Debt Camel

Answers to questions about debts and credit ratings - in plain English!

Car finance discretionary commission claims – update May 2024

UPDATE – 13 November 2014
In late October, an Appeal Court judgment said commission should be refunded in a much broader range of cases, not just discretionary motor finance. The FCA is now proposing to extend the pause on discretionary commission complaints to cover fixed commissions as well.  See Car commission refunds – can more people get refunds? where I cover this in detail

UPDATE – 24 September 2024
Following a consultation in August, the FCA announced an extension to the timetable for car finance discretionary commission complaints:

  • the FCA had originally intended to publish its review setting out next steps in September 2024.  This has now been postponed until May 2025, because there is a challenge to the Ombudsman’s decisions on these cases. The Judicial Review of the Ombudsman decision is bein heard in October 2024 and the FCA hopes for a judgment by the end of 2024;
  • this FCA review is likely to lead to new rules which the FCA will consult on. It will have finalised these by December 2025;
  • finance lenders will then have to follow the new approach;
  • because of these delays, consumers are who have made a complaint and received a Final Response from the car finance lender now have longer to take their case to the Ombudsman The FCA says “If you’re sent a final response between 12 July 2023 and 29 April 2025, you’ll now have until 29 July 2026 to take your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman.”

What is happening to car discretionary commission claims?
This is an update on car finance commission claims, looking at developments since January 2024.

These claims are, as expected, going slowly with no refunds being paid so far:

  • the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is reviewing the use of discretionary commission arrangements (DCAs);
  • this review will be published by 24 September 2024;
  • because of this review, the FCA is allowing lenders longer to respond to complaints. It is also giving customers extra time to take complaints to the Financial Ombudsman (FOS).

There have been some legal developments in the background and customers have started to get responses from the finance lenders. So this article summarises what you need to know at the moment.

Background – the start of these claims in January

In January 2024, FOS published decisions on some car finance commission cases. FOS found that DCAs were unfair. It awarded refunds to customers in the two cases where they were used, and rejected a case where the commission arrangements were fixed, not discretionary.

I published Car finance commission scandal – can you get a refund? That explained more about these complaints and why the commission was unfair. It had links to the key Ombudsman decisions.

MSE then published its Car finance reclaim tool & guide.

Legal developments from January – September

One of the key decisions published in January was against Barclays Partner Finance. Barclays decided in April to challenge this decision by going to court for a Judicial Review. If this legal succeeds, FOS will probably have to review how it handles other car commission cases.

There are other court cases in progress as well. FOS says:

In March, three court cases relating to car finance commission were granted permission to go to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal hearing has not yet taken place. The Court of Appeal’s decision is expected to consider how the law relating to secret and half-disclosed commission might apply to motor finance commission payments. 

While FOS doesn’t have to follow exactly what a court would decide, it will want to consider relevant Appeal Court decisions in deciding its general approach.

As a result, the 20,000 car commission cases at FOS are now effectively on hold. James Dipple-Johnstone, the deputy chief ombudsman, has said:

It is disappointing that ongoing legal proceedings around motor finance commission have impacted our ability to issue final decisions in some of these cases.

Lender responses – and what you can do next

The responses seem to fall into six rough groups. For each, I have tried to suggest what you should do next.

This is my opinion – it is possible you may get a better result by doing something else.

I have used DCA here as a convenient abbreviation for discretionary commission arrangement. The lender’s reply to you may not have used this abbreviation. Or those exact words.

“Your finance had a DCA and we are treating this as a complaint”

That is good news – based on the Ombudsman’s decision in January, you do have a valid claim. And the lender is treating this as a complaint, which is helpful.

But this is not yet a “decision” on your complaint. The lender normally points out the FCA has allowed them up until 25 September to reply to your complaint.

You can’t speed this up. You can’t send your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman until after 25 September unless the lender has sent you a decision rejecting your complaint before then.

“Your finance had a DCA, would you like to complain?”

This isn’t common – most lenders treat the query as a complaint once it is established there was a DCA.

In this case, you should reply saying that you want to make a complaint because you feel you have not been treated fairly. Say that as the commission structure was not disclosed to you at the time, you were unaware that it resulted in a higher interest rate and could not have tried to negotiate it down. Ask for a refund of the additional interest you paid because of it, in line with the January Financial Ombudsman decisions.

