What is financial mis-selling?

Financial mis-selling is the act of misrepresenting a product or service in order to successfully complete a sale. Mis-selling is done to make a customer complete a purchase that does not properly suit their needs.

Types of financial mis-selling:

• Material misrepresentation - making a product or service appear to be something that it is not e.g. intentionally misleading the customer.
• Suitability mis-selling - selling an unsuitable product or service to a customer e.g. invalid insurance.

When a customer buys a car, car dealers and/or lenders have a responsibility to disclose the full details of the car deal. However, there has been a widespread mis-selling of car finance across the UK. In fact, dealers have been overcharging customers to pocket a higher commission per sale.

FCA findings on car finance mis-selling.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regulates the financial services industry in the UK. Their goal is to protect consumers, keep the industry stable, and promote healthy competition between financial service providers. They conducted a mystery shopping exercise, where they visited 122 motor retailers and brokers. They found that only 25 retailers disclosed the full commission amounts to the customer. Most of the time the information within contracts was difficult to find so it could be easily missed by the customer.

They found that an estimate of 560,000 customers paid £300 million more than necessary per year for car finance. During the initial visits, consultations were often incomplete or misleading. Because of this, the FCA states that it does not believe all lenders are doing enough to limit risks from their commission models, and dealers must disclose the existence of any commission or other financial arrangement to the customer.

How to make a claim for car finance mis-selling?

PCP Claimsline are a Manchester claims management company with years of success helping people seek justice and reclaiming what is rightfully theirs. They have helped thousands of people across the UK claim compensation on mis-sold car finance Manchester.

If you think you have been mis-sold car finance, gather all the information you have. Get all the finance agreements you have that you wish to make a claim on. If you can’t find the agreements, don't worry, just find the lender and/or the dealer name from who you originally took the finance agreement. You can find the name of your lender on your finance agreement paperwork, on your bank statement, or on your credit record. Please note, that you can only make a claim for agreements you took out within the last 10 years.

Once you have what you need, visit their website and fill in the form. This form should only take a minute. Once done, one of their expert advisors will contact you and work out how much you could claim. Their panel of solicitors negotiates with lenders for the amount of compensation you’ll be able to claim. You can sit back and relax while they sort out your whole claim for you. PCP Claimsline’s PCP finance claims are offered on a no-win-no-fee basis so there is no risk of getting in contact and starting your claim.