back as unresolved. I have also received the letter from BMW stating that the agreement is finished and they have no more interest in the car but the credit rating issues continue. It did make me laugh when Barclaycard who I have been a longstanding customer of cut my credit limit to £100. Not much use for travelling ??

I had one similar issue many years ago when an affiliated / main dealer didnt clear the finance on my p/x for 2 months.

Keep pushing them for a reference and to resolve this and for them to notify the credit reference agencies of their error and to have a correction applied, you can notify them in parallel that this is going on etc. Should fix things.

[bentley01]

Spoke to them again after a 1 hour wait with the usual terrible music. Very apologetic and they are waiting for the case handler to deal with the problem. Good idea about Which I might give it a try. I know they will resolve it but it is taking a long time and I appear to be doing all of the chasing.