“Your finance did not involve DCA”

Some lenders have replied saying they never used this sort of discretionary commission. In other cases, lenders have looked at your car finance and said it did not involve a DCA.

Here there is nothing you can do. It seems very unlikely that a lender would deliberately lie to a customer about a matter that the FCA was taking an active interest in.

Some people have asked if they could find out more by sending the lender a Subject Access Request asking for a copy of all the personal information they have about you. This won’t help because most lenders say the commission paid by the lender to the broker was not “your personal information” so you won’t be told about it.

“You should have asked about commission at the time”

This isn’t common. In the replies I have seen that said this, the term “commission” was used and not any reference to the broker/dealer having any form of discretion.

This is an actively unhelpful reply.

I suggest you reply saying their responses has not answered your query about the commission arrangements and whether the broker or dealer has any discretion to set your interest rate at a higher level to increase the commission they received. Say that if any form of discretionary commission was involved, you are making a complaint that this was unfair.

“We are still considering if your finance involved DCA”

Some lenders say they don’t yet know what the commission arrangements on your finance were. And they normally point out the FCA has allowed them up until 25 September to reply.

You may suspect that no one has actually looked. Or wonder if there was a DCA but they don’t want to admit this . You may feel cross because the FCA is allowing firms longer to reply to complaints, but all you have done is made a simple query.

This is irritating but you can’t speed this up. You can’t send your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman until after 25 September unless the lender has sent you a decision rejecting your complaint before then.

“We don’t have records of your finance”

This could be because you haven’t given them enough information to trace your agreement. Or because they deleted or anonymised the details of your agreement because of the way they handle old data – the reply to you may have mentioned GDPR.

Where information is missing, a lender should still try to conduct a fair investigation into complaints. If you have been asked to provide any information about the agreement, this could help. The lender could talk to the broker or dealer involved to see if they have retained any records.

What you can do now:

  • try to get bank statements showing what you paid. You can get statements from an account you have closed in the last few years, so don’t assume this can’t be done. Don’t delay doing this – if it turns out they are needed in 6-12 months time, that may be harder than getting them now;
  • check any paperwork or old emails for details of the agreement. Old insurance documents may provide a registration number.
  • ask the dealer or broker yourself about the commission arrangements. Just sent them a similar query to the one you sent the lender.

If your response isn’t like one of those

If your reply doesn’t seem to fit within any of the above categories, please leave a comment at the bottom of this article, copying in what your reply says.

Some other questions

Would it be quicker to use a claims firm?

That’s unlikely! Civil court cases are rarely fast.

Also the fees involved may be very high.  One person using a claims company had her PPI complaint settled out of court by a lender who offered £1,705. From that, deductions were made for fixed recoverable costs, success fee (plus VAT), issue fee, hearing fee, ATE policy cost and insurance premium tax. She was left with just £441, so she lost nearly 75% of the refund in charges.

My lender has gone bust

It isn’t clear at the moment if you could have a claim against the dealer or broker instead. But ask them what the commission arrangements were.

Why is the FCA allowing these delays?

The FCA says:

If we find there has been widespread misconduct and that consumers have lost out, we will identify how best to make sure people who are owed compensation receive an appropriate settlement in an orderly, consistent and efficient way and, if necessary, resolve any contested legal issues of general importance.

The “if” in that statement is VERY likely to happen. The FCA banned these commission arrangements in 2021 because they were unfair to customers. In February, Lloyds – which owns Black Horse, the UK’s largest car finance lender – made a provision in its accounts for £450 million for paying refunds.

So what will the FCA say? It has a wide variety of powers. It could:

  • tell lenders to settle claims on a similar basis to the Ombudsman decisions;
  • set out an industry-wide compensation scheme on some other basis;
  • apply to the Financial Markets Test Case Scheme, to decide important contested legal issues without individual cases having to go through the court.

Before January, lenders were rejecting all these complaints and 20,000 cases were already at the Ombudsman. The FCA announced its review and paused complaint handling to prevent complaints from being rejected or sent to the Ombudsman because lenders were unable to cope with issuing responses within 8 weeks.

It isn’t in anyone’s interest for the Ombudsman to end up with hundreds of thousands of cases to be resolved. So although the delays at the moment may sound excessive, it is hoped that the end result will be speedier.

