£8,500 demands over van driving me crazy

Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday’s ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below. 

J.F. writes: I leased a Citroen Berlingo van from PSA Finance on a three-year contract due to end last November. 

Because of interruptions during the pandemic, the contract was extended and PSA was to collect the vehicle on January 25, but its driver never turned up. I was flying abroad the next day, so left the keys with a friend and it was collected on January 31. 

Now PSA Finance has sent letters saying that I owe £390 and a separate £8,143. It will not say why.

Tony Hetherington replies: You were hit by a bizarre series of demands, none of which were explained. You did not miss a single payment during the years you leased the van, and you returned it in excellent condition with only 18,000 miles on the clock. It was properly serviced while you had it, with the final service last November. Yet in mid-February you received a strange letter from PSA Finance. It began: ‘Further to our recent correspondence, your account arrears of £8,143.60 according to our records remains outstanding.’

This was a breach of contract, the letter added, and it went on to warn that you could face late payment charges, further action, and damage to your credit rating. But there had been no such recent correspondence, and no arrears. All PSA Finance would tell you was that you owed thousands of pounds due to an unexplained ‘shortfall’. And as if this was not bad enough, a separate letter from PSA Finance demanded £390, described as ‘repossession and tracing costs’.

Yet PSA Finance had not had to repossess the van. It was handed over as arranged, just as the lease ended. And what tracing was needed? The company knew where you were, and where the van was. You told me: ‘It’s like they pluck these figures out of thin air.’

PSA Finance is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, so you were entitled to expect better behaviour. I asked the company to comment, and while it was deciding what to tell me, yet another demand landed on your doormat. This one was for £30, described as ‘auction costs’.

I went straight back to PSA Finance and this time the message seems to have got through. It told me: ‘It’s evident that errors have been made for which we do of course accept responsibility.’ The company added that you did not owe a penny, let alone thousands of pounds. You should ignore any ‘system-generated’ correspondence already in the pipeline, and your credit rating was safe.

The closest to an explanation for all this is that there was a breakdown between PSA Finance and the outside firm it had hired to collect the van. That firm failed to find you on January 25, as arranged, and did not answer when you called. However, it managed to find the same address on January 31 and collect the van. PSA Finance regarded this as an ’emergency collection’, though it is not clear why as your lease was valid until that day.

PSA Finance – which has in recent days changed its name to Stellantis Financial Services – has now sent you a written apology and is paying £800 into your bank account by way of saying sorry for the concern it caused.

A parking ticket… for charging my car

M.W. writes: I have received a Parking Charge Notice (PCN) from Parkingeye Limited, which I think is very unfair. 

I charged my electric car in the Asda car park in Ramsgate, Kent. It was a very slow charging point but the nearest for the company I am with, BP Pulse. 

If drivers are penalised for using a charging point, surely this will put people off going electric?

Tony Hetherington replies: The blunt truth is that car parks with short time limits are not suitable for slow electric charging points. Asda is pulling in two different directions at once, imposing a one-hour parking limit but offering a charging point that takes longer than an hour. BP says it has no control over this as it simply provides the charging point.

Parkingeye told me it has ten prominent signs at the car park, which advise you can register inside Asda to stay longer than an hour. But retracing your route I found that you would pass just one sign, and it says nothing about registering to stay long enough to charge your car.

If the same rules apply to the charging points as to all the other spaces in the car park, doesn’t this mean petrol and diesel vehicles can quite reasonably occupy the electric spaces? Absurdly, Asda says yes. You are not the first EV driver to be penalised in this way, and Asda is not the only supermarket to operate like this. When will the Government provide its long overdue parking fairness scheme?

If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email [email protected]. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.