This post is a copy of the review I left after the horrific experience we had with this cowboy car finance company…
Buying a car the Yes way.
A review by Becky on Yes Car Credit
May 1st, 2003
Author’s product rating:
| Pros: | You can get credit! |
| Cons: | Incredibly expensive, pushy, full of catches, car history is cloudy, they don’t like taking cars back! |
| Recommend to potential buyers: | no |
| Full review |
This is the tale of myself and my partner’s (P) experience with YCC.
Like many other people, we applied online and were accepted and invited to make an appointment at one of their branches. The closest was Chelmsford which is about 45 minutes drive away. We booked the appointment for the 26th April at 11am.
Prior to our appointment, YCC phoned us to confirm the documentation we would need to bring and made it clear that our D reg Astra would be taken as full deposit. We recieved in the post literature reiterating this information and a rather corny video.
On the day, we were a little late in arriving thanks to Phillip’s dreadful navigation skills :), but that was no problem. Our salesperson, Sue, joined us pretty much straight away and ushered us into this little box room. She introduced us to the company, took our ID and left us with a booklet explaining what to expect from our visit while she went off to talk to the underwriters.
After a few minutes, she came back and explained that they had to use a different finance company which required a £100 deposit in addition to our old car. This was a setback as we really didn’t have any money to spare this month. Sue told us if we paid the deposit, we would be able to spend up to £225 a month on our new car. Me and P chatted privately and decided to see what was on offer before we said yes to the deposit.
We also told Sue that we really only wanted to spend between £100-£150 per month. Off she went again and came back with a list of 3 cars to choose from. Our options were: a huge Mondeo estate, a slightly shabby looking Citroen Xantia and a vauxhall Astra. The Astra was perhaps the most appealing, but we were ideally looking for something smaller – more like Fiesta size.
I decided to ask what cars would be available at £225. Sue disappeared for another 10 minutes and came back with just one more car. It was a v reg Skoda Felicia. At first, I wasn’t too impressed, but the car was the right size, had 5 doors and had a comfortable, spacious interior. It was a 1.9 litre diesel which was a bit bigger than we’d hoped for, but otherwise it was nice. At this point, we enquired about the APR and Sue said it would be around 20%, which we were quite happy about. We also asked what money we would owe if the car was repossessed and were told it would be a minimal amount covering admin costs and possibly court fees.
We asked if we could chat in private and after 30mins of intense discussion, we decided we just couldn’t afford the £220 a month for this car. We walked back to the office and informed Sue that we wouldn’t be purchasing anything. After a minute of hesitation, she asked us to hold on while she had a word with her manager. A few minutes later she returned saying she had “the deal of the century”. Back in the little office we went, where she informed us that her manager had knocked off the payment protection reducing the payment to £180.87 per month. This was interesting. We had more discussion and decided to take the car for a test drive.
We were very pleased with the ride of the car and almost ready to say yes to the offer. But P had noticed a couple of things. Firstly, the MOT had been done in February – according to YCC’s advertising campaign “all our cars come with a full 12 month MOT”. We wanted the MOT re-done. Secondly, there was no tax on the car and we wanted to make sure it came with some. After all, once again quoting their words “drive your new car away the same day” – I would hope they mean legally.
Sue was unable to give us a decision on this, so she brought in one of the managers (Ian). He was very pleasant and said he would try to get us 6 months tax free. He disappeared and a few minutes later returned saying that head office would refund us 6 months tax if we agreed to the sale now. We decided to go ahead with it and were told someone from accounts would join us shortly to go over the finance agreement with us. At this point we were asked to pay the deposit and arrange the car insurance.
A lady from the accounts team arrived shortly and attempted to rush through the documents with us. However, whenever we came across something we weren’t clear on we made her stop and explain fully. Everything was fine until we saw the “optional extras” form and all the boxes were ticked. We explained that some of those options we did not want and refused to sign. She said she would come back to that document later. Finally, we moved on to the finance agreement itself. We were very briefly rushed through the costs and asked to sign the document. It was only then that we saw the horrific APR of 40.9% – P wanted to talk to someone about this and the prior issue of “optional extras” so the accounts lady went off to get another manager.