More articles:

Car finance affordability complaints

refunds from overdraft charges

Can you get an overdraft refund?

the minimum payment on a credit card

Barclaycard cuts minimum payments

Comments

  1. Mike says

    Hi

    The response I’ve had from Mobilize Finance is below:

    “There WAS a DCA in place but no monies were paid to the supplying dealer”

    I find this unusual, why have the DCA in place then?

    Ive asked several times for proof of what they’ve stated but so far this has fell on deaf ears.

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      Does it say this is being treated as a complaint? Does it say this is a decision and you have the right to go to the Ombudsman now?

      • Mike says

        Hi Sara

        No on both counts

        Transcript below:

        Good afternoon,
        Thank you for contacting us. You’ve asked us whether your agreement was one where we paid a Discretionary Commission Arrangement (DCA) to the supplying dealer.

        Please note, if you have submitted an enquiry regarding more than one vehicle, you will receive a separate email for each vehicle.

        The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) banned DCAs within the motor finance industry on 28th January 2021. On the 11th January 2024 the FCA announced that they are reviewing the historical use of DCAs and as a result have introduced temporary new rules on how certain complaints are to be dealt with whilst they conduct their review.

        These temporary rules only apply if your Motor Finance Agreement meets the following criteria –
        Your Agreement started before 28th January 2021 and was on a Hire Purchase (HP) Agreement, including Personal Contact Purchase (PCP) and
        There was a DCA in place between us and the supplying dealer.
        After reviewing our records, we can tell you that no commission was paid to the supplying dealer for your introduction.

        If you have any questions, please contact our Customer Services team. This can be done by phone 0333 009 0233*, email motorcommissionenquiries@mobilize-fs.com or by writing to us at:

          • Sara (Debt Camel) says

            Well that is fairly low. I suppose it is possible that it is the bottom of the range a dealer was allowed to set the DCA within.
            Have you clearly asked the finance company what the range of possible interest rates was that could be set under the DCA?

  2. Yolliiee says

    Hi Sarah,

    I hope you are well.

    I have had a few finances taken out in the past and not all of them was the full 48 or 50 month contact, some were only 12 months or less. Can I still put in a query/compliant for these cars? Or just the ones that I have kept for 48 months?

    Please advised.

    Thanks Yolliiee

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      You can complain about all of them. You will have paid less interest on the ones that were settled early, but that may still have been inflated if there was a discretionary commission arrangement in place.

  3. G Lewis says

    DCA’s have been going on for over 40 years, I worked in business finance for four major finance houses an it was the norm. The dealers regularly made more profit from the DCA than they did from the car sale.

  4. Nick says

    My reply from Starline was : Please be aware that if your complaint relates to a discretionary commission arrangement then you will not receive a final response or outcome within eight weeks. These types of complaints and how they should be handled are currently being reviewed by the FCA and, as such, they have asked us to pause any response until 25th September 2024.

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      I would put that roughly under the heading if ““We are still considering if your finance involved DCA”.
      there is no particular hurry – if there was no DCA then there is nothing to be done. If there was then the FCA allows them to delay a response.

  5. Mike says

    I haven’t asked anything about interest ranges.

    Used the template from MSE to contact them in the first instance.

    Just find it bizarre than there was a DCA but nothing paid and that they aren’t willing to provide any evidence of any kind to support their claim. Surely if this is standard practice, then all the finance companies will use the “yeh we checked and nothing was paid out, trust us” defence?

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      That’s is why I suggest you ask what the interest rate range is.

  7. Cathy O'Toole says

    Hi Sara
    Can I ask for your advice please about how to identify numerous car finance agreements we have had with Ford Credit. We have used private reg plates for many years and each new agreement was either assigned as we picked the car or shortly afterwards. I am not sure how to differentiate between the different agreements.
    Any advice would be greatly appreciated
    Kind Regards
    Cathy

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      why do you need to differentiate between them? Can Ford credit not identify them all?

  8. Cathy O'Toole says

    Hi Sara
    I have not tried yet. I don’t have all the credit agreement numbers, nor can i remember the dates. I was not sure how to fill in the template to make it clear that i want Ford Credit to consider all of our agreements when a number of them had to same registration number.
    Kind Regards
    Cathy

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      have you kept insurance records? have you asked the dealer(s) you got them from?
      how long ago were these taken out and have you seen what currently shows on your credit records – there should be a seperate agreement for each car

  9. Andrei Ginga says

    Does anyone has brought the car with Close Brothers Motor Finance? I have just applied yesterday, but I’m curious if it is a DCA with them or someone got a response from them. Thx

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      Close Brothers said in a recent trading statement “we expect to incur c.£10 million of costs associated with the handling of complaints in the Motor Finance business regarding historical discretionary commission arrangements in the 2024 financial year.” So it is safe to say that they used DCA agreements a fair bit!

  10. Janette says

    i used Martin Lewis template and sent to Ford Finance link on Martins website in March i had no reply so then resent to the customer complaints on Ford Finance received an auto response but still no response that was over 6 weeks ago what should I be doing next? Thanks J

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      So MSE has the same address for Ford credit Europe that I have on my list so it’s not an email address problem.

      6 weeks isnt very long – I should wait some more.

  11. Edward Piwowarczyk says

    Thank you for your recent enquiry asking for confirmation of whether we paid the dealer a discretionary commission for your introduction to us. We’re checking our records and will come back to you in due course.

    You don’t need to contact us again. We’ll be in touch when we’ve completed the search of our records.

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      so that reply is firmly in the “We are still considering if your finance involved DCA” category. The wait goes on…

  12. Alison Blanch says

    Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) banned DCAs within the motor finance industry on 28th January 2021. On the 11th January 2024 the FCA announced that they are reviewing the historical use of DCAs and as a result have introduced temporary new rules on how certain complaints are to be dealt with whilst they conduct their review.

    These temporary rules only apply if your Motor Finance Agreement meets the following criteria –
    Your Agreement started before 28th January 2021 and which was on a Hire Purchase (HP) Agreement including Personal Contact Purchase (PCP) and
    There was a DCA in place between us and the supplying dealer.
    We have reviewed your Agreement and can tell you that it does not meet this criteria. The amount of commission we paid the dealer when you entered into the Agreement was fixed and calculated by reference to the vehicle model or the amount you borrowed from us. This amount was set by us, as was the amount you would pay to us under your finance Agreement.

    For more information, please refer to the FCA’s website: https://www.fca.org.uk/car-finance-complaints

    For the fixed commission payment:

  13. M A K says

    We had 3 cars on finance, 2 have responded but close brothers finance have not replied even though it’s been at least 12 weeks or more

    • Stace says

      Hi, I have had a reply from close brothers this was their reply I got back within about 2 weeks of emailing them.

      Our records show this motor finance agreement was subject to a discretionary commission agreement model.

      We have registered a complaint for you.

  14. Simon Baker says

    I lodged an enquiry with Black Horse, eventually got a reply stating there was discretionary payments and yo now wait for further contact until September or whenever the ruling of the FCA happens to drop. Is this OK?

  15. Kathy says

    We’re looking into your information request
    You asked us to check if there was a discretionary commission arrangement on your motor finance agreement. We have your request and at this stage we don’t need you to do anything else.

    We’ll be in touch with an update in the next 28 days. It’s taking longer than usual due to the high number of enquiries we are receiving at the moment.

    Thank you for your patience while we look into this for you.

  16. Robyn says

    Hi Sara

    I had a response from VW saying
    “ We’re writing to let you know that based on our review of your complaint, we believe a Discretionary Commission Arrangement may have applied to your agreement and as such the pause applies to your complaint. We are therefore not in a position to issue a final response to your complaint at this time.”

    No after reading this I realised they had only included 1 of 4 agreements I had with them, so proceeded to provide the agreement numbers for the other 3. They have since come back on the others saying there was no DCA on them 3. Is it likely though that the first one is still being looked at? As that isn’t a yes or a no, any help would be great.

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      It sounds as though the first is probably a yes, doesn’t it… But even if they said there was a DCA, they could still delay a decision until the FCA ordered pause ends late September.

  17. Mr R Shah says

    I have emailed my finance provider Toyata twice but not received a response to date. Not even an acknowledgement

  18. Alison Wade says

    I have only received an autoreply from Toyota Financial Services. Unfortunately my original claim email was sent from my old email address in February, and I no longer have access to that email address, so in my follow up response, I gave them full details of my 3yr PCP which I took out from December 2017 and also my old and new email addresses. They would have been aware of the agreement as I still gave all the paperwork. Should I gave already received some sort of reply from them, not just an acknowledgement they have received my email?

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      other people haven’t heard from them either… see the comment above this one.