A woman in her late 30s came in, and P explained the problems. She was not particularly pleasant and bluntly explained that if we couldn’t accept these terms we couldn’t have the car. Apparantly, because the payment protection had already been removed, the underwriters needed all the other stuff because of the “risk factor”. She basically made it clear that we had spent most of the day there and was starting to waste everyone’s time. After a quick bit of annoyed and somewhat pressured discussion, we reluctantly agreed to the deal and signed the papers.
Before we took acceptance of the car, Sue arranged an MOT for us on the following Saturday. Finally, after four and a half hours we were able to leave, sadly not feeling as happy as most people would having a lovely new car.
Over the past few days, we have noticed a couple of problems with the car. The passenger door doesn’t work with the central locking – you have to lock it in addition to the driver’s side door. There is a clicking noise coming from the dash when driving at low speeds and a clunk coming from the gearbox occasionally. Also, quite worryingly, there is paint on both the front side windows and on the windscreen – indication of a re-spray at some point?
YCC called us yesterday (Tuesday) to say they’d made an error with the finance agreement and could we please resign it on Saturday. Apparantly they used the wrong form, but the new arrangement will be in our favour saving us about £8 per month. If they don’t fix the aforementioned problems on Saturday, we’re seriously considering refusing to sign the new papers and handing the car back.
Overall opinion on YCC – incredibly expensive, pushy, full of catches, car history is cloudy despite whatever service docs they present. We are ultimately paying £7824 for a car they priced at £3450.
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UPDATE: 3rd May
We had an appointment booked for re-signing the credit agreement at 10am on Saturday 3rd May. After spending a week thinking very hard about our purchase and hearing the views of friends and people online, we decided we were going to return the car.
We arrived at 10am, but weren’t seen to until 10:45. A chap from the accounts dept took us into the little box room and presented the new credit agreement. We informed him that we would not be signing and wanted to return the car under the 7 day cooling-off promise. He told us he was going to get the branch manager.
A few minutes later, the thirty-something woman we’d seen the previous Saturday came in and attacked us straight away (her name was Mandy) along with another manager called Ian. She remembered us, and told us that we were being offered a lower monthly repayment so why did we want to cancel? We simply explained that we had indeed “cooled-off” over the last 7 days and simply wanted to return the car.
At this point, Mandy really lost her temper and accused us of “holding her hostage” in order to get a better deal. She was being totally irrational and shouting like a mad person! She then told us that we were outside the 7-day period, as we had signed the agreement last Saturday. We were furious! Phillip explained that we hadn’t signed anything until 3pm and therefore, the 7 days should apply unilt 3pm today. Mandy refused point-blank, flung her hands up in the air and ordered Ian to sort it out and stormed out of the room. That was (fortunately) the last we saw of her.
Ian, the other manager, seemed much more rational but he also refused to honour the 7-day promise. He said the company would take the car back, but it would be classed as an “abandonment” and we would be in breach of our credit agreement, plus liable for any charges the company wished to make.
We spent an hour arguing over the whole issue. Ian offered to knock all the “optional extras” off the price, but it was too late. We had seen a horrible side to this company and wanted out. Because it was Saturday, neither Citizen’s Advice or Trading Standards were open. We were also unable to speak to YCC head office or Welcome Finance.
We were very tired and close to giving up. Ian had brought in another chap called Andy, although I’m not sure what the point of him being there was exactly. Intimidation, perhaps? P demanded to speak to the company that was actually giving us the finance and Ian and Andy left the room. We were seriously considering signing the new credit agreement because we were exhausted with everything that had happened. At least we would have a lower payment.
Then Ian and Andy returned. Ian said he was prepared to guarantee that no further charges would be raised if we left the car with them. A huge sigh of relief crossed our minds. He also said our £100 deposit would be credited back to our account within 5 working days. Our old Astra was curently at auction, but would be returned within a few days.
Unfortunately, Ian refused to give us written confirmation of his promise so I won’t be able to relax until Tuesday when we will speak to YCC head office and confirm that it is all over.
I’ll post another update when I get more news.
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UPDATE: 12th May
Almost forgot to add this – we got our old car back on Thursday, so at least we’re mobile again. Our documents have also been returned (wage slips, statements etc).
Still no sign of our deposit yet though……
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UPDATE: 28th May
Finally got our deposit back. Thank Christ this is all over!