  19. Andy says

    I received a reply from Mobilize to say we have searched the registration and can confirm the vehicle was registered in October 1998.

    DCA enquiries are applicable to vehicles purchased from April 2007 to January 2021.

    Therefore we are unable to assist further.

    How should I respond?

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      There is a legal argument that April 2007 should be the start date for these claims, but so far the FCA has not said that. I suggest you go back to Mobilize and say that App 5.1.2 in the FCA’s PS24/1 (https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/policy/ps24-1.pdf) does not give any start date for the definition of a “relevant motor claim”

  20. Danielle Wanless says

    This was my response from CA Auto Finance…Thank you for your recent inquiry asking for confirmation of whether we paid the dealer a discretionary commission for your introduction to us. We’re checking our records and will come back to you in due course. You don’t need to contact us again. We’ll be in touch when we’ve completed the search of our records. Kind regards, CA Auto Finance.

  21. Alexandra Attfield says

    I contacted BMW finance (re: Mini Finance) following advice on MSE website and only had an automated reply so far – has anyone else heard back from BMW yet??

    • Liam says

      Hi Alexandra,
      Hope this will help in regards to your query.
      I initially raised my complaint 15/2 and got a response to my email at long last on 24/5 from BMW finance. Email states they are receiving a high number of enquiries and unlikely to respond within any timescales. If DC has been used they will contact at a further date.
      Liam

  22. Jo says

    Hi. What about a car finance that was charged at a rate of 16.9%. It was with first response who are on the list as not having used dca’s? Would that rate indicate otherwise please?

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      That rate just indicates that they provide very expensive car finance…
      Was it affordable for you? or did paying it cause you difficulty so you had to borrow more elsewhere, or get behanind on other debts or bills?

  24. Kerry says

    I was contacted 07/04 not heard anything since – should I follow up with them as nearly further 2 months have now passed?I know they have longer to respond but surely they should still be looking into whether I have relevant agreements.?
    “We need more time to resolve your motor finance commission complaint.Thank you for getting in touch with us on 09/02/2024 to complain about the commission we may have paid to the motor dealer who introduced you to us…
    What we need to tell you
    After making further reasonable and proportionate searches, we’re not able to say whether the arrangements in place between us and the dealer included a DCA. This means we can’t say if your complaint is a ‘relevant complaint’.
    What we will do next
    At this stage we don’t need you to do anything else. We hope to send you a final response shortly, but we will keep you fully informed while the complaint remains open.
    What you need to know
    As it is eight weeks since your initial correspondence to us, we are writing to advise you of your right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. You have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, free of charge – but you must do so within six months of our final response or this letter. If you do not refer your complaint in time, the Ombudsman will not have our permission to consider your complaint and so will only be able to do in very limited circumstances

  25. Chloe says

    Hi,

    Has anyone heard anything from Alphera / BMW finance? I submitted my request on the 19.01 off the back of your original post and got the auto reply of we will respond within 28 days. I followed up on the 10.04 following my partner receiving a response from their lender within about two weeks and it being very overdue of the 28 days. I then received an auto email from them on the 24.05 saying:

    We are currently receiving a high number of enquiries and we are unlikely to respond within the timescale you have requested, however please accept this as confirmation that we have received your enquiry.

    You have asked us to confirm whether any of the finance agreement(s) you held with us had a discretionary commission arrangement between us and the Broker / Retailer or any other entity involved.

    We will investigate and log enquiries for all finance agreements you have held and provide a response to each of them separately. Should there have been a discretionary commission model in place, we will automatically log a complaint for each relevant agreement, so there is no further action required from you at this time.

    This seems such an awfully long time seeing as though everyone around me seems to be receiving their confirmation. Do you think they are avoiding until September?

  26. Cathy O'Toole says

    Hi Chloe
    I received this from BMW for a finance agreement on my Mini in March. Not had anything since. One thing i did notice was that i received an email informing me that one of my cars (which i had not submitted a claim for, due to it being outside the timescale involved) did not meet the criteria for a claim. Made me think they had looked at all of my agreements whether i submitted a claim or not.

    Thank you for your correspondence. We acknowledge your request for confirmation of whether your finance agreement(s) held with us had a discretionary commission arrangement between us and the broker / car dealer or any other entity involved in the transaction.

    We note your request for a response within 28 days, however we are currently reviewing the arrangement relevant to your agreement(s) to respond to your request. We are therefore not treating this as a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR) under the GDPR. For clarity, the commission arrangement would not be disclosable within a DSAR as it is not Personal Data.

    Due to high volumes of correspondence, we may not be able to respond within 28 days, however we will respond as soon as possible.

    If you have held other agreements with us, we will reply separately on these.

  27. Doubting Thomas says

    On 15th Jan I sent details off to Advantage, PSA Finance / Stellantis, Alphera and Barclays Partner Finance.

    Barclays Partner finance are the only ones who have not responded or acknowledged the complaint or to the follow up email on 5th June.
    Is there any further escalation contacts to at least get acknowledgement of my complaint?

  28. STEPHEN SMITH says

    Hi Sara,
    Back in January, using your email template, I contacted Black Horse to ask if a DCA had been applied to my car finance. Since then all I have had is automatic emails saying they are looking in to it and they will get back to me. To date nothing.
    Is anyone else having a similar experience with them? Do you think they are just playing for time?
    Many thanks
    Stephen

  29. BBBF says

    HI Sara, please see my response from Blackhorse:
    Received 18th June – This took a long time to get back by the way everyone

    We’ve received your request

    Dear Customer

    We’ve received your request to check if there was a discretionary commission arrangement on your motor finance agreement with us. We’re experiencing a high number of enquiries at the moment and it’s taking longer than usual for us to respond.

    We’ll get back to you as soon as possible. If we need further information, we’ll get in touch with you using the contact details you’ve provided.

    Thank you for your patience while we look into this for you.

    Yours sincerely
    Customer Services
    http://www.blackhorse.co.uk

  30. Naz80 says

    I’ve had vehicles with black horse and mobilize. So far I’ve had two responses from mobilize saying no commission was paid. They don’t answer whether there was a DCA, but confirm no commission was paid. What would happen if say there was an arrangement but for whatever reason the actual commission was not paid?

    Black Horse have confirmed there was a DCA and have provided a table with the date of my finance agreement, vehicle reg, and a column headed commission arrangement but nothing in the box. Is this a typo do you think? Is it enough for them to say there was a dca but not provide any further information?

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      What were the interest rates you paid on the 2 mobilize vehicles?
      Yes it’s fine at this point for BH to just admit there was DCA. Nothing is going to happen until the the FCA publishes its decision on the way forward in late September.

  31. Tom says

    This is the response we received from our car finance company:

    “We have concluded our investigations on this complaint, and I would like to provide our
    findings and outcome on the matter.

    I can confirm a commission payment in the total sum of £769.97 was paid to the dealer
    on the above agreement.

    The existence of a commission was disclosed in the Explanation Document which was
    provided to you prior to entering into the agreement. In the Explanation Document, you
    will find under ALPHERA Financial Services’ relationship with intermediaries that we may
    pay the dealer for introducing a customer to us. The fact that we may commission to the
    dealer is also mentioned in the Agreement Document in the Terms and Conditions
    under General Terms (10f).

    The commission structure relevant to your agreement was in the form of a starting APR
    from which the dealer was able to offer discounts. The rate offered had a corresponding
    level of commission (being a percentage of the funded balance) which reduced in line
    with the level of discount offered, subject to an agreed floor.

    As you would have known exactly how much you were going to be charged for the
    credit, the amount of the monthly instalments required and the fact that a commission
    may be paid to the dealer, there is nothing unfair or secret about the agreement. ”

    This sounds like there was a DCA in place, but they don’t think it was secret or unfair..

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      That is a DCA. You are not saying it is “secret” – you are saying the way the commission was calculated was discretionary – the dealer had the right to determine your interest and this affected the commission they would receive – and that this is an unfair way to set commission.

      It is the amount of money you may be refunded (plus 8% interest) if the FCA says lenders should take the approach to settling these claims that the Ombudsman did at the start of this year.

      There is nothing you need to do now. It’s just waiting for the FCA to report on the way forward. Because there was a DCA, you have 15 months in which to send your complaint to the Ombudsman – there is no need to do this now as there may be no need after the FCA has reported.

  33. Cath says

    Please can you advise if I should be following this up? The finance company is Ford Credit should I contact the ombudsm
    Account Number: 220896900
    We need more time to resolve your motor finance commission complaint. Dear Valued Customer,
    Thank you for getting in touch with us on 01/05/2024 to complain about the commission we may have paid to the motor dealer who introduced you to us
    After making further reasonable and proportionate searches, we’re not able to say whether the arrangements in place between us and the dealer included a DCA. This means we can’t say if your complaint is a ‘relevant motor finance DCA complaint’.
    At this stage we don’t need you to do anything else. We hope to send you a final response shortly, but we will keep you fully informed while the complaint remains open
    As it is eight weeks since your initial correspondence to us, we are writing to advise you of your right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. You have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, free of charge – but you must do so within six months of our final response or this letter. If you do not refer your complaint in time, the Ombudsman will not have our permission to consider your complaint and so will only be able to do in very limited circumstances.

  34. Clare says

    I had an agreement from Black Horse Finance from about October 2000. Is there any reason why I couldn’t try a claim? I’m seeing other years being the cut off but surely any agreement before 2021 should count?

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      I originally misread this as you asking about October 2020, which would have been fine. 2000 is much more problematic.

      At the moment we don’t know what the earliest date will be for these claims. There is an argument that it may be April 2007 when the FCA took over regulating this credit. We won’t know this for several months.

      Also the older the agreement, the less chance there is of there being any information about it.

      But at the moment this isn’t clear so I suggest you just ask the lender and take it from there.

  35. Lucy says

    I’ve finally had a response from Toyota saying they have deleted all my data.
    I have already provided my full details, policy number, car registration and brooker but they have now requested I send them copies of my driving licence, a utility bill (no longer at the same address?) The Log book for the car (no longer have the same vehicle). It feels as though they are anticipating most people won’t or can’t provide this information. Have you any advice on this? Many thanks

  36. Tony Vecchione says

    Hi, my partner has put in a claim for two cars on finance purchased before 28/01/2021 , She also purchased two cars after that date on finance, And did not apply for those cars as purchased after that date. The response received has said no claim to settle and has listed the last two cars only with no mention of the two that were purchased before 28/01/2021 and for which the claim was made, How should she proceed from here ?

  37. Elaya says

    Initially they referred my query as a complaint and said it would take them 8 weeks to respond. Below is the latest:
    Dear E
    I write with reference to the concerns you’ve raised with us.

    We’re sorry that you’ve not yet been provided with a response to your complaint. I’d like to reassure you that we’re continuing to look into the issues you’ve raised with us and will be in touch soon to let you know the outcome of your complaint.

  38. Cheryl says

    Hi Sara I have had regular emails from Black Horse since March right upto August regarding possible DCA saying there my are still checking etc, but nothing from them in Sept up to current date, should I ring them or just wait?

  39. Sean says

    I have had a response from GE Capital/Santander to say the following:

    ‘Our records show that a commission of £1040.17 was paid in relation to your agreement, however, due to the age of your agreement, we are unable to provide any detail as to the model or how the commission was calculated as we no longer hold any of the related documentation. Therefore, we are unable to confirm whether the commission model used was discretionary or not. As we are unable to confirm whether a DCA was in use, we have not treated your communication as a formal complaint’.

    Can you please advise what further action I need to take or how to respond to this. Thank you

  40. Jules says

    Could I ask if anyone has heard from Northridge I put my complaint to them on the 12th January and only received their standard reply’s. When I called a few weeks back they just stated it was with their solicitors

  41. Robert says

    Hi Sarah,

    I sent a complaint to motonova about the affordability of my car finance and it was rejected, so I sent my complaint to the ombudsman who upheld my complaint. The ombudsman Investigator asked for a response from motonova and they have ignored her email, so it will have to go to the ombudsman. My question is can motonova choose to ignore the investigators decision?

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      yes, unless you and Motonovo both accept the investigator’s decision, it goes to an Ombudsman. An Ombudsman’s decision is legally binding on the firm.

  42. Sophie says

    Hi Sara, I’ve had a response from black horse which says that I had DCA’s applied to 2 agreements. It states that they have raised a complaint but there is a time limit for responding to complaints which is paused until December 2025. Is this correct, will I really have to wait more than a year for a final response? Sorry I’m very confused, if they have confirmed that DCA was applied why can they not issue a final response now? Thanks

    • Sara (Debt Camel) says

      yes this is correct – the FCA who regulates these lenders is allowing a pause so it can come up with a proposal to help the whole market.

      Did you only have 2 lots of finance from Black Horse?

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